Beckham: The Third Coming

First Pele came to the Cosmos, then Bestie came to San Jose and now Becks is to play for the LA Galaxy. Can Beckham save North American soccer? I wonder.

Both Pele and even Best had a very experienced supporting cast but that may not be the case with Beckham and his team. After all the LA team is one which not so long ago fielded a player who was also an actor on Melrose Place. (He has since disappeared from both acting and soccer). I believe there is still some great football left in David Beckham and it is a shame that we will not see him contend at the highest level in Europe.

It should be noted that The LA Galaxy are run by Alexi Lalas and he might be their best asset. The current team is coach by Frank Yallop who has coached the Canadian national team and played for Ipswich Town. An interesting dynamic will be the player coach relationship here. Becks has worked for the best in the business; Ferguson, Capello, Erikson....

With this move it is highly unlikely that he will ever play for England again - the chances were slight in any case despite England's dismal performances since he was dropped from the team after the World Cup. The deal which could bring him as much as $250mm is astonishing money and he would be a total mug not to accept the deal. So he is blameless. I can only hope that he maintains his fitness and plays at the highest level he can and not turn into the pale reflection of himself that George Best did when he was in the US. I wouldn't be surprized to see more big European stars signed under the so called Beckham rule. How about Zinedine for the Metrostars?

BTW - Harpercollins published his 'autobiography' a few years ago and I suspect there will be a second updated edition sometime soon.

Apple IPhone

I wonder if there was a much excitment generated when the cotton gin, or the steam engine was launched...

It does look cool and they have priced it at a premium so it will be a big earner for Apple Computer. Yesterday, Apple Computer also changed their name to Apple, Inc. That should make all the difference.

Monday Round-up: Deals News, Blurb.com, E-Books

There were reports on Friday that some or all of Reed Elsevier was in play. The stock price moved a little on the London exchange. With so much private equity money looking for a place to go it is not surprising that Reed is mentioned in the same category as Thomson Learning, Wolters Kluwer Education (who made it official today that the unit is for sale) and VNU. The reports indicated that perhaps there may be some type of asset swap in the works between Wolters Kluwer and RE. The stock was back down today but the market was off as well.

Reuters reports on the LA Times predictions for 2007 and focuses on the prediction that Murdoch will buy the WSJ - which was one of my predictions for 2007. (Check out the brown nosing comment). In the interests of full disclosure, I must state that I started my media career selling one of the Murdoch families first newspapers The Herald in Melbourne Australia. It was an afternoon paper and this was my first real job at 14 and I retain some unresolved issues with said Digger. In the middle of my first year he raised the newspaper price from eight cents to ten cents which severly cut into my take home tips: 2 cents extra on almost every newspaper can add up!

Teleread is a blog new to me and it was this article with the provocative title of Do The Big Publishers Really Want E-Books to Succeed which got my attention. The site appears to be dedicated to promoting all things e-Book and I plan to continue to visit the site. (Coincidentally, here is a letter to the editor of Computerworld regarding the same subject).

I have spoken about Blurb.com a few times and here is a CNET article (reported in The New York Times) about the company and its benefits. The depiction as described mimics my experience. In summary, using Blurb.com means you don't have to do this:

She spent $14,000 of her own money and went $60,000 in debt, had to do her own distribution, and still stores boxes of Drama in the Desert: The Sights and Sounds of Burning Man in her friend's basement.

But you have more flexibility to do this:

Today, she could create the book herself online, order as few as one copy of the 144-page hardbound book for $39.95 or get a volume discount, and sell her book for whatever price she wants without having to do any shipping or handling, all through Blurb.com.

Also, you can create new versions of your existing titles - adding pages, more images, etc. and you don't have to start over. The company continues to add functionality and as these come available you can apply them to the titles you have already produced to do something different or more advanced. And, you never have to worry about obsolete copies because you can order one at a time.

The Belfast Herald is not a paper I read every day but this article (which maybe a reprint) popped up in my news feed today about Hot Reads for 2007. Why The Bookseller thinks Classic Literature will be hot in 2007 is hard for me to fathom and I must have missed the explosion in paranormal romance novels (presumably novels) here in the US last year which they think is going to flow over to Europe. On another note, you do have to wonder where Pete Doherty is going to get the time to write his memoirs what with being in and out of jail.

If any one can explain this story to me from Detroit I would be eternally grateful. Apparently, one Roger Dale Anklam of Cadillac, MI. has been charged with "two counts of uttering and publishing." I wasn't aware it was possible. Go figure.

If you have ever wondered how the BBC news reporters pronouce all those funny names like Ahmadinejhad then worry no more. The BBC is publishing their secret guide to pronunciation. Perhaps it will be the sleeper hit of the season something like Eats, Shoots and Leaves. It is a running joke in our family that no one in the United States can pronounce our family name and while this won't help us perhaps those "news" readers over at Fox News could learn from it.

Eoin Purcell has some additional comments related to my Publisher Futurist post from last week.

To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!

Which is why Maplewood Public Library has instituted a lock down between 2:30pm and 5.00pm. Apparently, the hordes of well off Maplewood students rampaging through the Maplewood library is too much for the librarians and they have had to close the library. I bet I know the Maplewood kids in the middle of this...

Naturally, the local news channels jumped on this one and the images of the students coming out of the public school across the street and pouring in to the library were almost comical. You would be forgiven for thinking reading was the new cool thing because it seemed like every student at school wanted a piece. Hidden among the silliness however, is a very serious issue that in many localities the public library is a defacto day care center. Librarians are wet-nursing the students who for whatever reason are unable to or can't go home.

From the New York Times:

Some study quietly, others, library officials say, fight, urinate on the bathroom floor, scrawl graffiti on the walls, talk back to librarians or refuse to leave when asked. One recently threatened to burn down the branch library. Librarians call the police, sometimes twice a day.

Obviously, it is unfair to expect librarians (or anyone - other patrons) to put up with this type of behavior and personally I think shutting the doors is a perfectly reasonable approach. Putting the librarians in the position of having to administer punishment and deterrents is beyond the call. The article goes on to mention other local libraries that have similar issues and have reacted in the same way.

WorldCat Special Delivery

OCLC announced recently that they are starting a direct to home delivery pilot. The pilot began in July 2006 with a group of libraries in Montana. The service pilot is designed to see how patrons would use a direct to their home capability. Assuming this pilot is rolled out, library patrons will be able to step beyond simply reserving copies to actually receiving the book in question which doesn't necessarily have to come from their local library. An additional aspect of the pilot is to determine how interoperabitity between library systems will work with direct to home. It costs about $24.00 to move a book from one point to another; obviously far in access of the physical cost and purchase price which is a glaring inefficiency in interlibrary loan. If any movement from one point to the other is eliminated from the process it 'avoids' approximately $24.00 in cost. Some have suggested that it doesn't make a lot of sense to have the patron return the book because a replacement could be had from a vendor for less actual cost. That last point is still a little radical.

UPDATE: In today's WSJ, there is a discussion about how libraries are managing change and specifically how they are using circulation date supplied by SIRSI/Dynix to aggressively manage their collections. The article notes that in one Fairfax county library Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls was not checked out over a two year period and presumably will be 'culled' to make room for titles that do circulate more frequently.

UPDATE (2). Lorcan Dempsey at OCLC has a more rounded commentary on the strangely high number of newspaper articles this week on changing processes and functions at Washington area libraries and what it all means.

New Year Begins

Naturally a slow period for the past two very pleasant weeks. The weather in the northeast continues to be warm enough to run in shorts and to have the window open at night. There were a number of stories which caught my eye and here are links to some of them.

Noting the release of the latest James Bond movie Casino Royale, the December issue of Rare Book Review included a spread on first editions of all the James Bond books. Collecting true first editions of the set is likely to set you back $150,000. (Sniff...time for that raise). What is useful about the article is that each edition is described so that should you come across one of these at a local thrift store you will know what to look out for.

The New York times had a not too surprising article of some serious hobbyists who have turned their love of The Beatles into self-publishing programs. Many seminar organizers, self-help professionals, consultants and the like have used self-publishing programs to bolster their core businesses by effectively re-packaging their educational programs and self-help seminars into books. The books are then sold to the attendees at the events which these people organize. The books themselves are not designed to be sold in traditional retail stores, and the flexibility of self-publishing and POD serves these people well. In the Times article, they interviewed a number of Beatles fans who have created published products out of the research they have done as a result of their keen interest in specific areas of The Beatles career. The authors have commercialism their books by publicizing them though the huge number of websites devoted to Beatles material as well as via word of mouth. A number of things have come together to serve this particular outpost on the long tail; easy internet access to web research, email and networked communications, self-publishing programs, low cost print on demand technology and web/wiki/social networking. Reasons to be cheerful about the prospects for publishing.

I am not one for ocean going cruises at the best of times and I still vividly re-call an English Channel crossing in 1990 which I thought would never end. So, it is unlikely I will ever willing get on a book cruise but many people are finding these cruises interesting and worthwhile as this article in The New York Times describes. Filling libraries on cruise boats was a great little business and the notion of drawing new customers to cruising via author presentations and general interaction is looking promising for cruise operators. If it gets more people reading it can't be too be bad.

Sam Tanenhaus the Editor of The New York Times book review answers reader questions here.

From Prospect magazine, here is there listing of their most over-rated and under-rated books from 2006. Along those lines, I finished The Emperor's Children a few days ago and while it was interesting it left me kinda empty. I may have some more thoughts on this later. Claire Messud is however a fine writer.

The Future of the Book website has created an interactive book reader that is very interesting. They have taken the Iraq Study Group report and loaded into their 'reader' and as a reader you can review comments others have made to specific parts of the text and you can add your own comments. This 'reader' was created for use in creating a collaborative book authoring tool. Here is the original version.

Scholarpedia also represents a collective approach to creating an authorative publishing product. It represents a peer reviewed approach to the creation of an encyclopedia but it entirely open to public submissions which are subject to review by an expert editorial team. There are obvious similarities with wikipedia but according to their web site they differ from wikipedia in three important ways:

1. Each article is written by an expert (invited or elected by the public).
2. Each article is anonymously peer reviewed to ensure accurate and reliable information.
3. Each article has a curator - typically its author -- who is responsible for its content.
   Any modification of the article needs to be approved by the curator before it appears in the final, approved version.

The format encourages and it is the intention of Scholarpedia is to maintain content currency so that changes and new information is routinely added to the articles. So far, content is restricted to a few very specific subject areas but it will be interesting to see how this program develops.

In libraryland (it is very quiet there) Sirsi/Dynix was purchased by a private equity group and so joins ExLibris as a private equity owned business. The library automation business is a difficult one and I can only think that these two are going to aggressively mop up business from the other three or four major players. No doubt the appeal of this market has to be the annuity value of the system sales to libraries. The stronger players will steel businesses from the others as new generation products are being bought to market and then ride the annuity for 10-20 years - that is, if the model continues to work the way it has in the past. As in other business sectors the opportunity to offer networked solutions - asp like models - exists here which could break the back of some of the weaker library automation vendors. Interestingly (to me), Francisco Partners who own ExLibris also own the old General Electric EDI business named GXS - I am not sure what this means if anything.

Deja Vu All Over Again: Updates on some items

Here are some of the items I was particularly interested in during the first six months of this blog and where applicable I have also looked to supply an update. Among my interests are Blurb.com, a few book announcements, newspapers, publishing supply chain, educational publishing and Steve McQueen.

The Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) made its debut at the Frankfurt bookfair. ACAP is a protocol that is intended to transmit permissions information to be read by search engines. There were supposed to be pilots announced for by the end of 2006 but so far nothing.

I found Blurb.com in August and thought the model too good to be true. How to print a photo book of up to 240 pages for less than $100. I have now done two books and also finally made the switch to a digital camera so I expect to do many more. Blurb continue to add new features. In my informal tests with people I show the books to, no one has come within $100 of the actual cost and most are several hundred dollars higher. Blurb.com is just one of the companies that represent the individualistic future of publishing.

Book information - specifically book bibliographic data - becomes easier and easier to access without subscribing to a branded product and in August, OCLC launched OpenWorldcat.org in beta. The traffic to local library collections funneling through this search box represents excellent news for any local library looking for further exposure of their collection. Who wouldn't want that?

No recent word on John Cleese's History of Comedy that he spoke about in June.



Random House announced that President Bill Clinton would release a new book towards the end of 2007. I find no current reference to the title on Amazon.com although I was amused to see what title did come up on the list at number one (Left).

Rodale also announced that Chuck Schumer would release a new book in early 2007 and sure enough it will be released in late January. Good timing for him.

In June, I wrote that newspapers were the wave of the future. In the intervening months there has been significant upheaval in the newspaper world with the end of Knight Ridder and McClatchy, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun Times and others all trying to sort it out. I still think newspapers have a significant future as media outlets. The New York Times were represented in my predictions for 2007.

Gary Rautenstrauch was appointed CEO of AMS in May 2007 with the company under SEC investigation. At the time the OTC stock was trading at $4.00 and is now at $2.60 and no new filings have been made that shed 'official' light on the financial irregularities that came to light before Rautenstrauch joined the company. Recent announcements have included notification of an annual meeting scheduled for January 27, 2007 and the appointment of Rautenstrauch and dissident shareholder Robbotti to the board. The same PR also noted the conclusion of a anticipated proxy battle that Robbotti was to have launched at the annual meeting. (And an update 12/29 - AMS announced a bankruptcy filing. I must be clairvoyant).

Lordi, the Finnish winners of the Eurovision Song Fest have gone on to apparent ubiquitous name recognition throughout Europe with their 'monster' pyrotechnic shows. What made this winner unique was their material was not the typical bubbly pop music of old rather some hard core satanic inspired metal. In seeming contradiction to their image however, they had to cancel most of their late summer tour of Spain because some of the band members got the sniffles.

In May the New York times published an article about recently found diaries and a script by Steve McQueen. These will now form the basis of a movie written by Steven McQueen. The movie is produced by his son and god son. Yucatan is scheduled for release sometime in 2007. I can find no word on whether his son will publish any of the material created my McQueen.

During the year, I thought a little about supply chain issues and publishing:

• Taking a look at E-Books
• Reflections on the Christian Bookseller market
• Renting Books at Retail
• Publishing Supply Chain
• Publishing Supply Chain (2)
• Charity Bookselling

Also, a little about educational publishing:

• College Retail
• Future of Educational Publishing
• Changes to Educational Texts
• A "MySpace" Education

In November, I set myself a reading challenge; hoping to read five books between November and the end of January. By late December, I have completed The Road, The Emperors Children and The Power of the Dog. The Road was incredible. The Emperor's Children was slow to start but I enjoyed it. The Power of the Dog should have been 100 pages shorter. It was OK but not great.

In November, I also voted for the first time ever.