Audible Launches Crime Serial in Audio Only

Audible announced the launch of a serialized crime novel, The Chopin Manuscript which will be available exclusively in audio format and via audible.com. Not only is the novel a serial but it is also written by 15 different authors who have each written one or more chapters of the book. The collaboration began when Jeffery Deaver wrote the opening chapter of the work and handed it off to fellow best-selling writer, David Hewson, who wrote chapter two. Other successive authors include Lee Child, Joseph Finder, and Lisa Scottoline. The novel returned to Deaver for the final two chapters and is narated by Alfred Molina.

From the press release:

“I think The Chopin Manuscript is an important literary innovation in three ways,” observed Donald Katz, Chairman and CEO, Audible, Inc. “First, 15 of the most gifted practitioners of a very demanding and technical form of modern fiction – the thriller – came together to create a chapter of a single novel before handing the plot development to the next master. Second, the fact that the novel was written to be produced and published as an audiobook is a step forward for the literate listening category Audible was founded to develop. And finally, the work is being delivered as an episodic, high-tech-Dickensian publishing cycle, using Audible’s technology to automatically deliver a chapter at a time. In a variety of ways this grand experiment deploys technology and new techniques to open up digital media possibilities that can expand the digital audio sector and the literary form in general.”

The title is available only in audio format and available now via the audible.com website.

California Moves On Textbook Prices

More on two pieces of proposed CA legislation on textbook pricing:

Senate Bill 832 by Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, would require publishers to give faculty members a list of book prices in a given subject and information on significant changes in the new edition and also estimate for how long the book will be on the market. The bill would also require publishers to post the differences on the Internet. Assembly Bill 1458 by Assemblyman Jose Solorio, D-Santa Ana, would make publishers summarize the differences between the two editions inside the books and provide wholesale prices on request.

DailyBreeze editorial which agrees with the legislation even though they admit prices could rise which seems to fly in the face of the objective. For anyone familiar with textbook publishing there are a few strange comments in this article.

Faulkners Birthday

American Heritage has a long essay on Faulkner. For those who don't know much about him (like me) it is interesting reading on one of America's finest writers.

Faulkner was apparently a single minded individual and didn't have too much patience with many things including frivolity. He lived most of his life in Mississippi but found himself in Hollywood on a number of occasions as a screen writer. On one of those occasions, he grew so frustrated with the movie set lifestyle, the wasted time and the shallowness of the life on set that he asked his director if he could work from home. The director said sure no problem and Faulkner proceeded to fly back to Mississippi. I always found that story funny.

American Heritage.

Luckily, I am only down $10

My blog of last week (Sept 19, "I know what you said about me yesterday"), challenged marketing and publicity professionals to utilize technology, specificially Technorati , to follow what is being said about their titles in the blogging world. I choose three titles randomly from the Amazon Top 100 and challenged the publishers to find me within 24 hours--for each that did, I'd donate $10 to First Book . The result?

Only Fritz Foy, Senior VP of Holtzbrinck (I chose Middlesex, published by Picador, a Holtzbrinck imprint, as one of the titles), found me. He did it in two days but I still donated the money. It is a good cause, after all.

All publishers could be using tools like this to identify the most influential blogs, maximize marketing budgets by initiating inexpensive blog tours, and provide superior service to their authors. Many are already doing so, and successfully (see New York Times a friend forwarded the article to me). This is a trend to watch.

Five Questions with Bondi Digital and the Playboy Archive

The first DVD archive of all the 1950's issues of Playboy magazine will be released at bookstores and retail outlets by Bondi Digital Publishing on November 2nd. (It is now available for presale at www.covertocover.com). Long considered an icon of 20th century publishing the eventual full set of DVDs will cover every Playboy issue since the title launched in 1953. Bondi Digital Publishing has undertaken the task of truthfully representing each page of the magazine so that buyers of the set will be able to see the magazine as it was originally published.

The first set of Bondi Digital Publishing's Cover to Cover Series covers the launch of the magazine in 1953 with the now unforgettable Marilyn Monroe featured as Playboy's first centerfold, up through the beginning of 1960.

Included with the box set is a 200 page 'behind the scenes' companion book covering the highlights of Playboy's humble launch by 27-year-old Hugh Hefner and the rise of the magazine during the conservative 50s. The box set also includes a complete reprint of the famous first issue featuring Marilyn Monroe.

David Anthony is co-founder of Bondi Digital Publishing and I recently sat down with him and asked him my five questions.

1. You also did a similar project for The New Yorker. Tell us how these three projects came about.
   
   There was a fellow who worked at the New Yorker named Andy Pillsbury, who I had known for years, long before he was with The New Yorker. I had shown him some interactive magazine viewing technology that I was working on in the late 90s. So fast forward 5 or 6 years, and he is now at the New Yorker and he and Ed Klaris, their general counsel, are talking about doing a complete digital archive of all 80 years of the New Yorker. He looks me up and contacts me, and in the meantime I had started a DVD design and production company with Murat Aktar – which was actually great background for what the New Yorker had in mind. At the DVD company, we had been thinking about and designing all these DVD interfaces, including things like the Rolling Stones Four Flicks box set, so when it came to thinking through how people might like to experience half a million pages of a magazine, I think we brought a very unique perspective to the project. It was, of course, on one hand a huge technical challenge, but in a very real sense I believe the greatest challenge of these kinds of projects is trying to help people make sense of the vastness of the media, while at the same time making sure that the digital experience is fast, intuitive and hopefully fun and useful, all at the same time.
   
   Coming off of the New Yorker project, we thought, hey this is kind of cool. I wonder what other magazines might like to have complete digital archives? Right off the bat we were thinking about Rolling Stone and Playboy. They are both very innovative magazines, and both had a rich and long history – and they had these visionary founders who were still at the helm. Besides, we are both long time readers of the publications. So it made a lot of sense to talk with them – and low and behold both loved the idea and we were able to work out deals with them.
   
   
2. Were the projects similar? What have you learned from one project to another?
   
   From a publishing perspective, the big difference with the Rolling Stone, Playboy and The New Yorker, is that beginning with Rolling Stone Cover To Cover: The First Forty Years and Playboy Cover To Cover: The 50s, we launched Bondi’s publishing arm and are bringing these out under ourselves. While Bondi developed the software platform for the Complete New Yorker, it was published and distributed by The New Yorker and Random House.
   
   All three magazines are very different, so a big challenge that we have in any of these projects is to first analyze each magazine’s format and create a schema for its database that makes sense of all the idiosyncrasies of each magazine’s particular formatting characteristics.
   
   As far as the software platform goes, the Bondi Reader, which is what we are calling it now, has continued to evolve quite a bit. We now support full text search, using a very powerful indexing engine. This is a great step forward and has sped up our searches to the point where the local experience compares favorably to online searches. Also we are adding the ability to import and exchange reading lists, which will allow two people who own the same archive to share what they find very easily.
   
   
3. There is a lot of interest in the Playboy products because the magazine is such an icon for our times. Tell us about the conception for the product – breaking the titles into decades – and the thinking behind the design.
   
   Each decade of Playboy has a unique tone and feel, and by publishing the magazine’s archives decade by decade, Bondi is able to offer distinctive features for each digital archive collection. Playboy Cover-to-Cover: The 50s will not only include all of the magazine’s issues on DVD, but it will also include Playboy 50s – Under the Covers, a 1950s-focused companion book that is absolutely chock full of never-before-published photos and letters from Hef’s personal library and archive. As well we have created a page-for-page reissue of the very first Playboy from 1953 with its iconic Marilyn Monroe cover.
   
   
4. What most excites you about the products? (Rolling Stone, NYer, Playboy)?
   
   I guess it is seeing all these amazing stories, photos and ads come back to life – in their original context. I for instance did not know that Annie Leibovitz had taken that great cover shot of John Lennon curled up with Yoko but a few hours before he was taken from us. That is a hugely important fact in helping to understand the impact and importance of that cover. But that was 1980 and I was only 13 years old – so I never experienced the magazine itself. I, like I imagine a lot of people, have only ever experienced that shot as a stand-alone photo. We have seen that cover reprinted over the years, but without seeing it in the context that it was originally published you might never understand its true significance. And that is extremely exciting to me – that we might be playing a part in not only preserving these magazines legacies, but also allowing for people to understand these very real cultural events in a full and clear way.
   
   Not having been alive in the 1950s it was also a real eye-opener to see the Playboy issues from the 50s. From the first issue, the voice and outlook are clear. But at the same time you begin to see the role that Playboy played in both women’s rights and also civil rights. In the 50s women didn’t work out of the house, let alone have a sense that they should be allowed to own their sexuality. And as I found from working on the project, the publishing of Playboy was a bit of a watershed moment in the turning of society’s views on women’s rights, and then also civil rights. So all of that is exciting to us. And then to see that Hefner from the beginning courted writers like Hemingway, Ray Bradbury, Jack Kerouac and Steinbeck – well you get the point. Turns out there is a reason for all the jokes about the articles.
   
   
5. What is next for Bondi? Are you looking at any other implementations you can tell us about?
   
   At the moment we are concentrating on finishing up the software production for both the Playboy Cover to Cover and Rolling Stone Cover to Cover products. Then we focus on deals with several other magazines. As excited as we are about the success of the Complete New Yorker and the release of our Cover to Cover series, I don’t think that the general public really understands what a searchable digital archive of a magazine is yet. And so it is important that this not be a category of one or two products. Our focus for the time being is working with other magazine publishers to develop similar Cover To Cover products. We are just about ready to announce Playboy Cover To Cover, The 60s, which will bring our Cover to Cover series to three. By the holiday 2008 season, we hope to have six - eight Cover To Cover titles in the line.

Bondi PR is being handled by Catherine Lewis at The Rosen Group: http://www.rosengrouppr.com/

Let's Not Go

Young, commercial, beginner’s guidebook, with frivolous, silly humor represented some of the responses to a survey conducted by St Martin's Press about the Let's Go series of guides. That was in 2001 and St Martins have just decided that they won't be renewing their 25yr partnership with the Harvard student run organization. The current deal expires in 2009. Citing stiff competion and free travel information sources,

David Moldawer, a St. Martin’s editor, told the New York Observer last week that the break with Let’s Go reflected “a change in our publishing strategy and how we see the travel book market.”

The Crimson went on to say that the Let's Go editorial staff were putting on a strong face and view the change as a chance to rethink and reevaluate the publishing strategy. They also wanted to ensure that there are no job losses for students. The survey results were fairly damning and suggest that hopes of continuing the publishing program after 2009 maybe a pipedream.

The report, which was based on four San Francisco focus groups, suggested that Let’s Go discontinue its guides and reopen with a different brand name. “It is extremely difficult to change an image of a brand which has lost its stature as a leading brand, especially when the re-positioning is not supported by heavy marketing and advertising dollars,” the report read. “It may be more prudent (and cost effective) to introduce a new series of guides under a new name with an updated format rather than trying to convince the target that ‘Let’s Go’ is new and improved.”

They have a few years to think about it although one wonders how much sales support St. Martins' will give the series and how likely retailers will be to re-order titles from this point on.

Borders UK Operations Nearly Sold

Ten years ago, Borders Group was a book store chain willing to take risks, try new things and seek new business models. Alone among US booksellers they embarked on an international expansion and bought a high street UK retailer named Books Etc. They paid $65million for the company but things didn't go well from the start. Over the course of the past 10 years virtually nothing was shared between the US and UK operations in terms of operating efficiencies, product management and management expertise. Attempts to manage the some of the operations from the US failed but it was the nature of the UK market which posed the most challenges. Most of the 30 or so Books etc stores were small and located on busy main roads, the net book agreement collapsed which intensified competition between retailers, Internet selling grew exponentially and attempts by Borders to expand the superstore concept was slow to gain customer traction. It is unfortunate that these issues conspired to defeat what could have resulted in a remarkable international retail success: A strong Borders retail brand in Europe, Australia and SE Asia.

Now it is all over bar the tears with the announcement today that the UK operations have been sold for a paltry $20mm in cash and $10mm in deferred payments based on performance. Borders are also forced to take a 17% interest in the resulting new company. No doubt they would have liked to have made a clean break. UK management, who have worked hard to keep the company a float and who now have a real chance to improve their prospects may be the only group seeing a silver lining in this situation. I hope they succeed and prove that the book super store concept can flourish in the UK as it has done for computer and electronics retailers over the past 10 years. It will be tough since the UK book retail market is a wasteland.

When Borders completes the deal (PR) it will hand over 41 Border's superstores and 28 Books Etc stores located in the UK and Ireland. Given the original price paid for Books Etc and the investment the company has made over the past 10 years it is not surprising that the company expects to book an after tax loss of $115million with minimal tax benefit meaning they get no future benefit from applying the loss to future earnings. If I were a shareholder, I might want to ask why book value for the UK operation wasn't almost zero on their balance sheet. (I also wonder what is the value of the UK inventory?)

On a more positive note (unless like me you wonder why they are selling off in the first place) Borders may do OK with the sale of the Australian/New Zealand business. Sources suggest the operations could go for $85mm but if BV is higher then they may book another loss. Well best to get all these items out of the way before Mr. Jones' strategy starts to gain traction and a private equity buyer shows up to take the shareholders out of their misery.

College Textbook Affordability Act

I wonder how many votes these legislators expect to gain from legislating capitalism - at least as it pertains to textbook pricing. Ex-academic and now Californian Democratic state senator Ellen Corbett notes a particularly poignant and, yes, unique excuse for not finishing a class assignment.

"One of my students told me they were not going to finish their homework because they couldn't afford the textbook," she said. "That stopped me dead in my tracks and broke my heart."

No doubt the student received a passing grade for creative writing but an F for initiative. Corbett is sponsoring a state senate bill that will attempt to regulate textbook prices:

"For too long, California college students have dealt with outrageous textbook costs. Publishers set the cost, faculty makes the choice and students pay the price," Corbett said. "It is time for the textbook publishing industry to level with their consumers and end their deceptive marketing practices." If passed, Senate Bill 832 would take effect in January and require publishers to fully disclose to faculty their wholesale or retail costs, an estimation of how long the book is expected to stay current, and a breakdown of differences between current and past editions.

Textbook pricing and the publishers are an easy target and provide an annual respite from dealing with truly important issues like (in the case of CA) a mammoth budget deficit and (topically) rising tuition fees. On the other hand, here is something that is sure to please students and could provide for the budget deficit: Legalize it!

Borders Stores Australia

The sale of Borders Australia/New Zealand retail operations appears to be coming to a head. Reuters is reported a source has told them that the Private Equity firm Pacific Equity Partners has lodged an indicative offer of interest in acquiring the operations. This is typical of the auction process where initial non-binding offers would be made as a prelude to more rigorous reviews of financial and operational details. The report also noted that the sale is unlikely to conclude before November. The long timeframe since this was announced is somewhat surprising since there are only a handful of parties considered real candidates but perhaps the time taken to put the books in order and complete the fiscal year delayed matters. Regardless, PEP are the front runner and the deal is expected to be completed for A$100mm.

Reuters

Scholatic Reports

Scholatic reported first quarter revenue of $586.9million which was 75% higher than the same period last year. The last Potter title accounted for the increase. Scholastic routinely reports a loss in its first quarter and their net loss this period was $2.8million or $0.07/share. From the press release:

“This summer Scholastic again broke publishing records with the launch of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Exceptional promotion and marketing combined with overwhelmingly favorable publicity resulted in unprecedented sales, while efficient distribution and execution helped us achieve high sell-through and improved margins. Sales of READ 180® and educational technology also rose solidly in their primary selling season, reflecting Scholastic’s continued success raising student achievement,” commented Richard Robinson, Chairman, CEO and President. “These positive first quarter results position us well to meet our fiscal 2008 goals while making planned investments to drive long-term growth, in particular in our education and children’s book businesses, and progress toward our 9 to 10% operating margin goal.”

The company reaffirmed its forcast of full year revenues between $2.3 to $2.5 billion and earnings per diluted share of $2.35 to $2.85.

Other highlights from the press release:

• Children’s Book Publishing and Distribution. Revenue for the quarter was $342.5 million, up over 200% from prior year. Potter revenue increased to approximately $240 million from $5 million reflecting the launch of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and higher sales of the first six Harry Potter titles. Operating profit for the quarter, improved to $2.7 million compared to a loss of $67.3 million a year ago
• Educational Publishing. Revenue for the quarter was $127.8 million, level with the prior year period. Educational technology sales rose 9% largely due to solid sales of READ 180 and FASTT Math™. This was offset by schools’ continued weak spending on supplemental materials, which resulted in lower sales in Paperbacks and Library Publishing. Segment operating profit was $30.6 million compared to $32.7 million in the first quarter of last year
• International. Revenue of $99.6 million was up 26% (17% in local currencies) from the prior year period. Segment operating loss improved to $2.7 million compared to $5.5 million in the prior year period, primarily due to strong export sales of Harry Potter and improved results in Australia and Asia.
• Media, Licensing and Advertising. Segment revenue for the quarter rose 8% to $17.0 million, due in part to higher sales of interactive products. Segment operating loss improved to $5.1 million from $6.1 million
• Other Financial Results. Corporate overhead in the quarter was $20.3 million compared to $19.9 million in the prior year period, reflecting higher Harry Potter-related expenses, partly offset by company-wide efforts to reduce costs

I know what you said about me yesterday

I sometimes do work in the non-profit world, and I borrowed this trick from a blog I read there. I’ve been itching to try it out in this area. This is the question I pose: what if there was a way to better understand the elusive power of “word of mouth” in selling books? What if publicists and marketers could eavesdrop on conversations between readers and recommenders, and even know which recommenders carry more weight than others? Technorati (www.technorati.com) provides essential insight into this process on the web by allowing (among many other things) users to set up automatic alerts for any search terms mentioned in the 105.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media they currently track. It is so easy, it’s almost cheating.

My bet is that most publicists and marketing folks are not currently tracking who says what on their titles on blogs, therefore not using the blog medium to the best advantage. But I could be wrong. As a test, I’ve picked the three titles below, all on the Amazon Top 100 list and all published recently. For each publisher who emails me at sruszala@gmail.com in the next 24 hours to say they’ve found this blog, I’ll donate $10 to First Book.

Here are the titles:

Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides published by Picador

Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart by Ian Ayres, published by Bantam

Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World (Hardcover) by Bill Clinton, published by Knopf

Good luck!

New Model Army of Self-Publishers

The news that Author House and iUniverse.com were merging was not entirely unexpected, but it is interesting to me that the publishing community basically ignored the event. While it was reported in Publisher’s Lunch and Publisher’s Weekly, the report in PW focused on the question of job cuts which may reflect a limited interest in the strategic ramifications this segment poses to mainstream publishers. Led by Lulu.com, this publishing segment is exploding and the last thing being considered will be job cuts. Just look at the capabilities on offer at Lulu. Author House and iUniverse complement each other: A number of years ago, iUniverse.com made the strategic choice to add an extensive selection of professional editorial services to their suite of services, which surpass the service offered by Author House (and others in the market). Tactically, I think the two companies will slot together like jigsaw pieces.

Random House has a relationship with Xlibris and is alone among the major publishing houses in building formal relationships with the self-publishing marketplace. I would expect other major publishers to jump into this space, in the short-term, through acquisition. The leverage these companies achieve over their technology, employees and fixed expenses, the processes they have established and the market they have built make these companies appealing. Ironically, there is a ‘democratization of access’ underway in publishing, which to date, most “publishers” have not participated in; but, this will change as traditional publishers look to the self-publisher market as a natural product extension.

In the case of Author House and iUniverse.com, they each produce over 5,000 titles per year with total staff of approximately 100. In terms of titles per month and titles per employee, they shame a traditional large publisher. Everyone will argue that the quality of the content produced by self-publishers is poor, but this is no more true than the statement that all content produced by traditional publishers is exemplary. How often has a traditional publisher invested significantly in a title’s success only to watch it sell 300 copies? For the self-publisher—with an author pays model, no inventory and no promotion expense—there is only upside if a title takes off unexpectedly (and sells 300 copies).

I am not suggesting that the self-publishing business model will be adopted anytime soon by a major publishing house, but there are lessons to be learned from the success that the self-publishing industry has built in the last 10 years. Enabling technology has produced this ‘democratization of access’ and, while it is hard to imagine that there is that much content to produce, the numbers prove the case. Lulu is producing 4,000 new titles per week for a total of 300,000 newly released titles, Author House has over 30,000 authors and 40,000 titles, and iUniverse says they have sold over 5mm books.

Amazon has invested in this area (B&N is getting out via iUniverse.com) and I see some convergence between the traditional publishing model and self-publishing. The content quality issue is irrelevant: Firstly because good content will always find its market and Secondly, because quality in the self-publishing segment depends not on the content but the service the author received. Get ready to see traditional publishers adopt some of the practices of the self-publishing industry.