Book Website Developers - Update

An essay in the NY Times book review on book web site developers who are gaining some notoriety as really good cover designers have in the past. (NYTimes):

The task of the book Web designer can be a tricky one. “Book sites present challenges that fashion and other sorts of sites do not,” Rabb said in a telephone interview. Because of the nature of the book medium in general, and the hope of selling movie rights in particular, “any time I get too specific about the appearance of a character, people start to get very nervous,” he added.

Instead, Rabb aims to represent a book’s “gestalt,” as he puts it. His sites often include original material from the author, as in the one he created for “The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet,” Reif Larsen’s much anticipated first novel about a young Montana prodigy obsessed with mapmaking. That site — which will be rolled out incrementally starting later this month until the book’s release in May — represents a failed “Smithsonian exhibition” of the title character’s work, with some 10 different “cabinets” documenting everything from a taxonomy of all the animals on earth to a map of the American West.

It is nice to see Sheila English (friend of the blog) get a mention in the article as well:

The book video business began back in 2002, when Sheila English, an unpublished romance novelist, trademarked the term Book Trailer and started her own company, Circle of Seven Productions. Her first clients were mostly science-fiction and romance novelists, but the invention of video-sharing sites brought interest from mainstream publishers. Three years ago, English’s company had 12 projects. In 2008, it had 140.

Update:
Over at Publishing Trends they remind me that they did this last month:

And any remaining skeptics out there, take note: Website visits translate directly to the number of books bought. Book shoppers who had visited an author website in the past week bought 38% more books, from a wider range of retailers, than those who had not visited an author site. “Is putting up a website going to make a book a bestseller? No,” says Chin. “Is the website going to help the author build an audience? I believe it can. What you don’t want is for someone to hear about your book, search for it with Google, and find nothing. That’s a potential lost sale.”

Web presence is especially essential in today’s economy. “Websites have become even more important as people are not in stores discovering books,” Fitzgerald says. “We need to get them jazzed about a title and their favorite author and give them reason not just to buy the book, but also to have a relationship with the author and his or her work so they become evangelists for them with fellow readers. These next months, author websites and communications with readers are going to be critical for engendering excitement in readers online, since something as crucial as in-store browsing is not happening.”

The point, of course, is not just to get readers to visit an author site once, but to keep them coming back. How do you make a website sticky?“The saying ‘build it and they will come,’ well, they won’t,” says Burke. He and the other designers we spoke with agreed that flashy design is not a key to success, and the Codex Group research bears that out, with Stephenie Meyer’s website as a case in point. It receives more traffic than any other fiction author site, yet its design is extremely basic, “probably a generic template where you plug in your header graphic,” says Hildick-Smith. “She may only be paying $15 a month for this site on some server system. It’s not elaborately designed at all. But she’s got a daily blog, and more than any other site in our study, she has links to fan sites. Fan site links appear to contribute to loyal audience traffic.”

SONY to Offer NetLibrary Collections

SONY and Netlibrary announce a collaboration that will enable library patrons to check-out an e-Reader and gain access to several Netlibrary e-Book collections. From the press release:

The program includes a Reader model PRS-505, a collection of titles from leading publishers and all required licenses. Using the library's PC, librarians can download a mobile collection title or titles from the NetLibrary site to the Reader as necessary.

Libraries that purchase Mobile Collections will be able to offer their patrons the ability to check out Readers for onsite or offsite use, depending on the policy established by each library. Collections, selected by NetLibrary's collections librarian, include Career Development and Business Self Help (30 titles), Management and Leadership (22 titles), Popular Fiction (29 titles), Romance (19 titles) and Young Adult Fiction (24 titles).

"OCLC member libraries have indicated a strong interest in providing a mobile device that library patrons can use to read eBooks on the go," said Chip Nilges, OCLC Vice President, Business Development. "The NetLibrary collections available with Sony's Reader Digital Book offer great variety for readers with different interests, and make it possible for library patrons to enjoy many eBooks on one portable device that offers state-of-the-art readability."

"Librarians have always been leaders in exposing their patrons to new technologies related to reading, research and learning," said Steve Haber, president of Sony's Digital Reading Business Division. "We are pleased to work with OCLC and its membership to further this cause."

Circulating Reader units through OCLC's newly established program is just one way libraries are able to offer eBooks to their communities and expose people to electronic reading. Thousands of public libraries in the United States already offer online collections that patrons can borrow, typically for two to three weeks. eBooks are offered in the Adobe PDF format and it is expected that the recently established EPUB format will become common.

Bibliographic Studies

The Library of Congress has announced they have appointed R2 Consulting to look into the current marketplace for cataloging records in MARC format. The deliverable from this engagement due June 30th will include current practices including a review of existing incentives and barriers to both contribution and availability. This project is considered a follow on phase in the library's review of the creation and distribution of bibliographic data. From the press release:

The Library has recognized that its role as a producer of bibliographic data is changing and that other libraries have options as they consider sources for cataloging records. The conclusions outlined in a report issued last year, "On the Record: Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control," indicate that cataloging activity must be shared more broadly and equitably among all libraries. Before the Library considers any changes to its cataloging commitments or priorities, however, it is vital to understand the extent to which other libraries rely on its contributions. The study will examine cataloging production and practice across all library types, including cooperative activity through OCLC, the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC), the National Library of Medicine, the National Agricultural Library, library consortia, and other shared cataloging initiatives.

Under the general direction of Deanna Marcum, Associate Librarian for Library Services at the Library of Congress, R2 will develop a description of the current economic model and will determine the extent of library participation in and reliance on existing structures and organizations. The study will show the degree to which sources other than the Library of Congress are supplying quality records in economically sufficient quantities, or whether most libraries use records created by the Library. This project is oriented toward fact-finding and reporting rather than solutions, and it is intended to produce a snapshot of the existing market. The project is scheduled for completion by June 30, 2009, with a written report and visual representation of the existing marketplace. Progress reports, along with various other data collection and communication tools, will be made available via the R2 Web site at www.r2consulting.org and the Bibliographic Control Working Group site at www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/.

"I am very optimistic that the project will shed new light on the current cataloging supply and distribution environment," Marcum said, "in such a way that future opportunities and challenges can be promptly identified and evaluated. I am hopeful that librarians and all other participants in the distribution chain will be as forthcoming as possible during the investigative process. Our intention is to understand as fully as possible both the economic and workflow implications for the U.S. and Canadian marketplace prior to implementing any changes at the Library."

On a broadly related note, the Guardian reported this week on the spat over OCLC's revision of their data use provisions that all member OCLC libraries are expected to abide by. This report is slanted against OCLC but nevertheless the organization has handled the whole issue horribly, and management has now been forced to do what they should have done in the first place which is to hold a open forum (which will now be an open bitch session).

Snowy Monday in New York

Empire State River View 2, originally uploaded by Personanondata.

Twittering

I have taken the plunge and will experiment with Twitter.

www.twitter.com/personanondata

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 2):

In the Wall Street Journal this weekend an article on Dash Hammett's, The Thin Man. Tom Nolan explores the deeper purpose of the book that many at the time of its publication thought of as a cast off. Many of us will know The Thin Man from the William Powell Myrna Loy movies. (Myrna is one of Mr. PND's favorites).

The author himself made no great claims for his creation. "Nobody ever invented a more insufferably smug pair of characters," he said of the book's married protagonists, Nick and Nora Charles; and in 1957, four years before his death, he would claim that "'The Thin Man' always bored me."

Yet Hammett -- often as hedonistic in life as the heavy drinkers in his stories -- was sober and industrious while writing the novel during his tenancy in an unimpressive New York hotel managed by his friend and fellow author Nathanael West; and, one way or another, the book and its characters would earn Dashiell Hammett (according to biographer Richard Layman) close to a million dollars.

The subsequent success of half a dozen MGM screwball-comedy movies inspired by "The Thin Man" and starring William Powell and Myrna Loy perpetuated the impression among serious readers and critics that Hammett's last effort was in all ways a lesser work and maybe even a worthless one. But a careful reading of this novel (and what better birthday present could a book receive?) reveals a still-sparkling comedy of manners within which lurks a vision of human affairs as grim as any social realist's.

Ann Patchett in the same newspaper (WSJ) pays respect to her library but more importantly sees some impressive changes in the reading habits of the youth (or as Vinnie would say Yoots);

According to a recent report from the National Endowment for the Arts, our Nashville library is bearing out a national trend. For the first time in more than 25 years, the number of people reading fiction is on the rise.

Am I surprised? No, but then I see the world of reading from a very particular angle. I spend a lot of time speaking in schools and town halls and public libraries where people who read and read and read pack the auditoriums because they want to talk about literature. Inevitably someone in the audience raises their hand to ask me how worried I am about the crisis in publishing, the rise of electronic books, and the death of the reading. "What death of reading?" I say. "Look at all of you." I have long refused to participate in the last rites of what is both my passion and my profession. I meet too many people who stay up half the night racing towards a final chapter. We are a hardy bunch, we readers. The rumor is we'll play around with a Kindle or an I-Book for awhile but eventually give up on the whole endeavor, the logic being who would want to read a book when there are so many enticing video games to play and Web sites to surf. But I'm more of the Charlton Heston school: you'll get my paperback of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" away from me when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

One of the largest Public Television companies WGBH Boston has sold its Music catalog to a Canadian company. (I am not sure if we should be pissed about this or not - not because it is a Canadian company but isn't this a public asset since public dollars fund public television?)

Canadian music publishing firm ole has purchased a worldwide majority ownership interest in the music rights of the catalog of WGBH Boston, the producer of television and on-line programming for PBS. The amount paid for the deal was not disclosed. The terms of the deal include co-ownership of the music in 1,200 individual episodes and programs, as well as a substantial stake in the music rights for all WGBH programming in the near future. WGBH programs include "Antiques Roadshow," "American Experience," "Nova," "Frontline," "Masterpiece," "Arthur" and "Curious George."

Reed Elsevier sold $1.5billion in debt to fund the Choice Point acquisition. Telegraph OCLC bows to significant (or at least vocal opposition) to the revision of its data usage terms and will convene a review board to examine the terms all over again. This time will a little more openness.

The purpose of this Review Board is to engage the membership and solicit feedback and questions before the new policy is implemented. In order to allow sufficient time for feedback and discussion, implementation of the Policy will be delayed until the third quarter of the 2009 calendar year.

In November 2008, OCLC announced that it was implementing the new Policy to update the existing Guidelines for Use and Transfer of OCLC-Derived Records. The goals of the new Policy are to modernize record use and transfer practices for application on the Web, foster new uses of WorldCat data that benefit members and clarify data sharing rights and restrictions. The Policy is intended to foster innovative use of shared records, while protecting the investment OCLC members have made in WorldCat, and ensuring that use of WorldCat records provides benefit to the membership.

"We have listened to questions and concerns about the revised Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records and have concluded that the issues surrounding the Policy needed further review and discussion,” said Larry Alford, Chair, OCLC Board of Trustees, and Dean of University Libraries, Temple University.

Lesson to publishers: When you run out of space don't simply drop content - especially when the content may be of interest to a key demographic: (MediaPost).

TV Guide is dropping the listings for youth-oriented channels the CW and MTV, reports Variety. CEO Scott Crystal said it was a space consideration. The magazine can only run 70 channels in its prime-time grid. The trade mag speculated that younger viewers who watch CW and MTV may get their information from set-top box listings.

Eminence Gris Jason Epstein has An Autopsy of the Book Business in The Daily Beast and he concludes:

The effect of this post-Gutenberg Revolution will be to radically decentralize the marketplace for books and greatly reduce the cost of entry for would-be publishers. Because these changes imply a superfluity of books—some readable and valuable and many others not—the need for filtering and branding is a vital task for future librarians and bibliographers. Meanwhile, through today’s gloom we may discern a spectacularly bright future in which the rewards to writers and readers and even to publishers will be unprecedented as world-wide multilingual backlists expand online in a cultural revolution orders of magnitude greater than Gutenberg’s world-changing technology generated five centuries ago.

Seven Cents Between Life and Death for Magazines

Things are pretty dire in the magazine world with plummeting ad revenues and ever repeating news of shut downs and layoffs. And if the specture of rising paper costs wasn't enough to worry the manufacturing and distribution staff the NY Post reports this morning that one of the business' largest wholesalers is set to impose a 7cent per copy surcharge on magazines it delivers to retailers.

CEO Charles Anderson insisted the new charge would help the company make up lost ground on a business that he said is losing money. The hike would add 3.5 percent to distribution costs, which translates into $200 million more for Anderson News.

"The last thing we want to do is exit this business, but why should we continue in a business where we are not making any money?" Anderson asked publishers on a conference call yesterday to discuss the new fee.

Publishers, which have until Feb. 1 to agree to pay the new fee, are balking at Anderson News' move, which would drive up costs at a time when most magazines are hurting.

If that isn't enough, the company also wants publishers to pick up the cost of unsold inventory sitting in the Anderson warehouse. In recent years, large retailers like Walmart have attempted to force the industry to adopt scan based tracking which effectively enables a retailer to accept inventory but not pay for it unless/until it passes through a register. It is not widely adopted for a variety of reasons including a disagreement over standards as well as publisher's concern over cash flow. Returns, lost copies and general inefficiency have long been issues in the magazine business with some reputable magazines skating through with 20% sell through. Tough love programs like the one Anderson is trying to impose will push many magazines over the edge.

It is debatable whether Anderson will get away with this; however, severe 'right sizing' is going to occur in the magazine business regardless. Watch this space.

Note: Ingram is also a magazine wholesaler but their reaction (if any) isn't noted. Anderson News racks books as well.

Plane Down

In the excitement, I didn't realize the camera was on the wrong setting hence the blue tint. I saved them on flickr in b/w and they look a little better.

http://flickr.com/photos/21500020@N08/

Hachette Rights Squable

Teleread.org is reporting that Hachette Book Group is pulling “all of its [e-book] titles from U.S. distributors” in a dispute over the issue of sales controls based on geographical territory.

"What’s happened is that U.S. distributors (Overdrive, Ingram Digital and Mobipocket) have not yet implemented systems to limit sales to assigned territories in a manner with which Hachette Livre (the French parent company of Hachette USA, formerly Time Warner books) is comfortable, likely creating contract issues with their European resellers and some of their authors.

“Without notice, Hachette instructed U.S. distributors (include French-based Mobipocket) to pull all ebooks from U.S. distribution over the weekend. Hachette and the distributors are working hard to resolve this. Meanwhile, our support email is getting a huge number of extra inquiries because of the Mobipocket error message and the Hachette action.

Teleread (David Rothman) also addresses the larger issues of DRM restrictions that could presage consumer frustration. "Will e-book DRM end up with a bewildering maze of territorial restrictions, just like DVDs?" One hopes not but is this representative of needlessly enforcing p-world realities on the e-book world?

Hopefully more news will be forthcoming on this issue.

From the Typewriter to the Bookstore: A Publishing Story

From the funny folks at Macmillan (who knew) and via Teleread.org a take on the book production process. I liked the bit about sending the trees from Italy to Switzerland by boat.

Romancing Rugby

I think I'm going to be ill. (Time)

Holly, a virgin and a waitress, was recently dumped by her fiancé, and the subsequent turmoil has fueled an addiction to chocolate wafers — and resulted in an expanding waistline. As her self-esteem tanks, she learns that she must serve dinner to Prince Casper of Santallia in a hospitality suite at Twickenham, the home of England's national rugby team. Within minutes the playboy prince starts making passes (and not of the sporting kind), Holly slides across a table, and, for the first time in her life, she feels like a "rider clinging to the back of a thoroughbred stallion." It's pure bliss until cameramen beam the encounter on the stadium's Jumbotrons.

Typically, England go on to loose.

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 1):

And so we start a new year... In The Atlantic Michael Hirschorn wonders what might happen to The New York Times if it runs out of cash.

Regardless of what happens over the next few months, The Times is destined for significant and traumatic change. At some point soon—sooner than most of us think—the print edition, and with it The Times as we know it, will no longer exist. And it will likely have plenty of company. In December, the Fitch Ratings service, which monitors the health of media companies, predicted a widespread newspaper die-off: “Fitch believes more newspapers and news­paper groups will default, be shut down and be liquidated in 2009 and several cities could go without a daily print newspaper by 2010.”

The collapse of daily print journalism will mean many things. For those of us old enough to still care about going out on a Sunday morning for our doorstop edition of The Times, it will mean the end of a certain kind of civilized ritual that has defined most of our adult lives. It will also mean the end of a certain kind of quasi-bohemian urban existence for the thousands of smart middle-class writers, journalists, and public intellectuals who have, until now, lived semi-charmed kinds of lives of the mind. And it will seriously damage the press’s ability to serve as a bulwark of democracy. Internet purists may maintain that the Web will throw up a new pro-am class of citizen journalists to fill the void, but for now, at least, there’s no online substitute for institutions that can marshal years of well-developed sourcing and reporting experience—not to mention the resources to, say, send journalists leapfrogging between Mumbai and Islamabad to decode the complexities of the India-Pakistan conflict.

The Economist takes a look at TinTin and author Hergé (Georges Remi). Apparently, a blockbuster movie is coming our way.

Tintin’s slightly priggish character fitted the times. His simple ethical code—seek the truth, protect the weak and stand up to bullies—appealed to a continent waking up from the shame of war. His wholesome qualities help explain the great secret of his commercial success—that he was, and remains, one of the rare comic books that adults are happy to buy for children.

But probity cannot explain why Tintin became a cultural landmark in Europe, as important on his side of the Atlantic as Superman on the other. There were plenty of wholesome comics in post-war Europe, most of them justly forgotten. Something else in Tintin spoke to children and adults in continental Europe. Even in the straitened years of post-war reconstruction, he was soon selling millions of books a year.

An interview with Frank Daniels of Ingram Digital in The Tennessean:

Powering much of the retail distribution for the e-book market is La Vergne-based Ingram Digital Group, a division born out of Ingram Industries' Lightning Source Division and acquisitions made in 2006 of Raleigh, N.C.-based VitalSource Technologies, a player in the digital textbook field, and U.K.-based MyiLibrary, which supplies electronic content to academic libraries.

Frank Daniels III, who headed VitalSource before its sale to Ingram, now serves as chief operating officer of Ingram Digital. He sat down this week with Assistant Business Editor Ryan Underwood to discuss the current state of the e-book market, where it goes from here, and Ingram Digital's role in all of it.

Maybe it's just that Amazon's Kindle e-book reader was one of the most popular items for Christmas, but whatever it is, e-books seem to be having a moment right now. Are you seeing that?

Absolutely. In a time when publishers' sales are flat, or declining, e-books are the bright spot. You're seeing significant increases in revenue, as much as 400 percent growth for some publishers. That gets the industry's attention. And they recognize that a confluence of events — screen and distribution technologies, and the standards that the industry has adopted — makes e-books more likely to be real versus hype.

Lastly, Bono reflects on Frank Sinatra. NYTimes.

If you want to hear the least sentimental voice in the history of pop music finally crack, though — shhhh — find the version of Frank’s ode to insomnia, “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road),” hidden on “Duets.” Listen through to the end and you will hear the great man break as he truly sobs on the line, “It’s a long, long, long road.” I kid you not.

Like Bob Dylan’s, Nina Simone’s, Pavarotti’s, Sinatra’s voice is improved by age, by years spent fermenting in cracked and whiskeyed oak barrels. As a communicator, hitting the notes is only part of the story, of course.

Lastly, lastly, The Giants may have choked but my team had a crushing victory earlier on Sunday. BBC.

* * * *

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Winnie the Pooh to the Rescue

It is not too early to think about next Christmas's big hot book and with the news that Winnie The Pooh will return to print there is some hope that the little bear will save book retailing.

The Times is reporting that a book is in the making:

The challenge for David Benedictus and Mark Burgess, the author and illustrator of the new book, is to revive one of the best-loved children’s series of all time in a way that proves sympathetic to the originals without veering into pastiche.

Since 1961 Disney has owned the film, television and merchandising rights to the character of Pooh and created its own spin-off adventures. E. H. Shepard, the Punch staff cartoonist who illustrated the original books, condemned the first Disney film as “a complete travesty”.

Many fans regard the American corporation’s subsequent efforts, which have included the introduction of a gopher character and Christopher Robin’s recent replacement by a girl named Darby, as even less acceptable.

The content of the new book is a closely guarded secret but Mr Benedictus said that it would pick up where The House at Pooh Corner left off, with Christopher Robin returning from school to play with his friends. He refused to say whether the beloved “bear of very little brain” would be joined by new characters.

Michael Brown, for the trustees who manage the affairs of A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard, said that he had been hoping to give the green light to a sequel for a very long time.

According to Reuters, Winnie is a bear stuffed with diamonds, wears a diamond encrusted waistcoat and has a dowry larger than the Shah of Iran and generates over $6 Bill in revenues per year. The revenue generated was subject of a lawsuit between Disney and family of the literary agent who helped popularize the bear in the US. Disney eventually won.

Disney don't get anything from the new book but the two groups would be nuts not to work together but who sees that happening?

Nash on Publishing

The Globe and Mail asked Richard Nash of Soft Skull Books about the state of publishing., Here is a sample:

JD Yes, and here's the question. Let's assume print-on-demand and digital publishing take off (and it will sooner than later for the small press and special markets). How do we help writers, and readers, realize this could be the best thing that ever happened?

RN The onus is on the independent publishers to embrace rather than be suspicious of it. I do often feel that I'm viewed as a bit of a curiosity in the field of literary publishing for being so gung-ho about the digital download book. Which is especially ironic because the suspicions derive, I think, from their personal affection for physical books, which would have been part of what brought them into this field. Yet the average trade paperback is getting crappier and crappier, and the only way I can see to allow the book-as-object to truly flourish is by allowing the digital download to be what generates sales volume, what creates new readers by having impulse-buy scale pricing. Then, by having tens of thousands come to something for $1.99, you can develop that small percentage of that who really become serious fans, and want a deep connection, part of which will be reflected in an intimate, perhaps personalized object. Come to the cheap download, fall in love with the author, fleece the fan for a $100 limited edition once they're hooked. [Emoticon suggesting this was said with a wink.]

Exact Editions And The Directory of Publishing

I have mentioned Exact Editions and their tool set for magazine publisher's in the past, but I was on their site recently and noticed they have loaded up Continuums' Directory of Publishing 2009. Published by the publisher and The Publishers Association this directory is the definitive catalog of UK and Irish publishers. What makes this application of the content interesting is that using the EE toolset users can not only view pages as they are rendered in print but can also dial phone numbers, visit websites and even see the listees physical location on a Google map.

Here is the link.

2008 Media Deals

Deal makers Jordan Edmiston released their annual report this week and of no surprise to anyone, the number and value of media deals completed during 2008 came no where near matching the heady heights of 2007. Only database information services showed strength indicating deal makers support for subscription based (annuity) revenue streams. From the report:

• With the largest transaction for the year at less than $200 million (the purchase of Randall‐Reilly by Investcorp) the business‐to‐business magazine sector saw modest deal activity in 2008. Number of deals fell 46% to 22 total transactions for the full year, with only two deals in Q4, while total value declined 92% in 2008 versus 2007.
• Activity in the consumer magazine sector was slow as well, with 42 mostly smaller transactions, representing 25% fewer than in 2007. There were no substantial transactions for the year compared to last year’s sales of Emap, Gemstar and Primedia’s Enthusiast unit.
• The database information services sector saw a 77% increase in number of deals in 2008 over 2007 with 46 total deals announced. Deal value nearly tripled for this sector in 2008 to $8.8 billion, from $3.2 billion in 2007, excluding the $18.3 billion acquisition of Reuters by Thomson in 2007. The most notable deal in the fourth quarter was Getty Images’ acquisition of Jupiter Images for $96million.
• There was little activity in 2008 in the educational and professional publishing sector, which showed decreases of 26% in deal count and generally smaller transactions for the year versus 2007. The most notable transaction in this sector was the sale of CQ Press to SAGE in May.
• The exhibitions and conferences sector was the third most active M&A sector behind marketing services and online media, with 50 transactions in 2008. However, the sector showed declines of 28% and 31% in deal count and transaction value, respectively, compared to 2007. The two most significant deals of the year were VSS’s acquisition of Clarion events in February and Marketplace Event’s acquisition of dmg world media’s North American Consumer Home Shows in July.
• Marketing and interactive services was once again an M&A leader, generating about the same number of transactions in 2008 as in 2007 and totaling a healthy $12.3 billion for the year, although this was off 50% from 2007 levels. Among the sectors JEGI covers, we are especially bullish on marketing services and anticipate that the advertising slowdown will dramatically alter marketer spending patterns and surface many viable and compelling M&A opportunities, as well as unexpected buyers. This was evident in the fourth quarter with WPP’s announced buyout of TNS for $3.1 billion, Akamai’s $95 million acquisition of acerno, and Crain Communications’ acquisition of Staffing Industry Analysts.
• The newsletter sector saw deal activity rise 33% and deal value increase slightly by 6% in 2008 versus 2007, albeit off a small number of deals. One of the most notable transactions for the year was Haymarket Media’s acquisition of Compliance Week in July.
  
• With 258 transactions worth $9.1 billion, the online media and technology sector continued to remain very active in 2008, even though the sector saw a 18% decline in number of deals and a 26% decrease in deal value in 2008 versus 2007’s hectic deal pace. Major strategic buyers such as eBay,
  Gannett and Monster were active during the fourth quarter, acquiring companies to complement their current offerings. Additionally, Waterfront Media, an online health and self‐help publisher, merged with consumer health online information company Revolution Health Network to create
  the largest online heath group by audience.
  

Down Under Blogger

I just came across a relatively new blogging effort by Peter Donoughue the ex-CEO of Wiley Australia. Peter and I met on a number of occasions and I know from those meetings his commentary is going to be blunt, on target and often funny. Not to put too much pressure on him but here are two selections from recent posts.

The following is his view of Angus and Robertson's implementation of the espresso book machine in their stores.

POD machines in every bookstore - Jason Epstein's vision as articulated in his memoirs of a decade ago - was always a dud of an idea. Investments in printing machines are for printers and possibly publishers, not for barely profitable, main street, high rent paying bookstores. The concept of print on demand is fine, and an everyday reality in the industry now, but it's a specialised business.

Ebook readers are the future - the Kindle, the Iliad, the Sony, and others to come. They'll be a dime a dozen in five or so years, like iPods and mobile phones are now. If you want your book printed buy the paper version or print it yourself.

ARW would be better advised to spend their limited capital on refurbishing their tired-looking stores and - here's a novel idea - buying much more stock of already printed books! That would really be good for business. Doing the basics well will never go out of fashion.

Peter is actually a supporter of POD but obviously not in a bookstore.

Secondly, Australia engages in a never ending discussion about parallel importation and here he is on that subject.

Here is the essential truth that the book trade proponents for continued protection need to get their heads around:

The 30/90 day provisions do not establish and have never established Australia as a rights territory. Australia is a natural rights territory because of its population size, distance, literacy and affluence. The provisions provide additional protection for a rights holder, but they do not establish the possibility of buying rights in the first place. Therefore their abolition will not destroy Australia as a rights territory. Their abolition will simply remove that additional level of protection which only serves to protect over-pricing and under-servicing. Publishers who price and service competitively have absolutely nothing to fear.

God, how often must this be said! To me it's so self-evident.

There is really no need for this paranoia in the trade, this awful, miserable 'we'll all be ruined' defensiveness. No wonder economists throw their hands up!

He has also just finished the same book I did, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and we both recommend it highly.

Predictions 2009: Death and Resurrection:

Like the guy who is asked how he went bankrupt, ‘slowly and then quickly’, the escalating economic downturn in 2008 has really been brewing since the end of 2007, but we only fell off the cliff in fall 2008. I still believe (as I noted in January 2008) that 2007 will be viewed historically as a watershed year for media: the economic decline will further accelerate the macro trends the industry witnessed as 2007 evolved. These trends include:

• the rapid commitment to electronic delivery of content in both education and trade
• separation of ad-based and subscription-based models in both information and professional publishing
• forced concentration in the traditional publishing supply chain countered by (nascent) new channels including direct-to-consumer
• further blurring of the edges across media segments: More publishers will offer all content – not just their own - wider services and applications, and broader linking and partnerships designed to draw customers
  

The economic difficulties today are stark compared to the boisterous 2007 where the price for publishing assets kept going up and many big deals were made. During 2008, many high-profile divestitures were either abandoned (Reed Business) or ignominiously completed (TVGuide magazine sold for $1). 2009 is likely to see both the unraveling of some of the deals done in 2007 and some opportunistic buying but, more generally, the deferment of many companies' corporate development strategies.

Naturally, 2009 will see new companies emerge and there are numerous precedents for companies launched in economically challenging markets ultimately becoming very successful. Perhaps challenging the status quo is easier when the status quo is concentrating on just staying "status".

Predictions 2009

• An easy one: It gets much worse before it gets better. When times were good an oversupply of market options – particularly in retail – hid a myriad of structural problems. Right-sizing in media retailing and distribution will result in one major physical book retailer, one wholesaler and one online retailer. Media will be a sideshow compared with some other segments, particularly clothing and department stores.
  

• Another easy one: Several major city newspapers will change hands for less than the debt they carry. Local and hyper-local models will expand and further encroach on the market for traditional big city news. Coupled with linking, content licensing and arrangements with classified providers like Craigslist and Ebay, there will be a rapid expansion of the (hyper) local online news provider market.

• Out-of-work journalists will see increasing opportunities to become ‘content producers’ as more and more companies seek to enrich their sites with professional content that appeals to their target market. The typical website ‘experience’ becomes more expansive and deeper than a company catalog or press release site. Journalism as a function becomes more widely dispersed across many business segments.

• The NYTimes will either close the Boston Globe and ‘rebrand’ a NYTimes version for the Boston Market or sell it for a $1 saddled with as much debt as they can get away with. Sunday's paper will now come on Saturday: The UK market successfully went down this road and the US will (belatedly) follow.
  

• In media M&A, look for companies that have lots of cash to act opportunistically: NewsCorp, Holtzbrink, Bauer, Bonnier, Bertlesmann, Axel Springer, Lagardère, BBC (Commercial).
  

• Gathering of ‘equals’: Media owners unable to sell assets may seek to partner with another media company in the same boat and combine assets to form a new company. One combination that could be interesting is Nielsen Business Media with Reed Business Information (– pure speculation on my part). Others in this space looking for options might include Primedia, McGrawHill, Penton.

• The Obama administration will make wholesale revisions to education policy which will pain education publishers who have made particular investments in assessment companies. Long term, the assessment market will be robust; however, with explicit indications that student performance is no better for the ‘no child left behind’ programs, fundamental changes will be instituted including a more federalist direction. Ready your lobbying dollars.

• Evidence that the edges of media segments continue to overlap: Google will bid for the 2014 and 2016 Olympic broadcast rights.

• Social networking and ‘community’ building will become the CEO’s pet project as a ‘cheap’ alternative to decreased ad and marketing budgets with, predictably negative results. Senior-level misunderstandings of what constitutes effective social programs will result in efforts being treated casually. Piecemeal approaches will predominate and there will be a continued lack of cohesion of marketing with social networking. Programs backfire as customers witness the cynicism. Effective social networking is not just for Christmas.

• Professional and information publishing will effectively leverage Linkedin-like networks (possibly using their platform) to extend social networking to their closed networks. Lexis/Martindale is creating a private legal social network platform.

• Too much Linkedin with my Facebook. More people will do what I did in 2008 and build barriers around their online social networks and selectively cull ‘friends’ or ‘connections’ Sheer numbers have no logic, friendship is earned and legitimate business connections are money. Quality, not quantity, will reign. Don’t take it personally.

George Jones Out at Borders

Borders books announced a number of senior changes including the replacement of their CEO George Jones and CFO Ed Wilhelm. The replacement for Jones is Ron Marshall who has bookselling experience having been with Crown books. Marshall has a strong financial background having served as CFO of $4billion Pathmark during the restructuring of that company in the late 1990s.

Border's replaced Wilhelm and VP Merchandising Rob Guen with internal candidates (Mark Bierley and Anne Kubek respectively) and appointed Dan Smith as Chief Admin Officer.

The company also reported predictably soft sales for the holiday period and with the intense promotions they were running look for gross margin impairment when they report their full quarterly numbers. From the press release:

Sales Results-Holiday 2008
Borders Group also released its sales results for the nine-week holiday period ended Jan. 3, 2009. Total consolidated sales were $868.8 million, an 11.7% decline compared to the same period last year. Within the Borders superstore segment, total sales for the holiday period were $652.6 million, which is a 13.6% decrease compared to 2007. Comparable store sales at Borders superstores declined by 14.4% compared to the same period a year ago. On a same-store sales basis, the book category at Borders declined by 11.0% for the period. Borders.com sales for the nine-week holiday period were $20.3 million. Overall, holiday sales started slow and improved during the latter part of the season. Within the Waldenbooks Specialty Retail segment, total sales for the holiday period were $161.7 million, a 16.4% decrease compared to the same period one year ago. Comparable store sales for Waldenbooks declined by 8.0% compared to holiday 2007. Total International segment sales were $34.3 million for the period, a 1.4 % decrease compared to the same period a year ago. Comparable store sales at Paperchase stores in the U.K. decreased by 6.5% for the holiday period year over year.

Media Report Week 52

The Economist had a several interesting articles over the break.

Firstly, they note the 1,000 anniversary of The Tale of Genji which they note is the world's first modern novel. (Link)

Sheer scale is not all that is forbidding about the book. Japanese prose was still in its infancy in Murasaki’s day, so her syntax can be opaque. Sentences lack subjects, direct speech is often unattributed and, most alarmingly, the characters change names according to their rank or circumstances. Genji, for instance, is variously referred to as the captain, the consultant, the commander, the grand counsellor, the palace minister, the chancellor and the honorary retired emperor.

The subject matter is also challenging. There is polygamy, bisexuality (when one young woman rebuffs his advances, Genji consoles himself with her younger brother who turns out to be “no bad substitute for his ungracious sister”) and something very close to incest. Genji is attracted to Fujitsubo, one of his father’s consorts, because of her resemblance to his dead mother. Even though she is, in effect, his stepmother, he fathers a child with her.

The article goes on to examine how several translators (into English) have handled the story.

In their annual double issue there is a very interesting article on the development of Cookbooks from the first recognized cookbook "De ne coquinara". (Link)

The first Western cookbook appeared a little more than 1,600 years ago. “De re coquinara” (concerning cookery) is attributed to a Roman gourmet named Apicius who, legend has it, poisoned himself upon learning that he could no longer afford to eat fancy food. It is probably a mishmash of Roman and Greek recipes, some or all of them drawn from manuscripts that have since been lost. The editor was careless, allowing several duplicated recipes to sneak in. Yet Apicius’s book set the tone of cookery advice in Europe for more than a thousand years.

It has a decadent, aristocratic flavour. There are recipes for ostrich and flamingo, befitting the sweep of the Roman Empire. Apicius instructs cooks to add honey to almost everything, including lobster. He teaches them how to cook one dish so that it resembles another and how to disguise bad food.

The author goes on to look at how different countries approach their cookbooks and draws particular contrasts between the UK and the US.

Over at HuffPo, Andrew Foster Altschul asks publishers to forgo memoirs from Al Gonzales. (Link)

We all know the drill: disgraced Bush insider-cum-war-criminal licks his wounds for a year or two, then publishes a "tell-all" that either tells us what we already knew (cf. Scott McClellan's What Happened, which shocked the world by revealing that the White House had lied about its justifications for invading Iraq) or blames everyone else for what happened (cf. George Tenet's At the Center of the Storm, which excuses its author for his "slam dunk" comment by writing off its context as a mere "marketing meeting"). Prurient readers, believing mistakenly that they've breached the wall of executive secrecy, buy truckloads of the slimy documents, and the morally deficient scoundrel makes a ton of money and hits the lecture-and-talk-show circuit to make a ton more.

Ron Burkle's Yucaipa has bought a chunk of B&N for investment purposes. (Reuters)

Yucaipa Cos, a private equity firm controlled by billionaire Ron Burkle, said on Friday it it had acquired an 8.3 percent stake in bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc, saying it believed the shares were undervalued. The company's shares rose 4 percent after-hours to $15.99, after the announcement. Yucaipa funds said it had bought about 4.58 million shares since Nov. 24 for about $67.3 million, net of commissions, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Some real analysis of the concept of The Long Tail as applied to the music industry indicates that the theory may not be as airtight as Chris Anderson would have us believe. (TimesOnline)

But a study of digital music sales has posed the first big challenge to this “long tail” theory: more than 10 million of the 13 million tracks available on the internet failed to find a single buyer last year.

The idea that niche markets were the key to the future for internet sellers was described as one of the most important economic models of the 21st century when it was spelt out by Chris Anderson in his book The Long Tail in 2006. He used data from an American online music retailer to predict that the internet economy would shift from a relatively small number of “hits” - mainstream products - at the head of the demand curve toward a “huge number of niches in the tail”.

However, a new study by Will Page, chief economist of the MCPS-PRS Alliance, the not-for-profit royalty collection society, suggests that the niche market is not an untapped goldmine and that online sales success still relies on big hits.

An Op-Ed in the NYTimes looking for some help from Treasury (Link)