Poll: Those who never attend church read twice as much.

According to an associated press IPOS survey those who consider themselves liberals read more - but only slightly. The bible and other religious books were the largest category with 2/3rd responding that they read this type of content. Further details from Boston.com:

There was even some political variety evident, with Democrats and liberals typically reading slightly more books than Republicans and conservatives. The Bible and religious works were read by two-thirds in the survey, more than all other categories. Popular fiction, histories, biographies and mysteries were all cited by about half, while one in five read romance novels. Every other genre -- including politics, poetry and classical literature -- were named by fewer than five percent of readers. More women than men read every major category of books except for history and biography. Industry experts said that confirms their observation that men tend to prefer nonfiction.

As the title of this post suggests, the poll also confirmed that organized religion is the enemy of publishers. I’m not sure how this jells with the above noted religion readers, but those who responded that they never attended religious services read twice as much compared with those who attended frequently.

Those likeliest to read religious books included older and married women, lower earners, minorities, lesser educated people, Southerners, rural residents, Republicans and conservatives.

Twenty five percent of the respondents said they had not read a book in the past year. One respondent would rather sit in his pool (evidently not one of the people Kassia vacations with) than read. While the article describes Americans has hardly ravenous readers, I wonder who we are compared with. Personally, I am well on my way to reading 15+ books this year and I am rapidly clearing out my inventory.

(Not sure what Pat Schroeder is on about...)

Trip Advisor Buys Facebook Application

I'm not much of a joiner but I grudgingly set up a Facebook page when I got several invites and I am still not convinced it is up to much. All the cool kids are doing it so why not me? Facebook is an open application platform (and if I were remotely technical this would really excite me), which enables a multitude of developers to build mini applications that Facebook users can 'load' to their page and use. These applications cover any number of uses and I have loaded one for books, questions and a travel application named 'where I've been'.

Here is my 'map':



















According to the NYT the developer of this application is now $3.0mm richer via Trip Advisor. Trip Advisor is itself a fun site to browse if you are looking to find out what other travelers have said about airlines, hotels, destinations that you may be thinking about visiting. What they will do with this application is any one's guess. Perhaps I am cynical but the application as it exists is akin to notches on a bedstead - more bragging rights perhaps than anything useful.

Harlequin is Torstar's Waking Beauty

The McClatchy’s, the Chandler’s, the Bancroft’s: Is the family that owns Canada’s largest newspaper by circulation The Toronto Star the next to evacuate the newspaper business? Cash cows with seeming locked-in revenue growth for decades, these businesses provided expansive income for the growing web of family members over the years, and they also enabled particular social and political agendas to comfort their sense of responsibility.

Revenues have stagnated, and perhaps some bad decisions can’t be so readily ignored nor radical changes in business models experimented with since revenue growth is no longer a luxury they can take for granted. Younger members of the family don’t share a cohesive sense of mission and grow skittish at any suggestion the nest egg some may have yet to get may be waning. Quarter by quarter management runs out of ways to describe their ‘difficult’ business environment as circulation drops, display ads decrease and classified ads migrate to craigslist and monster.com.

Torstar is controlled by five families who own ‘A’ shares in the Torstar two share structure. 'A' shares hold all voting rights. B shares have none. Only a member of one of the five families can own A shares meaning that if A shares are sold and are purchased by someone other than a family member they become B shares with no voting rights. Torstar owns The Toronto Star, a stable of community newspapers in Ontario, a percentage in a Canadian broadcaster and the publisher Harlequin. The company is not reported to be for sale even though there has been a natural increase in interest in the company given the churn in newspaper properties south of the border.

On their earnings call last week, the company warned against investors believing the company could sell-up: "I would never counsel someone to acquire Torstar shares on the assumption that there will be a transformational transaction with respect to the ownership of the company," Torstar chief executive officer Rob Prichard said while discussing the second quarter.

Nevertheless, rumors circulate within the company especially as a result of an investment by Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. which bought 5.4 million non-voting shares earlier this year. Fairfax owns over 18% of class B shares but has said this represents a long term investment and they are not looking to influence the board. Torstar shares have traded in the low C$20 range but some analysts have suggested it could be valued at C$30+ per share.

Harlequin was founded in 1949 as a general trade publisher and morphed into the romance publisher we know today by acquiring publishing rights to Mills and Boone titles during the 1950s. As the popularity of these titles grew they began publishing their own romance titles and eventually acquired Mills and Boone. Torstar purchased 52% of the company in 1975 and until recently Harlequin has been a strong financial performer for Torstar.

In my view, Harlequin is a lost jewel of the publishing industry in the sense that no major publisher has set its sights on acquiring the company. Some have attempted it and difficulties exist particularly with the Canadian ownership requirements that preclude a foreign company from buying a Canadian company; however, with the recent acquisition of Thomson Learning which was (is) also a Canadian company a deal could be constructed that satisfies the legal requirements. Unfortunately, from a Torstar perspective selling Harlequin may not be in their interests because as the Harlequin business improves – and recent results indicate they will – then Harlequin may be responsible for a significant amount of the earnings growth the company can be assured of as their core newspaper business continues to falter.

On projected 2007 revenues of CN$475mm and projected operating profit of CN$65mm the company could be worth CN$500mm. They could generate a higher multiple since they have been able to push margins over 18%. The current Torstar market cap is C$1.3billion which might indicate that the current share price does not reflect a realistic valuation for Harlequin (or the valuation on the newspaper is depressing the share price which seems more likely). It remains to be seen if there is any action here, but on a positive note, Harlequin seems to be improving financially and broadening their revenue base to include the Internet and e-book publishing.

Some of the Torstar family members may be casting about for their own ‘Murdoch-like’ acquirer. Coincidentally, Independent News and Media which owns newspapers in the UK, Ireland, New Zealand and elsewhere could be a candidate. The company is controlled by Sir Anthony O’Reilly who could be more than interested in adding The Toronto Star to the portfolio.

I’m With Him

In an Associated Press article posted in early June, “Publishers Testing e-books for Young People” (MSNBC), Jon Yaged, U.S. publisher of the Disney Book Group, expressed his reluctance to use the term e-book, instead preferring “digital books.” His quote: “There hasn't been enough success with the e-book. We believe it's better to call it something different."I’ve had it with the term e-book too (or is it eBook? ebook? What if it starts a sentence? Is it EBook?). It’s messy, it’s inconsistently spelled, and it conveys the entirely wrong message. I have a hope that changing the terminology around the e-book might help to spark some new thinking on the subject. There has to be a better argument for digital books than “you can read in bed with the light on” (frequently cited, see this NY Times article from August 9 ).

If the goal of the e-book isn’t to replicate the reading experience online but change it fundamentally, what new business models could ensue? This is not to criticize the worthy efforts and significant technology and standards hurdles overcome by those working in this area—just a shout out to the sales and marketing strategists who might capitalize on what is indeed a growing market by changing things up a bit.

Susan Ruszala who is a freelance marketing consultant to publishing technology companies and was formerly responsible for international marketing activities for VISTA (now Publishing Technology Plc). She is an avid reader. You can contact Susan at sruszala@gmail.com.

Metadata and Google Booksearch

Peter Brantley (on O'Reilly) blogs about a journal article by Paul Duguid on the quality (representation) of Google Book Search. It is not good. Peter's blog is worth reading in its entirety but I was interested in what he said about metadata:

However, Duguid's analysis of Google Book Search is far deeper than a consideration of the cosmetic defects of the books' electronic skin. Rather, he
recognizes that faults lurk so visibly because Google is throwing away information that are fundamentally characteristic of books -- metadata that describe and even determine what books are, as simple and trivial as volume numbers, or artifacts of type design, editing, and artistic production. Books are not, in other words, mere bags of words, but vehicles in which ride a wide sundry of other passengers -- metadata, artistic expression, whimsy, and error.

I have long believed that the sheer explosion of information makes consistently constructed bibliographic databases like WorldCat more valuable than less. What I don't understand in the Google Book Search production process is where the connection between the call number and the book broke down. Surely, detailed metadata exists for these titles in the library catalogues from which the books emanate. Admittedly not all the physical characteristics that Peter notes but perhaps the catalog record is a starting point. How hard will fixing the broken synapse be? Ironic to think the full text exists in an electronic database but can't be recognized.

Queensland: A History for A$900,000

The Courier Mail in Queensland is reporting that one lucky University Professor has won a no bid contract for A$900,000 to write a history of the State of Queensland. Sounds like a plum assignment given that he has already written a two volume history of the state up to 1980. How much more work can there be?

Henry Rosenbloom, publisher of the highly respected independent Scribe, Australia's small publisher of the year in 2006, was astonished at the figure. "I've never heard of anything like it," he said. "It's the sort of advance you would give a major sporting celebrity like Steve Waugh for a biography that you could be certain of selling hundreds of thousands of copies." The history will be published in 2009 to coincide with sesqui-centenary celebrations as Queensland turns 150, with its funding coming from the State Government body Q150 Celebrations.

This conincidentally (or comically) occurs at the same time as Angus & Robertson are being lambasted for trying to run a profitabe retailing operation and being charged with not supporting the small publisher and indigenous author. Wouldn't it be nice if that A$900,000 went to support publishing in Queensland across the board rather than one lucky fellow who's end product won't even be commercial. It certainly won't win any awards.

SharedBook Launches Partnership with Carepages

I have mentioned Sharedbook a few times recently and they announced today the launch of a partnership with Carepages, Inc. From the press release:

SharedBook Inc., the Reverse Publishing Platform provider, and CarePages, Inc., the leading Internet service for building online health communities, launched the CarePages Keepsake Book today in response to member requests to publish the health updates, photographs and encouraging messages posted in their online CarePages communities in professionally-printed book format.

CarePages.com offers free, personal, private Web pages that help family and friends communicate when someone is hospitalized or receiving care. CarePages.com builds communities of support where families and friends can access resources, tools and guidance to learn what to do and say – and how to communicate and care with compassion and sensitivity.

“We hear from hundreds of families each day regarding how CarePages.com has helped them during a time of need,” said Eric Langshur, Chief Executive Officer, CarePages, Inc. “We value our members’ feedback and are pleased to introduce a feature they requested – the ability to preserve their user-generated content in book format.”

Earlier this month ShareBook also announced an enhanced version of their Blog2Print widget which enables easy production of blog content into book form. From the press release"

Blog2Print now automatically flows photographs and other images into blog book format along with the appropriate text, similar to the way content appears online. Additional enhancements include the ability to format more complex blogs. All updates will seamlessly apply to the Blog2Print widgets that have been placed on blogs to date. "Since we first introduced Blog2Print in beta form, bloggers from around the world have been telling us what works, what doesn't and which features they would like to see," said Caroline Vanderlip, Chief Executive Officer, SharedBook Inc. "The feedback we've received from the user community has been invaluable to date, and we hope to learn more as the public beta program continues."

Seeing how SharedBook can turn your blog into book form is incredibly easy. Anyone constructing publishing a blog for a specific event or commemoration requires very little technical skill (if any) to go the next step to produce a book.

Outsourced Future for Newspapers?

Is page proofing and editing a value added function for newspapers? Evidently the New Zealand Herald has decided that it is not and are outsourcing these functions to a third party.
According to news reports (Forbes):

Starting Sunday, 20 sub editors will work full time at contractor Pagemasters New Zealand at a site 20 minutes from the paper's editorial offices. By year end, Pagemasters will employ about 45 editing staff at their site to edit the seven newspapers - nearly 30 fewer than the newspapers employed.

If all goes according to plan, by year end five daily and three weekly papers will enjoy the benefits of this outsourced program. Among those benefits are better use of content across all the papers, lower expenses and more efficient use of production and editorial technology.

Naturally journalism groups don't approve of this measure (Seven Network)

"This is a panic measure to save money, but in the end it is crazy economics because it will only further reduce the quality of journalism and accelerate circulation decline," IFJ general secretary Aidan White said in a statement. When APN's outsourcing was originally announced earlier this year the IFJ said it had never before been attempted on such a large scale and represented a threat to news around the world.

This could be just the tip of the proverbial iceberg since the Herald is part owned by Independent News and Media which also announced a similar program for newspapers in Ireland. INM owns over 170 newspapers around the world including The Independent and The Irish Independent. If this program works it will be rolled out to many more newspapers.

I am however reminded of Bill Keller's (NYT Executive Editor) recent comments that in the age of Internet reporting, perhaps journalists will be required to edit themselves more than they have ever been because the inherent need to publish quicker doesn't allow for edit and revision cycles found at traditional newspapers. He also said editorial standards may fall because of this evolution. How much then is this move to outsource only a weigh station in the elimination of the process of editing itself?

Japan Bought 331% More Books on Phones in 2006

New publishing models abound if you just look hard enough for them. We have mentioned before the success that e-book producers have had in Japan selling e-books segment by segment on phones and here is some proof of the success:

Mobile phone sales of electronic books, including manga, grew 331.3% from 1.6billion yen (about US$14 million) to 6.9 billion yen (US$58 million) in 2006. The non-phone Internet sales of electronic books grew 69.7% from 4.8 billion yen (US$41 million) to 8.1 billion yen (US$68 million).

The Digital Content Association that reported the results expect sales to reach $100mm by year end. Not too shabby.

Tip of the Hat to Nick Bogaty.

Textbook Pricing: Any New Ideas?

In an op-ed piece for the New York Times this weekend Michael Granof proposes a subscription based financial model while debasing the recent Congressional "Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance."

Unfortunately though, the committee has proposed a remedy that would only worsen the problem. The committee’s report, released in May, mainly proposes strengthening the market for used textbooks — by encouraging college bookstores to guarantee that they will buy back textbooks, establishing online book swaps
among students and urging faculty to avoid switching textbooks from one semester to the next. The fatal flaw in that proposal (and similar ones made by many State Legislatures) is that used books are the cause of, not the cure for, high textbook prices.

His model is similar to the software license model and it is a model I have suggested is inevitable in educational publishing. Interestingly, all the major educational publishers are completely familiar and at ease with subscription models because they are used universally for their information products and in certain market segments.

The financial constraints are such that implementing a subscription model for educational texts is almost impossible to imagine unless, as the adage goes, 'they make it up in volume.' Just do the math: a $150 text book is now a five year subscription for $15 per year. So annual revenues are 1/10 of what they would be if the publisher is able to sell copies at 'full price.' As the publisher is able to progressively eliminate all second hand texts and the fee is made a requirement of each student in each class then perhaps by year five their income statements resemble those before the change. This is how Mr. Granof puts it:

Here’s how it would work: A teacher would pick a textbook, and the college would pay a negotiated fee to the publisher based on the number of students enrolled in the class. If there were 50 students in the class, for example, the fee might be $15 per student, or $750 for the semester. If the text were used for 10 semesters, the publisher would ultimately receive a total of $150 ($15 x 10) for each student enrolled in the course, or as much as $7,500.

My numbers may be slightly out of date (please challenge if so) but currently only about 25% of enrolled students buy a new textbook each semester. Something like 25% buy used and the rest get away with none. So if only 25% of the 50 students above by a $150 textbook that is $1,850 per class versus the one year $750 calculated above. So with the high price point but low penetration the publisher has no incentive to change to a subscription model. The potential benefit for publishers here could only be to their advantage if the sales penetration declines over time (perhaps first year they sell in 50% but as more copies are in circulation penetration of new titles drops significantly). But it does seem unlikely that the model would produce revenues at a similar level as currently enjoyed.

I may be missing something, but Mr Granof is also missing the intermediaries that are also making money both out of sales of new titles (wholesalers, bookstore) and sales of used titles. The used book market is a very large and profitable industry for the likes of Barnes & Noble and Follett. Both these companies manage college bookstores and run wholesale systems that buy used books at college stores, warehouse them and distribute them as needed. The sophisticated businesses generate significant profits and they would not be keen on a change in business model. So for now, there are too many disincentives for a change to happen. A more likely driver for business model change will be a change in the educational product itself and the way it is delivered. As there is a more discernable (and material) difference between the print and online product then the publishers may also experiment more with different price models.

WH Smiths Interested in Borders

The Manchester Evening News is reporting that WH Smiths may be considering a bid for the UK operations of Borders which were placed on the block as part of the company's restructuring.

However, a bid from WH Smith could face a number of hurdles, including competition issues, with objections from the books industry and smaller retailers if a bid for Borders in the UK was successful. Borders employs around 2,000 people in the UK and operates 71 stores - consisting of 41 Borders stores, 27 Books etc stores and three Borders express sites.It is thought the sale could generate bids of around £50 million. WH Smith is estimated to hold a 16 per cent share of the British books market, while Borders' share is thought to stand at around seven per cent.

Smith's has also faced a tough retail environment over the past several years but under the direction of CEO Kate Swann the company has rebuilt their store merchandise and redesigned their stores to positive effect.

High Voltage: Australian Publishers Upset by A&R Policy

Angus & Robertson is one of the two largest booksellers in Australia. The company has a long tradition of retailing across the country and operates a combination of corporate owned and franchise stores. Until recently, the company was owned by WH Smiths who sold the company to a private equity group, Pacific Equity Partners. A&R, together with Dymocks the other major book retailer, has been mentioned as likely buyers of the Borders operations in Australia and New Zealand. PEP wants to build a larger retailer and take the company public within the next two years.

There is no current news about the Borders sale situation but A&R has stirred up some controversy in outlining their new vendor management policy. By the way, can you imagine anything (other than If I Did It) that the publishing industry could do that would land it on the national news over here? Reported in this story is A&R's new policy to have publisher's pay for shelf space if their unit sales aren't at a sufficient level to be self-sustaining.

Australian publishers are reeling, after being told one of the country's biggest bookstore chains won't stock their books, unless they pay up thousands of dollars within weeks.The publishers are calling it blackmail. The company, the old established Angus and Robertson, says it can't afford to stock books that don't generate enough profits.

According to Mary McCaskill, President of the Australian Publisher's Association, publishers there are reeling at this 'unprecedented' step by A&R. She suggests this is a classic supermarket tactic where suppliers pay up front for shelf space.

Michael Rakusin of Tower Books comments:

[The letter] arrived on my table on Friday afternoon, and it said, very simply, 'The amount of profit we make out of Tower Books has not been sufficient to justify keeping your books on our shelves. Here is an invoice for just slightly shy of $20,000. Please pay it by the 17th of August. If you don't pay it, we will have no choice but to de-register you as an authorised supplier.' In other words, we won't buy your books anymore.

Further arguments in opposition to the new A&R policy were the old chestnuts suggesting that A&R is anti-indigenous publishing, against the small guy and other pointless arguments. The company itself is not quoted in this report. Here and here are two blog articles about the same story.

In my old home town newspaper The Age (tomorrow) they quoted from the actual letter mailed to some 40% of A&R vendors:

A&R said more than 40 per cent of its suppliers fell "below our requirements in terms of profit earned" and A&R would be "rationalising our supplier numbers and setting a minimum earnings ratio of income to trade purchases". The letter demanded payment of a sum that "represents the gap for your business, and moves it from an unacceptable level of profitability, to above our minimum threshold". If the recipient failed to pay, it would be removed from A&R's supplier list.

Suggestions that award winning books from small publishers such as Carpenteria will be hard to find in A&R stores are inaccurate and belie the fact that A&R is saying that almost half their stock is loss making. Why doesn't this penetrate? Why is A&R obliged to carry this risk? Furthermore, doesn't the continuation of this loss making activity put the money making 60% at risk? I was once told by a director at a large UK retailer who told me that 40% of their vendors received less than three invoices per year with less than five titles per invoice. (Many with only one title and one invoice per year). It cost them £10 to process each invoice which far exceeded the margin on the sale of each book. Nutty.

UPDATE:

From BeattieBookBlog a long response from A&R General Manager Dave Fenlon that includes the following:

As a commercial business, we have the right to make decisions about which suppliers we do business with. In our negotiations with suppliers, we are the customer. Unfortunately we cannot work with every publisher in Australia, particularly if the relationship is not commercially viable for us.To give you some context, we currently have 1,200 suppliers to our business and have sent letters to 47 of those whom we hope to hold discussions with over the coming weeks. The payments we have requested from those suppliers represent a gap payment for profits that were lost or costs that were incurred as a result of our commercial relationship with those particular suppliers.We are trying to operate a successful bookstore chain and if we cannot strike a balance that allows us to maintain our retail operations, the impacts on the industry will be far greater if we are forced to close stores or drastically cut down titles.Again, let me assure you that this is not about penalising authors. It is about establishing commercial arrangements with our suppliers that are viable for both parties and that allow us to offer the best value to our customers.

Gervais On Art: New York Skyline with the Opening For Heros

This Ricky Gervais video is noted by Virginia Heffernan (happy birthday?) on the New York Times site today. It was shot for GQ and Details magazine. As she says, his stuff is set on a knife edge between hilarity and squeamishness (my word).

http://screens.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/08/ricky-gervais-the-has-been-who-still-is/

Harpercollins Reports Higher Revenues

Newscorp reported financial results for their fiscal 2007 (ending June 30th) and while understandably much of the conversation on their conference call related to Dow Jones there was not one reference to Harpercollins. (Transcript). At this stage it would be premature to read anything into this for a few reasons. Firstly, Harpercollins has done consistently well over the past several years. Revenues and profits are down recently but they are off the back of a few very strong years and in particular several strong titles. Secondly, there is a divestiture log-jam at NewsCorp as they look to sell Gemstar, some small TV stations and some of the community titles that came with Dow Jones.

Harpercollins reported revenues for the quarter of $295 million, a $39 million improvement over 2006. Full year revenues of $1,347 million were $35 million better than the prior year.

Operating Income results at Harpercollins were as follows from the press release:

HarperCollins reported fourth quarter operating income of $21 million, an improvement of $27 million versus the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006. Full year operating income of $159 million declined $8 million from prior year results that included strong sales of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Current quarter results were led by sales of The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn and Hal Iggulden and The Reagan Diaries by Ronald Reagan. In addition to these titles, full year results included strong sales of Marley and Me by John Grogan, The Measure of a Man by Sidney Poitier and Michael Crichton's Next. During the fourth quarter, HarperCollins had 53 books on The New York Times bestseller list, including 8 titles that reached the number one spot, and for the full year HarperCollins had 128 books on The New York Times bestseller list, including 16 titles that reached the number one position.

Operating margin of 11.8% in 2007 declined almost 1 percentage point versus 2o06. No detail was given on the margin erosion.

PDF of the earnings report is here.

Librarything and MediaLabs

Librarything (which I have mentioned a few times) has teamed up with MediaLab the developers of the AquaBrowser faceted search tool. Via EoinPurcell.

Tim Spalding over at LibraryThing speaks highly of the Aquabrowser people and the new product:

AquaBrowser which makes one of the few really interesting online library catalogs, has teamed up with us to offer LibraryThing tags and recommendations within AquaBrowser. The product is called My Discoveries. Basically, it gives AquaBrowser a series of desirable social features, like tagging, list-making, ratings and reviews—and not in some half-assed way either. LibraryThing comes in as a way to kick off the tag data (a 21-million-tags kick) and to add recommendations to it. My Discovery customers who choose to go with LibraryThing data will be able to see both LibraryThing's as well as their own patron's efforts.

This is an interesting application using data gathered in a social network (that is for free) to create additional value in an application that is fee based. Nothing wrong with that. Since MediaLabs is owned by Bowker (and AquaBrowser was implemented in BooksinPrint under my watch) when will Librarything data be incorporated into BIP?

Amazon and Self-Publishing

Shelf Awareness had the following interesting blurb about an new Amazon.com initiative:

CreateSpace, which Amazon.com bought in 2005, has launched an online Books on Demand service and will not charge setup fees for those books--and at the same time is ending setup fees for its DVD and CD on demand services. CreateSpace on demand books will be displayed on Amazon as "in stock" and will be shipped within 24 hours. They are eligible for various Amazon programs, including Amazon Prime. Books are printed with full-color paperback covers and text may be printed in black-and-white or color and in multiple trim sizes. Authors may order copies at "competitive wholesale prices."In a statement, Amazon's senior v-p, North American retail, Jeff Wilke said, "The new CreateSpace Books on Demand service removes substantial economic barriers and makes it really easy for authors who want to self-publish their books and distribute them on Amazon.com."

It will be interesting to see what impact this initiative is going to have on the iUniverse, Exlibris, Author House and Lulu's of the self-publishing world. Of course, many self-publishers (and some may say authors generally) have grandiose notions about their sales chances and the direct connection to the biggest on-line book emporium may be a huge attraction. There is of course the virtual certainty that these books won't do any better than if published by Publish American: Will that become a customer service problem for Amazon.com?

Do it Your Self Penguin Covers

A new twist on the Penguin initiative that allows you to design your own Penguin classic cover.

At MyPenguin several bands and musicians have added their own covers. Razorlight, Beck, Goldspot, Dragonette, Ryan Adams, Johnny Flynn and Mr. Hudson & The Library all chose the Penguin Classic they most wanted to see NAKED... then they did a cover for it.

At left is Beck's cover.

Playboy Archive & Bondi Digital

Update: This post was made a few months ago and this morning The New York Times comments on both the Playboy and the Rolling Stone DVD archive coming soon from Bondi Digital.

Since posting the following, I have seen the packages and they are impressive.


In October, I found myself in a cold gloomy basement antique store in Omaha, Nebraska. It was a fairly large room with variable content including a collection of magazines and books. The books were not special - although there was one first edition I knew was worth over $100 except that some moron had made a square cut in the dust jacket. The magazines included hundreds of Playboy magazines and I wish I had taken a photo of them as they were impressive and in much disarray. No doubt many old geezers like me spent time in that area.

At around the same time, I met David Anthony of Bondi Digital who was just wrapping up an agreement with Playboy Publishing to digitize the entire run of Playboy magazines. It is an exciting project and they hope to have the first products in stores for Christmas. They will approach the project by creating decade long sets of the magazine which will be available on discs packaged in large format book like packages. Each package will also include a booklet reflecting on the content on the disc which will be an exact replication of the print product - cover to cover. The content will be searchable and there will be an index.

"This digital archive is a first in the mass consumer magazine andmen's category," says Hugh M. Hefner, Playboy Founder, Editor-in-Chief and Chief Creative Officer. Playboy magazine has a tremendous legacy. With ourloyal readership, which has always shown a real interest in our archival issues, we knew this would be the perfect opportunity to offer Playboy fans what they have wanted for years."

Given this initiative (it follows Bondi's work with The New Yorker Archive) those interested in Playboy (and you know who you are) will not have to skulk around in basements anymore to find missing issues. By the end of next year the full set should be completed to the eternal enjoyment of all Playboy 'readers'.

Rolling Stone Post

Borders Australian Stores

The Australian Bookseller and Publisher is reporting (via SMH) that KPMG will be circulating the black books to parties interested in acquiring the Australian Borders stores on Thursday. The magazine is reporting that the business unit could be worth over A$200mm and Dymocks may be the leading candidate for acquisition. Angus and Robertson the other leading contender is owned by Pacific Equity Partners which also owns New Zealand retailer Whitcoulls and has stated an intention to form a large retail chain and then float the business on the stock exchange.

ABP also suggested that Australian big box retailers Woolworths and "Big W" may also be interested. Stay tuned.

(ABP is a Bowker property - Hello to all the staff down under).

Harlequin Reports

Torstar the owner of Harlequin reported marginally higher revenues against the same period last year for the Harlequin operating unit. They expect full year revenues to continue to improve against a 'difficult' 2006. Torstar's main revenues are generated by newspaper advertising revenues which continue to fall (as is the case with most North American newspapers). Overall the newspaper group's revenues rose just less than 2% for the quarter versus the same period last year.

Harlequin has been under-going a reorganization which began earlier last year and in the quarter operating profit was up 20% from $10.2mm to $12.5; however, the company also stated that operating profits in 2006 were artificially low due to shipping problems. (Torstar Press Release). First quarter revenues were up $6.2mm but included $5.1mm in exchange rate benefit. Second quarter revenues were up $1.4 including a gain of $0.9mm in exchange rate fluctuation. For the first six months Harlequin revenues are up only $1.4mm at constant rates on total revenues for the six months of $240.4mm (less than 1%). Operating income, where it looks like efficiencies are having some impact is $31.6mm for the first half which represents a 25% increase and an operating margin improvement from 11% to 13%. (There was an $0.8mm exchange benefit in operating income).

Details on the company's operating issues is sparse but it does look like the company continues to have difficulty expanding their revenue base. The lack of revenue growth is clearly the story here with the company struggling over the past several quarters to burst out of the doldrums. They have commented that mass market continues to be a difficult market for them and it would be interesting to hear from the company how some of their new sources of revenue - particularly online - are doing. Some of the things they are doing with online community building and leveraging their brand online are truly exciting and innovative but strangely lacking in the company reports.

Everyone knows this is a company with a tremendous brand name and image: With many other trade publisher's (with far less brand strength) reporting good to strong growth in revenue and operating income in the last few weeks it seems Harlequin are not performing to expectations.