What Circulates In England

The UK public libraries let us know what their users read the most. The TimesOnline relates a report on the top circulating titles in UK public libraries:

Figures published today for the year up to last June offer a fascinating glimpse into the nation’s reading habits. Patterson’s novels, which have sold more than 130 million copies worldwide, were borrowed from libraries more than 1.5 million times. A former advertising executive, he began writing in his spare time and he has published almost 50 novels. He now produces up to eight books each year with the help a team of co-writers. In third place was the children’s writer Daisy Meadows. The name is in fact a pseudonym used by a collection of writers, including Sue Bentley and Sue Mongredien, whose seemingly endless sequence of Rainbow Magic fairy books have risen from 26th place the previous year.

Proves that the author brand is most powerful and developing more author brands whether related to authors that exist or not should be more of a focus. I've mentioned this before (Brands to Publish).

Zadie Disqualifies the Awards

TimesOnline reports Zadie Smith has suggested that literary awards have become prostituted to commercial interests. Surely, this is not news? Haven't the arts always been subject to commercial bias? Haven't the arts always maintained an uneasy alliance with the money that supports them and an inherent 'obligation'? Too deep for me, but the criticism of her comments concentrates on her, "I’d also like to know if her publisher is going to put her forward in future for literary awards" sniffs one, rather than on the larger point of both the extant quality of writing today and the relevance the awards have for the book buying public. Both issues seem to be immaterial to the notion that Zadie Smith is an ungrateful swine.

The whole tempest in galley seems to have erupted due to the frustration at being unable to present an award.

The three-person Willesden Herald panel between them read all 850 entries and then drew up a list of 20, which were sent to Smith. She and her fellow judges decided that this year they could not find “the greatness” that they were looking for and so decided not to award the £5,000 prize, which had been raised privately by Moran

Smith then voiced said frustration on the newspapers' blog site:

No entry was good enough, Smith declared - before going on to savage more famous literary awards, such as the ones she has won, for doling out prizes for commercial imperatives. The blog under her name declares that she is “depressed by the cookie-cutter process of contemporary publishing”.

Awards do have a function; however, we are seeing more and more discussion about how important they are to the general public (not really) versus the publishing community (Big, Big Big). This topic maybe this year's book reviews angst.

Innovation in Publishing

BISG and The Idea Logical Company have started what we think is a very exciting project, which will culminate in the program for Making Information Pay on May 9. We are trying to understand the nature and impact of "experimentation and innovation" in publishing in the digital age—both in attitudes and in practice.

As part of the project we want to collect data via a broad survey on what is now taking place in terms of experimentation and innovation. Using information obtained in the survey, we will then research and write up 8-10 case histories – accounts of experiments that have been tried, whether or not they were deemed to have "succeeded". The findings will be presented at the event on May 9.

We would like your help with this project by completing the survey.

The survey is now open and is available on Survey Monkey for voluntary participation, which we hope will be widespread, at your company and all others. To take the survey, please use the following link:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ttAYUp778M0QmwPd7yOHtQ_3d_3d

The link in this email will work ONCE. The survey, which should take you about 10 minutes to complete, closes on February 21. Please note that the information obtained in the survey will be treated confidentially and no individual responses will be divulged.

We also hope to see you at Making Information Pay in New York City on May 9. Please register for the event at http://www.bisg.org/conferences/mip5.html.

Thank you in advance for your help with the survey.

Best wishes.

Michael.

Michael Healy
Executive Director
Book Industry Study Group.

Telephone: 646 336 7141.

Hachette Reports

Lagardère the French conglomerate that owns the book publishing unit Hachette published their full year results yesterday. They reported group revenues up 8.5% over the prior year and 3.3% up on an apples to apples basis. The wide disparity was due to the full year inclusion of the Time Warner Publishing Group (now Grand Central) in the current year's numbers. This is a widely dispersed conglomerate but the news report did carve out the publishing unit for praise as follows:

Publishing (formerly the Books division) – Excellent quarter in virtually all the countries in which we operate. Sales were particularly robust in the United Kingdom, driven by a raft of successful fiction and non-fiction titles. The very strong growth in the United States since January 2007 was maintained. In France, Literature and Illustrated Books both ended the year strongly.

For the full year they reported the following:

Revenues reached €2,130m (up 8.6% on a reported basis), including an extra quarter of sales from the Time Warner Book Group (impact: €80m), which in 2006 was consolidated from April 1.On a like-for-like basis, an excellent final quarter propelled full-year revenue growth to 4.7%, versus 3.0% to end September 2007.In the United Kingdom, the year ended with a surge in sales. The group published 7 of the top 10 Christmas non-fiction best-sellers (including Bobby Charlton, Russell Brand and Al Murray), and 5 of the top 10 fiction titles (including Martina Cole and Patricia Cornwell).In the United States, the strong growth seen since the start of the year continued, driven by best-sellers (including Patterson, Baldacci, Hitchens and Meyer) and healthy backlist sales. In France, the fourth quarter was boosted by a fine contribution from Literature, thanks to authors such as Simone Veil and Philippe Claudel. Illustrated Books also enjoyed solid year-end sales.In Spain, sales are traditionally sluggish in the final quarter. Over 2007 as a whole, Spain recorded further strong growth not only in Education, but also in General Publishing and Children’s Books.Finally, Part-Works ended the year well, with steady sales growth in Italy, the United Kingdom and Japan.

In related French publishing news, France's number two publisher Editis has been placed on the block by its private equity owner Wendel. (Reuters) The company is said to be worth approximately €900mm. Spanish publisher Planeta and Italy's Mondadori were immediately suggested as potential purchasers. The following is from their corporate web page:

With 2400 employees and about 40 publishing imprints, Editis holds leading positions in three segments of the publishing business, in particular Literature (trade and mass market formats), Education (scholarly, scholastic aids, middle school, high school, university, legal and medical), and Reference (dictionaries and encyclopedias), as well as in the field of publishing services (promotion and distribution). Prestigious publishers and efficient group-wide services have made Editis number two in the world of French publishing and a major player in Europe. Editis has a clearly stated objective: to strengthen its position on the French market, to continue its growth, and to expand its influence throughout the French-speaking world.

I have noted Editis once before. On their web site they offer their take on the future of the book/reading experience. It is in French but none the less interesting. Here.

TV Guide

There is a dearth of deep bibliographic information available on television programs. Some information is collected by TV Guide as part of its programming but they haven't databased the full history of broadcast TV and as more and more TV programming is available for sale and download the requirements for deeper bibliographic details here increase. It is a business opportunity for someone who likes television. With the data that TV Guide does have, it has never appeared interested in becoming a database provider - in addition to publisher of the magazine. Opening up their database via data sales, widgets/asp, services etc. would seem to me to be an imperative given the rapid decline in the fortunes of the magazine. The company struggled mightily with the development of their online presence and they still have not been successful creating a portal or destination site for television fans.

That said Gemstar/TV Guide is in the process of being acquired for well over $2billion. The company purchasing Gemstar is Macrovision and not an obvious acquirer.

Macrovision offers content protection, digital rights management, and software licensing solutions that enable businesses to maximize the value of their digital content and software products. Our solutions are deployed by companies in the entertainment, consumer electronics, gaming, software, information publishing and corporate IT markets to solve industry-specific challenges.

They are not a database or information management company, but they do (I think) realize that use of bibliographic information in the businesses they own could be an advantage.

It doesn't appear however, that they couldn't achieve the same advantage by licensing the data rather than paying over $2bill for a company which not only is a debatable fit with Macrovision but has its own questionable history of business execution and business strategy. Since the announcement of the purchase Macrovision shares have fallen significantly (although so has the market as we all know) as have shares in Gemstar. Shareholders of Macrovision are not excited about this deal and there is some potential that the deal will get derailed. At the least, it seems the deal should get revalued and pressure for this should become more acute when Gemstar release their latest quarterly results in mid February.

More from Mediapost.

Harpercollins Rebounds

After a slow start to fiscal 2008, Harpercollins seems to have rebounded and reports sales up moderately from $393mm to $406mm for the quarter. Operating profit improves nicely up $13mm to $67mm.

As quoted in Publisher's Weekly, Jane Friedman noted

"I’m very happy about the recovery this quarter. I thought it would happen, but until it does you hold your breath.” She also noted that the improvement was driven by what Friedman called the “three Ds,” The Daring Book for Girls, The Dangerous Books for Boys and Deceptively Delicious. The three titles are continuing to sell well into the third quarter, and Friedman said the titles should become strong backlist works.

From the Newscorp Press release:

HarperCollins reported second quarter operating income of $67 million, an increase of $13 million versus the same period a year ago, which included charges due to the bankruptcy filing of a major distributor. The 24% growth included strong sales of The Daring Book for Girls by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz, The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn and Hal Iggulden and Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. During the quarter, HarperCollins had 40 books on The New York Times bestseller list, including 5 titles that reached the #1 spot.

Given the slow first quarter, HC remain short of its prior year sales and operating income numbers. No mention of HC on the earnings call with Newscorp management which is true to form.

New York Times

Marc Andreessen writes on the 'deathwatch' of the New York Times. It isn't much more than most of us will have heard about as the company released their latest financial reports; however, the review of the current board membership is a bit of an eye opener.

On another note, I have commented on The Times a number of times (link below). Currently, I only purchase the Sunday print version. Generally as I sit reading with the TV on, their ad comes on selling subscriptions to the print. It happens with regularity, and yet as you might watch a slow moving train approach a cliff, I always seem to watch and listen. As their subs and newsstand sales fall off a cliff there is almost no indication to the wider world that this company has an online strategy. The thinking seems to be if they promote the website, About.com or even the Times Reader that will accelerate the migration away from print and so they are prohibited. Most other information companies try to accelerate the migration but then these companies have figared out a new revenue model which NYTimes hasn't.

But really, these ads are horrible and exemplify better than anything else their lack of understanding of the new media landscape. Print ads on TV, what could be worse when you should be an internet company?

Giants

I don't profess to be much of a football fan, but that was some game. In a strange way the last drive had the air of inevitability....Now for the ticker tape parade and it won't be in the parking lot at Giants stadium either.

Google Search By Year

I came across this a few weeks ago and I thought it was very interesting. Google has place where you can see some of their experimentation with new search interfaces. In the Google search box enter the following: joseph conrad view:timeline and you will see a dateline version of the life of Joseph Conrad. It works for all kinds of things: Try replacing JC with Viet Nam War. If you play with this a little you will see that you can narrow down searches within years. As far as I can tell it doesn't do months.



Some of you will recall an interface that OCLC has worked on for authors that is similar. WorldCat Identities looks like this: Conrad



Fellow traveler, Peter Brantley reminded me of the Google interface by referring me to an article in Arstechnica.com. In this post they look at six of the experimental interfaces.


PS. Within three clicks on the Google I was reading a review/appreciation of The Red Badge of Courage written by Conrad himself. Again, yet another reason to want to be be a high school student today.

Microsoft to Buy Yahoo for $44Billion

The dam has finally busted. Will Microsoft be able to pull off the deal to buy Yahoo and then, more importantly will they be able to make a success of the integration. This could be one of the most exciting news stories of the year. Will this be welcomed by Yahoo? Is this the big deal that Terry Semel was said to be working on only yesterday? Could Yahoo look for some other combination - with Ebay - and act defensively to stop the acquisition? The current offer is very expensive - 60% over the closing share price yesterday.

AP
Timesonline.
NYTimes

Amazon Versus Apple: Is This A Cage Fight?

Amazon is buying Audible.com for $300mm: This changes everything. Audible is already a destination site for Audio books (and content) what more appropriate gateway exists to boost the growing (e-)book content that Amazon is selling via their Kindle? As I speculated a few weeks ago, the Kindle will be a delivery platform for content (not just e-books), and it doesn't take too much imagination to see how Audible's content fits very nicely with the Kindle strategy. Audible has also taught their users about the benefits of subscribing to content and have proven that this model can be successful. So, not only does the Audible acquisition have the potential to bring new customers to the Kindle platform (on the basis of a subscription model for content), Amazon.com will also gain the expertise of staff at Audible who has built up this program. Extending a subscription model to content presages the resurrection of the Book Club model. Didn't we all know it would come back? (Well maybe not, but Bertelsmann were spied coming out of Madame Radzwilli's House of Fortunes just the other day).

Strategically, this acquisition makes fundamental sense at the product level alone. Coupled with an increasing need for Audio versions of text (what with our aging population) with the already loyal Audible customer base there is little to argue about. And I do believe, it will escalate a change in business model for trade (consumer) publishing content.

How publishers react to the news will be interesting to watch. Most will not see the significance and many will be happy at the increased exposure that audio books will get as part of the Amazon.com empire. Where there is concern, it will orient itself around the realization that even greater market power will be exerted (either overtly or not) by Amazon. Given my comments above, this acquisition could represent an end-run of the order of I-Tunes. Look how music publishers are now tied to the $0.99 cents per song model. It just snuck up on them. Will the same happen to book content?

Which brings me to my last comment: It is all out war with Apple. (In fact, I would not be surprised to see a competing offer for Audible. I know Apple are not in the content owning business but they might do it to be mischievous or to protect a budding position in the book market). There has been some speculation about whether Apple would develop an e-reader device as part of the I-Phone. Despite his comments to the contary, I believe Jobs was planning some development here and I speculate that Amazon thought so as well. Amazon will do everything they can to keep Apple out of the content distribution/platform business. Apple for their part don't want Amazon's movie and music distribution (or the Kindle) to challenge iTunes. How this rivalry plays out will be very interesting to watch. They both come at the issue from completely different starting points.

NYTimes

Traditional Marketing is 40% Less Important

The editors at Publishing Trends have annouced the results of their recent online marketing survey which indicates that 40% of book publicists believe traditional marketing makes less of an impact than two years ago. The Publishing Trends survey reveals that nearly all book publicists (70.9%) claim to devote up to half their resources to online marketing, but that the New York Times and Publishers Weekly still make the most impact when it comes to publicizing new titles.

Publishing Trends emailed the survey early in January to publicists at publishers, independent publicity firms, and agencies, and sent a companion survey to members of the book-related media, both online and off. Though most publicists polled say they devote up to 50% of their resources to online marketing, 90% of the publicists working at publishing houses say they should be doing more.

While their publicity counterparts did not reach a consensus, media respondents consider online marketing a “must” for Technology, Travel, Business, Sci-fi, and Health titles. When asked to describe in their own words what the online book marketing world will look like in five years respondents predicted “smarter, more targeted practices,” “all authors MUST blog and have scheduled chats,” and “huge increase in digital content.”

What are the obstacles keeping publicists from doing more online marketing? Not having enough time to explore it (67.1%), cost (52.9%), lack of technology know-how (31.4%), and luddite bosses (5.7%) rank the highest.

For further information or a copy of the article, go to publishingtrends.com.