Shared Book And Random House

In what I expect with be the first of many similar relationships, SharedBook has formed an alliance with Random House to create personalized versions of Children's books. The Pokey Little Puppy will be the first title in this new venture.

Utilizing SharedBook's Reverse Publishing Platform, consumers can now create a unique, personalized version of The Poky Little Puppy by using an online book-making template. Consumers can create their own version of The Poky Little Puppy complete with a custom dedication and also upload a personal photo to the front of the book. The book is then purchased and sent to the printer for on-demand output in laminated hardcover format.

I saw a sample of this product several weeks ago and other than the personalization the book is indistinguishable from a book found on the shelves of any bookstore. The binding, boards, ink and color qualities are all of a high level as you would expect from a product from Random House.

The price for a unique, personalized edition of The Poky Little Puppy is $25 in laminated hardcover format, which includes standard domestic shipping. Completed books arrive in 10-14 business days. Expedited shipping options are available for an additional charge.

I interviewed Caroline Vanderlip, CEO of SharedBook a few months ago and here is her interview.

Beah Strongly Denies Any "Poetic License"

Ishmael Beah strongly denies any of the assertions raised in The Weekend Australian's about the accuracy of his memoir/autobio A Long Way Gone. Here is the text of his statement released yesterday on his website.

FARRAR STRAUS AND GIROUX, BOOK PUBLISHERS
19 Union Square West
New York,
NY 10003
January 22, 2008
For immediate release

For months I told Bob Lloyd and The Australian’s reporter, Shelley Gare, through my publisher, my agent, and my adoptive mother, that unfortunately they were wrong, that the man they claimed was my father was not my father, and that my mother and brothers were not alive, as Lloyd claimed. Last week, when The Australian sent reporters to my home in Sierra Leone, they were forced to cknowledge that this has been a hoax.

Now The Australian’s reporters are trying to raise questions about the dates in my book, A Long Way Gone, regarding when the war came to my village. They offer as "proof" a man named Mr. Barry who claims to have been the head of the school I attended when I was young. I have never heard of a Mr. Barry. The principal of my school was Mr. Sidiki Brahima.

The war in Sierra Leone began in 1991. My story, as I remember it and wrote it, began in 1993 when rebels “attacked the mining areas” (my words from the book) in my village while I was away with friends. I never saw my family again. The Australian, presumably, is basing their defamation of me on reports that the Sierra Rutile Mine was closed down by rebels in 1995. But there were rebels in my region, my village, and my life in 1993. They attacked throughout 1993 and 1994 before closing down the mine.

Others from Sierra Leone can bear witness to the truth of my story.

Leslie Mboka, National Chairman of the Campaign for Just Mining in Freetown, was a counselor at Benin Home, the rehabilitation center in Freetown, Sierra Leone, which I entered in January 1996. He told this to my publisher, Sarah Crichton, on the telephone today:

“A gentleman named Wilson was here investigating regarding Ishmael Beah’s book, and I told him emphatically - emphatically- that Ishmael’s accounts are accurate and correct. Wilson was going to Mogbwemo to find out if Ishmael Beah’s family was alive. When he came back to Freetown, he said he couldn’t find anyone alive, and the man who said he was Ishmael’s father was actually just a relative. But then he asked, what about confusion with the dates? And I said, there is no problem with the dates.

The rebels made sporadic attacks on the mining communities between ’93 and ’94, leading up to and in preparation for the major assault in ’95. In fact, military personnel were deployed to the area because there were these sporadic raids. Ishmael was caught in one of the earlier attacks. I told all this to Peter Wilson. I told him everything that Ishmael wrote is accurate and completely factual, and I explained to him what was confusing him. I do not understand what his paper’s agenda is. I do not understand why they are trying to blackmail this brilliant and honest young man.”

Mboka was contacted by The New York Times when they fact-checked the excerpts of my book which they published. His testimony did not appear in The Australian’s reporting.

Beah and Publisher Sticking to it

As noted on Saturday, The Australian newspaper is asking some very pointed questions about material facts in the A Long Way Gone memoir/autobiography written by Ishmael Beah. Reports today in Publishers Lunch and Publisher's Weekly have not shed anymore light on the issue. Beah has written to the editor of The Australian (but it hasn't been printed) and the author, publisher and agent all stand by the story.

This article takes the questions minutely forward from the earlier two articles noted in the post below and also contains a quote from the creative writing professor who helped Beah write the book:

Creative writing professor Dan Chaon, who helped Beah produce the book, told The
Australian: "If it turns out there are factual errors, I wouldn't necessarily be all that concerned about it."

In his book, Beah says his home town, the mine where his father worked and his mother's town were all attacked in January 1993. He and a group of friends were then waiting in Mattru Jong for news when a Catholic priest was ordered by the rebels to deliver a message telling people in the town to co-operate with the rebels. Many people fled immediately; two weeks later, the rebels attacked from a surprise inland route, leaving only one unanticipated escape route on a footpath through a nearby swamp.

That is exactly what happened in 1995, according to the adult witnesses, internal records at the mine and numerous published sources.

More than likely there is more to come of this and there is more news expected today from the publisher.

Post: A Thousand Little Pieces?

Pearson Full Year Above Expectations

Pearson announced this morning in their routine trading update that the company continues to perform well and that they expect to produce record profits for the full year (2007). The elaborate that the company has seen both sales growth and margin improvement leading to strong case generation and improvements in capital employeed.

Management has noted that education is having continues to perform well competitively and that they will have their best year ever in this segment. Their other groups, FT Group, FT Publishing and Penguin also performed well due to growth in advertising, subscriptions and publishing program.

As a result of this operating performance they expect to report at or above the top end of market expectations even taking into account the weakened US dollar.

Scardino:

"This is another excellent performance across all our businesses and on all our financial measures. We have produced another record year and our third consecutive year of underlying earnings growth in the mid-teens or higher. Over this period we have changed the shape of Pearson, invested in our future growth and made the company more efficient and more resilient. Those moves make us confident that we will sustain our financial and competitive progress in 2008."

Press Release
Reuters

Quebecor Fails - Update

The banks have stepped in after the Quebecor was placed in receivership early Monday. The Globe and Mail says it best:

A rescue financing backed by parent Quebecor, run by Mr. Peladeau, and restructuring fund Tricap Partners was just too cute by a half for banks that had, until August, been willing lenders. Quebecor World carries $2.5-billion of debt. Mr. Peladeau misread the sea change in sentiment among lenders that has come with the credit crunch.

It is likely that the company will be sold up in the short term as soon as the existing lenders can get as much as they think possible for the debt they own. Existing shareholds - primarily Mr Pelaseau's holding company may get nothing.

Update:
A Canadian judge has agreed to allow the company to seek protection and the company is likely to receive the same protection this morning in New York.

An update and more background from The Toronto Star.

Blurb.com Sees Huge Self-Publishing Growth

I am a big fan of Blurb.com's publishing solution. I have used it a number of times to produce high quality photo books and I currently have three more elaborate projects I am working on. Not only is the software easy to use, it provides a powerful set of tools that enable a wide variety of layouts and customization. I recently recommended Blurb to someone who have completed a safari in Africa and I have been trying to get Mrs PND to include the product in her Interior Design business. Other products exist in this segment including mypublisher.com and picabo.com but I have found Blurb to be the easiest to use.

Blurb.com has released impressive figures on the number of titles they published during 2007. Approximately 80,000 titles were produced by this publisher during the past year which dwarfs the numbers of new titles published each year by traditional publishing houses.

“Blurb is redefining how success is measured in publishing,” said Eileen Gittins, Blurb’s founder and CEO. “For some, success is creating a book that helps raise money for a foundation, for others it might be selling 25 copies of one’s own book, and for still others it might be a marketing piece like an event book or portfolio. Unlike traditional publishers whose economics drive a focus on the best-seller, Blurb is expanding the book market to include books for millions of very small, niche markets.”

The market for these titles extends from people like me who produce one or two printed titles to others who may print several hundred to support a business or seminar program. The flexibility and variety enable all kinds of applications and it is entirely possible that the market is yet only partially satisfied. Driven by the continued growth in digital camera sales and the adoption of images into a much broader array of applications - from facebook to phones to blogs is likely that Blurb and other companies like it will continue to see rapid increases in usage. More people are taking more photos and using the photos in more places.

My family has boxes of slides from 40 yrs of travels; I am looking forward at some point to scan these and reinvigorate this family history. Over Christmas I went in search of this collection and found them somewhat discarded in a box in the attic. Not only are products like Blurb for current collections but with a little application they can be applied to older collections of images as well. Working with Blurb becomes a new type of hobby and since you can also add text as well is an increasing number of sophisticated self-publishers out there.

Other posts
Blurb and Self-Publishing
Blurb USAToday

Ten Things About Cormac McCarthy

The London Times has a profile of Cormac McCarthy which lists ten things you may (probably) don't know about 'America's greatest living writer'.

Link

Is A Long Way Gone Just A Thousand Little Pieces?

An investigation into some of the key facts underlying Ishmael Beah's autobiography A Long Way Gone suggests that his experiences in war torn Sierra Leone may not have happened the way they are described in the book. Among the assertions that The Weekend Australia raises are that Beah was two years older when he went to war than he states in the book (15 versus 13) and instead of being in the army for 2 years it may have been only 2-3mths. There are other factual details that on investigation by The Weekend Australian tend to undercut critical and important facets of Beah's story.

Thus far, there has been no response from Farrar, Straus and Giroux the US publisher and I hope there is some reasonable explanation for the identified problems in this book. Beah has gone on to become a United Nations advocate for children affected by war as well as a frequent spokes person in support of his book. This is important work and it would be horrible if this work were impacted. The Australian is an important news organization in Australia so they will not have taken this story lightly.

The disparities in Beah's account came about through some very elemental research by someone who had just read the book and then found themselves working in Sierra Leone. It doesn't appear that it took too much effort to find these errors. It remains to be seen if this escalates into a Frey type melt down or the record is corrected in some minor inconsequential way.

More from The Australian: Here

Monday Update: Here

Quebecor Update

A report in the Canadian Financial Post suggests Quebecor's stock may be delisted if the company isn't able to comply with listing requirements that have been specified in a 'terse' letter to the company. Truthfully, this could be the least of their problems since the article believes that existing investors in Quebecor are unlikely to accept the recently announced rescue plan. The existing debtors may be unwilling to allow the company to collapse and will seek to negotiate a better deal for themselves - at least given the circumstances.

Failing the Test

Pauline Vu of Stateline.org takes a look at the impact and variation in federally mandated testing programs (Article). This is an interesting report for anyone involved in education and specifically testing as she documents how different are the approaches to testing undertaken by different states. Perhaps no news to education publishers, but she notes that the testing market has grown from $400mm to over $1.1bill in the years since the passage of no child left behind (2001). It follows then that the largest publishers have invested heavily in this segment and that the business is dominated by the top five education publishers. From her article:

Much of the work is done by five giants: CTB/McGraw-Hill, Educational Testing Service, Harcourt Assessment, Pearson Educational Measurement and Riverside Publishing. Together, the companies own about 90 percent of the state-testing business, which has become a $1.1 billion industry since passage of the federal No child Left Behind Act in 2001. The law, which took effect in January 2002, requires states to give annual reading and math tests to third- through eighth-graders, and to test students in those subjects once again in high school

The absence of both Federal guidelines and consistency from state to state has also created significant disparity in testing approaches and effectiveness. This coupled with a tendency to manipulate the test outcomes - thereby making the educators look more effective - has some worried that the objectives in the testing program are compromised.

“States are not putting any more resources into the testing infrastructure, and as a result, we are getting testing on the cheap, and that is working against No Child Left Behind’s efforts to produce high-quality assessments that promote higher standards,” said Thomas Toch, the co-director of Education Sector, a nonpartisan think tank. “If we’re going to make tests the driver of quality in public education, then we need to invest to ensure that we get tests that are up to that task.”

There is little doubt that the testing business will continue to grow. In the absence of 'no child left behind' teachers and administrators have now 'drunk the cool aid' and understand that they can use testing to their own advantage. Ironically, without uniform objectives, practices and policies it is the students who will be left disadvantaged. There is much more in the article.

One Man's Trash...

I admit it, I have been known to pick up a discarded book from the sidewalk on occasion. The Times this morning tells us how books have become the new 'recyclables' for some of the city's homeless and down and outs. No suggestion that these budding entrepreneurs are reading the books they collect from rubbish and recycling, but they do trot down to The Strand and cash them in. Sometimes they get lucky, and relationships count in this game: One resourceful chap received $600 for a set of leather bound books.

Courier Struggles

Courier corporation was the latest printer to forecast lower results. In a statement yesterday, the company said its first quarter profit declined on slow textbook orders and low Creative Homeowner book sales. The company lowered its fiscal year 2008 outlook and as a result the stock price was hammered (but then so were a lot of them). The company reported first quarter net income of $1.4mm versus $4.0mm in the same period last year.

From the press release:

"We were hit by simultaneous challenges on both sides of our business this quarter," said Courier Chairman and Chief Executive Officer James F. Conway III. "In book manufacturing, despite all indications pointing to another full year of strong sales in education, textbook reprint orders were unexpectedly slow this fall, sharply reducing the segment's capacity utilization and profitability even as we continued to gain share. Normally, publishers order textbook reprints during the fall to spread manufacturing workloads throughout the year, but this year a variety of industry factors significantly reduced that order flow. In publishing, Creative Homeowner sales continued to be held back by reduced consumer traffic at home improvement centers, its most important sales channel.

The stock is trading at $26.01 which is a 52week low.

George Wins Lottery

I once went to a George Michael concert. It really wasn't my fault. The seats were free and Mrs PND really wanted to go. It was horrible. In fact, it was so bad I can still recall it vividly even though this was 1990.

Despite me, George went on to build a huge solo career and release popular albums during the 1990s. He hasn't done much recently unless you count arrests for recreational drug use, driving while intoxicated and performance of lewd acts in public. Some might say he was better at those than singing. Certainly more consistent. George was in the last episode of Extra's where he basically owned up to all of those 'errors of judgement' in a very hilarious way. Well done George.

Yesterday his autobiography became another in a long list of expensively purchased celebrity blather. I am sure everyone is all a twitter about whether George is going to name names and that can really be the only reason why any publisher would consider this a potential commercial success. According to Harpercollins, George is one of the most popular pop figures in the world and has an 'extraordinary story' to tell. They forgot to add the bit about 'humble upbringings' and his 'life of adversity'. HC has paid 'millions' and the deal is 'one of the biggest ever concluded in British publishing'

Will the book soar into the stratosphere or plummet like a stone. One thing is certain, I did my part back in 1990 and the book is not getting into the PND household. What more could he have to say that we don't already know?

Press Association

Jobs Kicks the Kindle

In the bits blog on the NYTimes Steve Jobs gets it right for the Kindle but for all the wrong reasons:

Mr. Jobs can be like that when he assesses the competition.

Today he had a wide range of observations on the industry, including the Amazon Kindle book reader, which he said would go nowhere largely because Americans have stopped reading.

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

Unfortunately, that's hard to take seriously and I would have expected better. I would always have given Apple and Jobs more credit in understanding market dynamics and trends. On the surface his comment is partly accurate, but there is no cause and effect here.

Does this mean we aren't about to see books on the iPhone in quantity? Of course, it could be misinformation.

From another perspective, it has been the media industry and the publishing community specifically that has kept this company (Apple) relevant for the past 15years (at least) via their loyal devotion to the Mac platform. To all those dedicated authors, marketing and design professionals in the publishing industry locked into the Apple mystique this comment should come as a kick in the processor.

Future of Bibliographic Control

Biblio data providers will be beating a path to the Library of Congress site in the next few days in their collective effort to foresee the future of bibliographic data. The Report is now available for review and certainly the commercial providers, who did not participate in the development of the report, will be anxious to know what the library community sees in their crystal ball.

Here is a sample from their executive summary:

The Working Group envisions a future for bibliographic control that will be collaborative, decentralized, international in scope, and Web-based. The realization of this future will occur in cooperation with the private sector and with the active collaboration of library users. Data will be gathered from multiple sources; change will happen quickly; and bibliographic control will be dynamic, not static.

The Report is based on the key premise that the community is at a critical juncture in the evolution of bibliographic control and information access/provision. It is time to take stock of past practices, to look at today’s trends, and to project a future path consistent with the goals of bibliographic control: to facilitate discovery, management, identification, and access of and to library materials and other information products. Libraries must work in the most efficient and cooperative manner to minimize where possible the costs of bibliographic control, but both the Library of Congress and library administrators generally must recognize that they need to identify and allocate (or, as appropriate, reallocate) sufficient funding if they are serious about attaining the goals of improved and expanded bibliographic
control.

The report also states that they want the report to generate a wider discussion - a "call to action" that will lead to more specific plans and recommendations.

Cruising for a Lawsuit

Readers in Australia, UK and New Zealand will not be able to read the new Tom Cruise bio written by Andrew Morton. Fearing a threatened $100mm lawsuit, the Pan Macmillan business units in those countries are backing off. According to the book, Cruise is not gay, is second in command of the church of Scientology and (more bizarrely) his current wife was impregnated with the sperm of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Through a combination of web reports and Youtube, readers in the UK, Australia and New Zealand will be able to get the essential elements of the book without actually having to buy it. In that respect, they might have an advantage. Having said that, there is so much 'leakage' in the antipodean market that booksellers will continue to import the title direct from the US. The Dymock chain said earlier this week that they would not stock the title but many other retailers are likely to order it.

SMH

Edge Boston (Where they name the author 'Thomas' Morton).

Pearson Near Sale of FT Deutchland

Pearson invested in a German language version of the FT in 2000. The company reports that the edition has had some success but remains steadfastly unprofitable and for the past year they have been trying to off load it. Late last year, the company appeared to have a sale (Spiegel) but that deal fell through. German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is reporting that the German partner in this deal with Pearson will buy them out. According to reports Gruner + Jahr will pay next to nothing for the deal. Reuters.

Bloomsbury Guidance

Bucking the trend in yesterdays stock melt-down, shares of Bloomsbury Publishing rose on the back of a report from the company that operating results would be better than anticipated. The company is the publisher of Harry Potter but has invested broadly over the past 12 months in advancement of the series' denouement. The company reports that several specific titles, investments in the US and Germany and a number of key rights sales have contributed to the expected full year performance.

Full year results will be released on April 1st.

Bloomberg
Guardian

LiveMocha Update

I wrote recently on a social networking approach to language learning which I thought we quite innovative. LiveMocha, the site I looked at had launched at an innovators conference in September last year and the company just announced they have received over $5mm in equity funding to expand the business. Noted in the announcement is that the lead investor is Maverson which is the vc firm of Starbucks founder Howard Schultz.

Seattle Post

Prior Post

(I am personally interested in this due to my work at Berlitz many years ago).

Amazon: The law est un idiot

Per expectation, Amazon's operations in France have elected to pay the silly amount of $1500/day as a fine for continuing to provide free shipping to French customers. You know, this is how revolutions get started...

As the Trib notes, this fine will be reviewed after 30 days and if the government(court) really wants to penalize them the fine will be raised substantially and so will end this symbolic effort. However, perhaps the court will recognize the ground swell of support (after all who wants to pay for something they could get for free - even the French agree that) and take the view that this is a archaic rule. Perhaps they will be enlightened and lower the fine.

From the Trib:

The 1981 Lang law was passed at a time when booksellers were losing sales to supermarkets and other new competitors. It was meant to assure that the French public had equal access to a wide variety of books, both high-brow and low-brow, not just heavily marked-down publications. The law has twice come before the European Court of Justice and both times it has been affirmed. The law is not considered anti competitive because all book retailers are held to the same standard, Manara said. In the Amazon case, a union of French bookstores won its lawsuit against the company last month over the free-shipping offer, which applies only to deliveries within France on book orders of more than €20.

Stay tuned to this riveting story.