Off on Vacation

And looking forward to catching up on some reading.

Here is something from the Colbert Report last week that I found amusing: I love you Fonda!

Monday Update with Links

Small Retailers: On the back of last weeks announcement that Coliseum Books was to close the AP published two reports on independent retailing. There are success stories in independent book retailing but the market is very difficult and the retailer has to be very creative in not relying on the books to produce an income. One of the retailers mentioned in the following articles refers to being 'fractional' in how he approaches his market. Basically, a little bit here a little bit there and it all adds up. Genre Booksellers and Independent Booksellers as reported by the Associated Press.

Personal Libraries: I wrote last week about libraries, but here is a far more lucid reflection by author Alberto Manguel, excerpted from The Library at Night by Knopf.

I spent some misguided time over the past few weeks looking for new links and came across a few new sites. Here is a sample:

Fifth Estate is the child of the authors and editors at Press Books. I came across the site this week and am impressed with their blogs/articles and will visit frequently. There is a link to the right of my blog. Here is a recent post about bookfinder.com.

Book Info.net has all kinds of interesting articles from someone named Tomasina. It was this recent article on the amount of new titles to be released over the next several weeks that drew me in originally. I am not sure I agree with some who think we will be overburdened by choice. For the most part, the books are purchased and are read in the less fertile periods of the year. Buzz, Balls and Hype had a similar post penned by Jason Pinter discussing the same thing. Also, if you scroll down the home page you will see they are running a 'contest' to see what the best tie-in or cross promotion idea is. This came from an earlier post about Mitch Albom's book on sale at Starbucks.

Another publisher web site I have started looking at is Elephant Walk by Overlook Press. (Overlook is the home of Peter Mayer who was at Penguin UK for many years). They are publishing a book purported to be a history of the Funerary Violin. No one is quite sure if this book is a fake or not. Overlook are Mum: here.

More next week.

See you in Church on Sunday

An article in The Register (heretofore unheard of) reports that, blogging is now 'un-christian' at least according to the Reformed Church of God. (Presumably, as simply the 'Church of God' they were mad bloggers). These evengelicals just take the fun out of everything.

Thanks to MobuzzTV. for the link.

Frankfurt and Travel

As I departed for the airport this past Sunday afternoon it was for the first time all year that I have shortened my weekend for business travel. Over the past several years I may have done this as many as 20 times a year. Virtually all of these departures were a prelude to an over night transactlantic trip with the promise of a full days work on Monday. I missed Frankfurt for the first time in eight years last week and this was often a two week trip. In 2003, I did a round the world three week trip with the last three days on the stand in Hall 8.0. Such is my ambition. I won't do that again.

The interesting thing at Frankfurt are the people you meet. It is a great place to meet international customers but you are also likely to bump into the senior level publishing people. It seems to happen more regularly at Frankfurt for some reason. I remember my first show when I met an Egyptian licensor of our content on our stand and he presented me with a highly decorated cigar (ash) tray. I felt horrible. I don't smoke and I didn't have anything for him. In October 2001, traffic was sparse and as I walked around the English hall 8.0 I envisioned a large bullseye on the roof. That year in remembrance the entire fair came to a halt on one of the days for a few minutes of total quiet.

Frankfurt is hectic, hot and smoky but it can be rewarding to showcase your products to a very large audience. I have always looked forward to it and when I am invariably traveling to the airport on Saturday morning I think if only I had more time to look around more.

What I started to say regarding traveling is that I am doing less of it but more of it at the same time. This year no more international travel but lots of tribulations traveling domestically. At the moment I am suffering a three hour delay on the way home. I will make tier level the hard way via segments and not miles. Mrs PND looked coolly at me as I left on Sunday but it really hasn't been so bad this year. We persevere.

Postscript: Seven hour commute home (norm is 4hrs). I did catch Letterman and saw Bob Woodward and listened to what is now becoming his stump speech. News yesterday that they are reprinting State of Denial and there will be 1mm in print. Also, while I was stuck in an airport at least I wasn't at the Quills awards.

Synchronisity Again, The Road, Harlequin, St.Martin's, Publishing News. AbeBooks,

Synchronisity plays a part in my reading again. I recently purchased a copy of Letters from London by Julian Barnes (signed) at The Strand in NYC. Among numerous topics it covers the leadership challenge to Margaret Thatcher. Earlier in 2006, I also plowed through Heseltine's biography and it was interesting to recall his version of events during this time. Anyway, given the current state of the Labor party's convulsions over their leadership issues I thought the following quote from Barnes' book was interesting.

Mrs Thatcher had been removed because enough members of her thought that her domineering dogmatism had become electorially counterproductive. On the other hand, Mr. Major has been the candidate of the outgoing leader and the diehard Thatcherites. So he had to keep the 'Business as Usual' sign in the window while redecorating the place and updating the stock: instead of barbed wire and rifles, the family store would in future sell chocolate bars and liniment.

What of Gordon Brown? Personally, I think they should both go and Labor should take the next year to re-establish a relationship with the electorate with new leadership. It is hard to see Brown elected in his own right.

I purchased Cormac MacCarthy's book The Road last week and there was another positive review in the NYT Book review. While it is bleak, I am looking forward to reading it. Bob Woodward was with Tim Russert yesterday. The administration knives have been out, but the damage has been done. Apparently they produced a list of 'inaccuracies' all of which have been proven out. Meaning Woodward was correct. Russert asked him about Kissenger and he stated Kissenger confirmed that the President speaks with him regularly. The massive ego even suggested it was more frequently than Woodward had in the book; information which was provided by Chaney. Apparently, Chaney called Woodward personally, argued with him and told him 'Bullshit' that his comments were not on the record and hung up on him! How adult. I haven't decided to buy his book yet. It reminds me of the All the President's Men which is one of the best books I recall reading as a teenager. Just the combination of incompetence and arrogance is breathtaking.

News last week from Harlequin and as I have said before it must represent some level of incompetence to allow this company to falter so much. It strains credibility that a company with such a loyal base of customers and potentially large electronic distribution opportunities is laying off staff. Someone needs to buy this company.

Time magazine - which in truth I rarely read - has an article this week about publishers of 'streetlit titles' and their promotional activities designed to reach 'non-traditional' markets. The article makes note of St.Martins Press which is publishing K'wan who has over 400,000 units sold of titles such as Gangsta, Road Dawgz and his latest, Hood Rat. I remember reading about K'wan last year and he is quite the entrepreneur having built his publishing empire by literally hand selling his titles on the street, in barber shops and on street vendor tabletops. Other authors are mentioned in the article. It reminds me of Basquat - spray painting subway cars on his way to making millions as an avant guard artist.

Interesting news in the area of publishing trade magazines. Publishing News (UK) and AuthorLink (US) have created an alliance to "broaden the two entities news and features coverage across the globe." I can't say I am familiar with AuthorLink but I will have to check it out. In the US, Publisher's Weekly has been wandering the proverbial desert attempting with limited success to re-define itself as a trade title with appeal to consumers. Hopeless. Facing declining ad revenue and subscribers - not a healthy combination - they are reinserting some of the trade oriented sections (but not calling them sections) and have also hired a new Publisher. They have also decided to offer the title to retailers for free. That is a big risk - it will be very hard to reconsider that decision. Other subscribers, particularly libraries are likely to be unhappy with their exclusion from this offer.

ABEbooks - which has a stake in LibraryThing.com - announced that the number of titles available for sale on their site has now exceeded 100million. I don't believe this means unique titles but impressive nevertheless.

I am surprised that more hasn't been said about the Automated Content Access Protocol which I discussed last week. Here is a blog entry from searchenginewatch.com that explains all there is to know about it thusfar.

Embargoed Books

Those of us who care about bibliographic data - and I do - have been a little amused to read the summary reviews that the NYT has done in the past two weeks about State of Denial (Bob Woodward) and Carly Fiorina's biopic released on Monday. That is...next Monday. The Times has been able to purchase both of these titles in advance of their official release date. Why is this a bibliographic data issue: well, because publishers and retailers have spent considerable time defining pub date, lay down date, street date, and other dates so that no one in the supply chain is disadvantaged. In the past several years the ONIX data format has consumed significant time and effort by publishers, retailers, bibliographic agencies ses (Nielsen, Bowker) and wholesalers and this has been all to the good. Data is now more uniform and consistent and the entire effort has concentrated publishers attention on the value of good data. Nevertheless issues clearly remain in how this data is used and how processes can break down.

There is no good reason why a store should be selling these books before the publisher has told them they can. Marketing and promotional spending, author appearances, buy-in commitments and other activities are all predicated on the official on-sale date. Stores that hold these titles off the floor are disadvantaged if they are available at other stores. The industry has toyed with the idea of an specific release day of the week to focus attention on all books released during a week (Music companies do this on Tuesdays). This tactic would be pointless if retailers ignored the timetable.

The physical nature of book distribution requires that books be shipped well in advance of release date which is where the process tends to break down. Spare a thought for the bookstore which recieves shipments everyday and they can't afford the time and effort to segregate the titles which they have to hold. Most stores will have little storage space in the first place and a limited amount of time to check in boxes of books. The tendency then will be to open everything and get it out on the floor as soon as possible. That doesn't make this right but it is a reality. Limited staff time and knowledge at the recieving point results in the carefully laid plans of the sales and marketing department to fail.

If publishers care about this issue - and they must do otherwise why have embargoes in the first place - they should address this issue with an understanding of the bookseller's situation. And publishers should treat all books equally if they want to be serious about on-sale dates. It would be pointess and confusing to selectively monitor this process only for the 'important' titles.

The God Delusion

The new book by Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion has caught my eye and it is getting significant play from a number of reputable sources. This weekend The Guardian (Joan Blackwell) reviewed the book. It was also reviewed in last weeks Economist here.

It was The Economist where I first came across the book; the sub-head as follows: "Richard Dawkins has long trumpeted the rationale of science. Now, at 65, he has finally marshalled a lifetime's arguments against believing in God." The reviewer goes on to characterize the book as irreverent - which I think is somewhat the point. Real believers are not going to read this book; however, look for a raft of bible bashers on thier soap boxes denouncing the book nevertheless. If this happens of course it will indeed lead to more attention paid to the book and a higher Amazon sales rank. My best part of the review is the reference in the book to his contention that fervent religious indoctrination given to children amounts to child abuse.

In the Guardian, Blackwell touches on some of his social commentary regarding the encrochment of religion into social policy (in the UK and US) such that "many of us who might want to stay outside theological debate can't afford to when it is influencing social policy." In the US of course this is seen increasingly in many areas and are too numerous to mention. In our publishing world this is seen in text books that must present 'intelligent design' as though it is a scientific option while at the same time describing evolution as a mere 'therory.' Blackwell writes that Dawson reserves his best arguments for why religion has persisted.

He cites his own concept, the meme, the social equivalent of the gene, as the way ideas are spread and handed down. As a Darwinian he is keen to understand what is so beneficial about religion that makes it eligible for survival. He has an interesting theory - exemplified by the moth being attracted to the flame and thus to its death - that an arcane survival mechanism is operating in grossly distorted circumstances

Regretably, our world is increasingly becoming defined by religion and over the next 100 years our biggest conflicts will be oriented around religion. The question is whether secularism will rise as a force strong enough to counter this train wreak - I have my doubts.

Here is the book on Amazon.com. The initial reviews are all positive but in the forum section at the bottom things are starting to hot up. At the moment it is number five on the Amazon.com sellers list.

Blogger Issues

Blogger has consumed 30mins of my time this morning to fix the RSS feed. Lesson: don't compose in Word and paste into Blogger. Feedburner refuses to work since some hidden code is transferred in the process. The RSS feed still isn't working correctly but it is at least working. Inexplicably, it has re-dated a post I did last week on Supply Chain and is ignoring a post I made in the middle of last week. All are displaying correctly on the blogger site however.

Frustration reigns. Apologies.

All for the Apocalypse

In a strange synchronicity, I just finished a novel by first time novelist Alex Berenson named The Faithful Spy about a deep undercover CIA operative who ultimately saves Times Square (that's about 1.5miles from me) from vaporization. It was an enjoyable book. In last weeks' New York magazine (here), Kurt Andersen describes how all 'the apocalyse thing' has become de rigeur. Apparently, 2012 is the year. Savy New Yorkers are buying Nova Scotia real estate mainly for investment purposes but also on the off chance they can escape to it should the worst happen.

I have always wondered about disaster plans; I mean if something terrible happens to New York it isn't going to be convenient. I am not going to be able to get to my stash of currency, or water or wind-up electric radio. I am going to be stuck on the number 7 between Grand Central and Times Square. So what if I have prepared if I can't travel anywhere. And of course, I won't be with any of my immediate family either so how are we to know what to do?

Andersen narrows in on Cormac McCarthy's The Road which in his description of the book it reminded me of Stephen Kings' The Stand. (I read this when I was sixteen and thought my mom would like it - ooops.) On this theme he says "...Millions of people -Christian millenarians, jhadists, psychedelized Burning Men - are straight-out wishful about The End." McCarthy's novel is about "..a transcendentally bleak, apparently post-nuclear-war-ravaged American of the future." Excellent. I am thinking why read the "historic" The Emperors Children about post 9/11 over vacation when I can read about the future.

And if you thought this was good - read my next post.

Publishing Week in Review

It was banned books week this week (Sponsored by ALA). Here is a list of the most challenged books from 2005. No word yet on 2006 but I expect to see perennial favorite Catcher in the Rye on the list again. Pretty much any children's or young adult book that deals with sex education, dangly bits, and snogging is guaranteed at least an honorable mention. Throw in Why do I have two daddies? and you will have cracked it.

Litlove had a recent post about two new mystery writers she has started reading. Both Reginald Hill and Susan Hill produce great stories but as she points out in the case of Reg that the characters have been hijacked by TV script writers. I am not sure I like this trend which also happened with Morse and is now happening with Inspector Linley. The 'ghost' written stories don't seem to have the same substance of those that come from the authors books.

Many years ago I attended a conference given by Stanford University and Guy Kawasaki was the dinner speaker - it was a small affair. He was at Apple in the early days and is now a VC among a number of other things. His blog is very interesting and he had this recent post on 'distribution' which does sound boring but he has an interesting view point. Additionally, he also published a post at the end of last year which if you are a frequent user (and abuser) of Powerpoint you will want to read. Lastly, from a traffic and design stand point you can see how he has taken a particular approach to the way he creates the content for his blog that results in maximum attention. If you are interested in this - and who wouldn't be - here is an article.

Here is a little more on the Google decision made by the Belgium court that I commented on earlier this week. Google clearly did not like the requirement to post the judgment and replied very strongly to the court on this issue. There is another hearing in November where they are likely to rely on industry practice that enables any web site to effectively close itself off to spidering. In this case had this technology been invoked by the plaintiff would have avoided the law suit. But then, where's the fun in that?

Eoin Purcell had a post on comics and beat me to a reference from the New York Times article on same. There have been a few other articles that I have noted over the past several weeks in addition to this one. Firstly, the 9/11 Report is being published in a comic book version. Interesting...I am not sure the point, but perhaps comprehension and reading ability has something to do with it or maybe it is a "...let's see if we could do this.." kind of thing. As the article points out it is a little hard to generate the gravitas of two aircraft slamming into the WTC with a simple ...KABOOM!! Here also is an article from the Houston Chronicle about Comic book Bibles. (I just report the stuff I don't believe it). Comics are of course huge business and a number of large US publishing houses have undertaken publishing programs or distribution deals for comics or Manga.

Finally, I haven't had a link to The Daily Show for a while but Hugo Chavez was such great comedy that it has to be referenced. Oh and Norm Chomsky - assuming he earned out his advance - running all the way to the bank.

Publishers Fight Back

Some of you will be aware that Google lost a copyright case in Belgium last week that ruled that Google infringed on German and French newspapers copyright by reproducing article snippets in search results. Publishers everywhere will probably feel somewhat emboldened by this ruling. Google on the other hand were very sulky in their response; they initially refused to place the ruling on their web site as required by the court. I haven't heard that they plan to appeal but I would think this is not the last we will hear of this.

This story was interesting to me but not particularly earth shattering until I read this report in Silicon.com which discussed a publishing industry initiative named the Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP). Once implemented a search engine will be able to recognize the content owners' access and permissions use rights. Rather than shut down their sites publishers will be able to manage the indexing that search engines conduct and tell search engines under what terms the content may be used. The World Association of Newspapers produced a briefing paper on this initiative.

Gavin O'Reilly the current President of the WAN had the following comment: "Importantly, ACAP is an enabling solution that will ensure that published content will be accessible to all and will encourage publication of increasing amounts of high-value content online," he said. "This industry-wide initiative positively answers the growing frustration of publishers, who continue to invest heavily in generating content for online dissemination and use."

Clearly, the briefing paper makes clear that the content owners are not looking to restrict the use of their content but I wonder how this fits with the recent announcement by some major US newspaper publishers. Perhaps there is no impact and this merely 'automates' what these newspapers have set out in their legal agreements with Google.

The WAN are not the only participants in this initiative and the International Publishers Association are also sponsors. This is the international association that most national publishing associations are members (AAP, PA, APA). Jens Bammel, the director of IPA is quoted in the Silicon article in support of the initiative. Here is another article that appeared in CNET.

This initiative does represent an interesting aspect since not only are companies within these associations cooperating and funding this program but associations across industries are cooperating. Interesting what is possible when the stakes are so high: publishers and content owners recognising that their content is being used without permission to create value for an entity that had no hand in its creation. But before you rush to judge that statement, we will also continue to see proven the reality that content owners need the search engines to enable content users to find and use the content.

The Publishing Supply Chain

A number of years ago I was asked to speak at a conference on the future of the book. I did not take this title literally and decided to examine the inherent inefficiency of the publishing supply chain. Importantly, I believed the future of the book had as much to do with profitability and efficiency as it did with creativity.

Since that meeting, I have presented the themes of this post on a number of occasions. As I noted earlier this month an old colleague of mine, Michael Healy has been named BISG Executive Director and he joins BISG with a mandate to address the inefficiencies that are endemic to our industry. Many other industries have successfully addressed supply chain issues and have significantly improved all major functional areas in their organizations; some have created competitive advantage from their attention to these supply chain issues. The publishing industry on the other hand is still characterized by vertically constituted monolithic organizations which rarely share information and rarely collaborate with their supply chain partners to common advantage.

In my presentations, I proposed a structure named The Intelligent Publishing Supply Network (IPSN) which would be dependent on the sharing of information regarding activities in their market. It is information that increases speed and improves productivity, enables better and faster decision making and supports an environment suitable for innovation and development. Time and effort is not distracted with non-productive activity.

The most obvious information limitation publishers and retailers have is accurate sell-through and channel data. Without real time or near time access to information about what is happening – and notice I use the present tense - in the supply chain most publishing industry participants are forced to make ill-informed decisions. Large levels of inventory, sales promotions that sell-out before their sale period ends and uneven product distribution are but a few of the examples of our inefficient supply chain.

Both BISG and BIC (UK) must address the supply chain issues our industry faces and become advocates for improvements similar to those supported by GS1. GS1 is the leading global organization dedicated to the design and implementation of global standards and solutions to improve the efficiency and visibility of supply and demand chains. This organization grew out of the grocery and food business but now spans many industry groups. It may be a viable strategy to integrate some of the publishing supply chain programs of BISG with those of GS1. Not surprisingly they are far more advanced in their programs and there is no sense reinventing the wheel.

Over the next several weeks, I will expand further and update some of the ideas I have presented over the past few years. What is readily apparent however, is that there is a willingness from retailers, wholesalers and publishers to cooperate more to improve efficiencies in the publishing market. BISG will become more relevant in this context.