The Sunday Times reports that Google is looking a developing 'a system' to allow e-book downloads to laptops and PDAs. Hummm. Not too revolutionary other than if they put their weight behind it will it blast e-books into the stratosphere?
Pearson were cagey all year about their results suggesting that the second half of the year would be much harder. Well they are on target for record earnings. Their stock declined.
Here are the Edgar Award nominees.
The French apparently love James Bond.
There was a Google love in at the New York Public Library last week. Predictably publishers are wrong and Google is right.
If you see the local Barnes & Noble windows filled with Chocolate in a few weeks you will know why. In these competitions they never say where the people who live in New York get to go if they win. I guess the presumption is we get to go to Omaha. It's just not fair.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Monday, January 22, 2007
Archiving Special Collections.
Visit the British Library web site and page through some amazing texts coupled with an audio recording about the work. It is very cool.
As more and more libraries start to digitize their 'special' collections (and not via Google either) it will be interesting to see how they 'display' these collections in the on-line context. I believe small thriving businesses will be developed that help libraries create on-line or electronic shows. The online version of the material that typically shows up in the glass display cases in the library lobby.
It is great to have all this 'special' collection material available for research and access but for the casual library patron some filtering and explanation/analysis is important for enjoyment and value. This is why I think you will find digital archivists selling their services to libraries to create these representative packages or shows of the material. These digital archivists will present the best parts of the collection and 'design' or curate these online shows. Viewers will be able to access the material via the web but perhaps they could also view the material in the library via web enabled kiosks.
There is so much of this material coming on-line. (OCLC has three different programs designed to collect this material). I think only a small percentage of stuff has thus far been digitised and we run the risk of having a glut of material that if not organized and presented to the typical patron may never be seen. This would be akin to the local public library collection that sits undisturbed in the special viewing room that isn't open to the public.
The need to create logical presentations of this valuable material does draw attention to the importance of the local librarian in selecting or editing this material. The process also creates new opportunities to add to the material in ways that perhaps was discouraged or difficult. This is especially the case with oral histories. Creating a visual respresenation of the material in a special collection and then encouraging some long lived local patrons to add their vocal history to the presentation would add significantly to the relevance and importance of the collection.
As I said, I think this is coming because I think there is an obvious need for services to support this type of activity.
As more and more libraries start to digitize their 'special' collections (and not via Google either) it will be interesting to see how they 'display' these collections in the on-line context. I believe small thriving businesses will be developed that help libraries create on-line or electronic shows. The online version of the material that typically shows up in the glass display cases in the library lobby.
It is great to have all this 'special' collection material available for research and access but for the casual library patron some filtering and explanation/analysis is important for enjoyment and value. This is why I think you will find digital archivists selling their services to libraries to create these representative packages or shows of the material. These digital archivists will present the best parts of the collection and 'design' or curate these online shows. Viewers will be able to access the material via the web but perhaps they could also view the material in the library via web enabled kiosks.
There is so much of this material coming on-line. (OCLC has three different programs designed to collect this material). I think only a small percentage of stuff has thus far been digitised and we run the risk of having a glut of material that if not organized and presented to the typical patron may never be seen. This would be akin to the local public library collection that sits undisturbed in the special viewing room that isn't open to the public.
The need to create logical presentations of this valuable material does draw attention to the importance of the local librarian in selecting or editing this material. The process also creates new opportunities to add to the material in ways that perhaps was discouraged or difficult. This is especially the case with oral histories. Creating a visual respresenation of the material in a special collection and then encouraging some long lived local patrons to add their vocal history to the presentation would add significantly to the relevance and importance of the collection.
As I said, I think this is coming because I think there is an obvious need for services to support this type of activity.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Private Equity Deals
If you have the cash to invest in publishing company why not go for the best one. Which in my opinion would be Pearson.
With Thomson Education on the market, Houghton Mifflin sold, Wiley purchasing Blackwell Publishing, Wolters Kluwer Education for sale, there is a lot on offer and this week the rumors were flying around Pearson. Pearson has made no public comments regarding selling any of the company yet the PE bankers and the equity analysts think something is a foot. The Pearson stock closed at a four year high today (CNN). No doubt this is very pleasing to all the management options holders.
Last week, Reed Elsevier was also touted as a non-too-obvious PE candidate and it would seem you are not worth your salt as an equity analyst in the media industry if you don't declare one of these conglomerates as an ideal candidate for Private Equity players. Reed have a complicated ownership structure which, while simpler than when Reed and Elsevier were put together, seems to be a concern. When (or if) it comes down to it I doubt this will be an issue. As with Pearson, I suspect that the managers with options will be very happy with the stock price escalation. Last week the stock was at 600p now it is at 611p. When I was at Reed in 2000, the stock was over 700p and this was before they purchased Harcourt and the significant slump in advertising revenues that hit their trade publications business. Point is, I wonder if a valuation will push the share price up a lot higher?
In recent years Pearson has been chastised for under-managing a collection of valuable publishing assets but this died down a little over the past 12 months. Their financial results and forecasts have been on target and results in the Education group have been particularly strong. This is especially true when Pearson education is compared to Thomson in terms of acquisitions made, growth rate and operating margin. In Thomson's defence, I am sure that it has been difficult operating in within the Thomson corporate environment when reservations may have been expressed about Education for a while. Thomson relative to Pearson has probably lost momentum which a sale will quickly fix and we will see a renewed Thomson Education as a result.
Currently, the PE bankers see an opportunity to buy a large 'holding company' put some lipstick on it and sell parts off in short order. In selling the parts - The Financial Times, Pearson Education - they would expect to make a killing. (Pearson Education could be split into College and School). Management is clearly not happy with the current debate but if an offer is made then they obviously need to consider it. What may result is some appeasement resulting in the sale of one of the tastier chunks. As I predicted for 2007: Murdoch will buy The Financial Times.
With Thomson Education on the market, Houghton Mifflin sold, Wiley purchasing Blackwell Publishing, Wolters Kluwer Education for sale, there is a lot on offer and this week the rumors were flying around Pearson. Pearson has made no public comments regarding selling any of the company yet the PE bankers and the equity analysts think something is a foot. The Pearson stock closed at a four year high today (CNN). No doubt this is very pleasing to all the management options holders.
Last week, Reed Elsevier was also touted as a non-too-obvious PE candidate and it would seem you are not worth your salt as an equity analyst in the media industry if you don't declare one of these conglomerates as an ideal candidate for Private Equity players. Reed have a complicated ownership structure which, while simpler than when Reed and Elsevier were put together, seems to be a concern. When (or if) it comes down to it I doubt this will be an issue. As with Pearson, I suspect that the managers with options will be very happy with the stock price escalation. Last week the stock was at 600p now it is at 611p. When I was at Reed in 2000, the stock was over 700p and this was before they purchased Harcourt and the significant slump in advertising revenues that hit their trade publications business. Point is, I wonder if a valuation will push the share price up a lot higher?
In recent years Pearson has been chastised for under-managing a collection of valuable publishing assets but this died down a little over the past 12 months. Their financial results and forecasts have been on target and results in the Education group have been particularly strong. This is especially true when Pearson education is compared to Thomson in terms of acquisitions made, growth rate and operating margin. In Thomson's defence, I am sure that it has been difficult operating in within the Thomson corporate environment when reservations may have been expressed about Education for a while. Thomson relative to Pearson has probably lost momentum which a sale will quickly fix and we will see a renewed Thomson Education as a result.
Currently, the PE bankers see an opportunity to buy a large 'holding company' put some lipstick on it and sell parts off in short order. In selling the parts - The Financial Times, Pearson Education - they would expect to make a killing. (Pearson Education could be split into College and School). Management is clearly not happy with the current debate but if an offer is made then they obviously need to consider it. What may result is some appeasement resulting in the sale of one of the tastier chunks. As I predicted for 2007: Murdoch will buy The Financial Times.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
News From Australia
SYDNEY(AP) - A seven-year-old boy was at the centre of a Parramatta, NSW courtroom drama yesterday when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him. The boy had a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with child custody law and regulations requiring that family unity be maintained to the degree possible. The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her.
When the judge then suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried out that they also beat him. After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the judge took the unprecedented
step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him.
After two recesses to check legal references and confer with child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the English Cricket Team, whom the boy firmly believes are not capable of beating anyone.
Mr. Charkin had a recent post along the same lines. Dispair.
Spare a thought for my parents who have taken to spending the English winter in Australia but this year they got torential rains on Christmas Day, the Cricket team sucked and this week brush fires caused a power outage in Melbourne. Oh well...
When the judge then suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried out that they also beat him. After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the judge took the unprecedented
step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him.
After two recesses to check legal references and confer with child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the English Cricket Team, whom the boy firmly believes are not capable of beating anyone.
Mr. Charkin had a recent post along the same lines. Dispair.
Spare a thought for my parents who have taken to spending the English winter in Australia but this year they got torential rains on Christmas Day, the Cricket team sucked and this week brush fires caused a power outage in Melbourne. Oh well...
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Worst Cover Award & Australia Week
I don't spend much time watching Martha Stewart but this morning I happened to catch her interview view Aussie chef Neil Perry, author of The Food I Love (Atria, $50, 0743292450). Here is the cover:
And I think that is prettty ordinary. I think they are selling linens not excellent Aussie food. And using the light green lettering means you can barely make out his name against the grey background.
Incidentally, it is Australia week here in New York; who knew? Many events but no book related ones and doesn't that figure. With a little concentration you could just about see that table top display of Aussie authored books at the Union Square Barnes & Noble. I guess not...
More thoughts on book covers generally visit http://nytimesbooks.blogspot.com/index.html.
And I think that is prettty ordinary. I think they are selling linens not excellent Aussie food. And using the light green lettering means you can barely make out his name against the grey background.
Incidentally, it is Australia week here in New York; who knew? Many events but no book related ones and doesn't that figure. With a little concentration you could just about see that table top display of Aussie authored books at the Union Square Barnes & Noble. I guess not...
More thoughts on book covers generally visit http://nytimesbooks.blogspot.com/index.html.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Monday Whip Round
By way of an update to the story last week about the New Jersey public library which has elected to close after school hours in order to reduce the child minding activities of its librarians, the New York Times had an editorial in Sunday's paper. Here is a sample,
Also in The Times this morning was an article about Ayn Rands' The Fountainhead. It may soon actually make it to the movie screen. One quote from the article suggests it is the finest 20th century novel never to make it into a film. Is that true? I confess to enjoying both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged but in the case of the former, I think I recall skipping ahead through the famous 60page, 10,000 word John Galt speech that caps the book. It is hard to see how they will get this into a two hour movie. Apparently, Rand was never happy with the movie version of The Fountainhead because someone had the gaul to drop one line from the script she had agreed. No pleasing some people.
Apparently both books continue to sell well and Penguin should be happy if it makes it to the silver screen. The novel ends in an apolcalyse which is presumably where Coramc McCarthy's The Road takes over.
As I am sure many of you will know, Borders has forged an agreement with Gather.com which is a social networking site set up last year targeted at old people like me. Also involved in the partnership is Simon & Schuster. The three will launch a competition to find a new unpublished author based on submissions via the gather.com web site. There are other tie-ins with Borders as well including in-store promotion and mailings to the Borders frequent buyers club.
In today's San Francisco Chronicle (via The Washington Post) is an article about publisher Prosper Assouline who not only creates and publishes beautiful books he especially likes to smell them as well. (There must be a name for that).
It would take a lot more than 100 Years of Solitude to put me off reading. I assume from this comment that he read it when it came out rather than last week which wouldn't be so bad. While we are on this, apparently Márquez' and Mario Vargas Llosa have patched things up - just in case you were concerned.
Earlier this year there was controversy in Paris regarding book awards. Apparently, money and other things may have been changing hands - everyone was shocked and horrified. At least those that cared. Now comes word from The Sunday Times that good old Boris Pasternak may have had some help from the CIA and James Bond in winning The Nobel prize. Surely more interesting about this is the apparent success of the operation....
Lastly, in my predictions for 2007 I suggested that Skype would be sold by Ebay. Who knows but they haven't done what they said they would do with it which is integrate it into the auction process. Meanwhile Skype has continued to do well as this article details.
One can certainly understand the librarians’ frustrations; after all, they are trained to assist patrons in locating library material and doing research, not to be disciplinarians. But the idea of closing a library during prime hours was an inappropriately heavy-handed way to react to a problem that many libraries across the country have been dealing with for generations.As I recall, this was not a unilateral response or action and indeed the library had spent significant time trying to establish a code of conduct that would help manage the situation. The article goes on to suggest that it is always a challenge to get children into libraries (to read) and that denying access to a library especially in the face of (supposed) interest is an especially bad idea. But that it really not what is happening here. The kids - some of whom most likely do value the time and do make use of the access and behave appropriately - are there because they have no where else to go during those hours.
Also in The Times this morning was an article about Ayn Rands' The Fountainhead. It may soon actually make it to the movie screen. One quote from the article suggests it is the finest 20th century novel never to make it into a film. Is that true? I confess to enjoying both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged but in the case of the former, I think I recall skipping ahead through the famous 60page, 10,000 word John Galt speech that caps the book. It is hard to see how they will get this into a two hour movie. Apparently, Rand was never happy with the movie version of The Fountainhead because someone had the gaul to drop one line from the script she had agreed. No pleasing some people.
Apparently both books continue to sell well and Penguin should be happy if it makes it to the silver screen. The novel ends in an apolcalyse which is presumably where Coramc McCarthy's The Road takes over.
As I am sure many of you will know, Borders has forged an agreement with Gather.com which is a social networking site set up last year targeted at old people like me. Also involved in the partnership is Simon & Schuster. The three will launch a competition to find a new unpublished author based on submissions via the gather.com web site. There are other tie-ins with Borders as well including in-store promotion and mailings to the Borders frequent buyers club.
Borders will also be the official book store for Gather.com but here is the fun part, Borders don't have a web site. They gave this over to Amazon.com in what has been a largely unsatisfactory arrangement a number of years ago when they were in dire straights internet wise. I will go out on a short limb here and suggest they are going to have their own Borders.com web site quite soonUnder that partnership, Borders will promote the Gather.com online community to its more than 15 million Borders' reward members who receive weekly emails. Visitors to the site will find author-related content and events and have the change to earn Gather Points redeemable for Borders gift cards. Borders also will promote the First Chapters competition via these emails.
In today's San Francisco Chronicle (via The Washington Post) is an article about publisher Prosper Assouline who not only creates and publishes beautiful books he especially likes to smell them as well. (There must be a name for that).
Assouline focuses on fashion and other subjects that lend themselves to striking pictures and the absence of words. He does not have an aversion to literature. (The last book he read, he says, was Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude.") But his plan since starting the company 11 years ago was to build a global luxury brand whose products can seamlessly cross borders. Having to translate pages of words into French, Italian and other languages only complicates matters. So far, the company has published about 700 titles.
It would take a lot more than 100 Years of Solitude to put me off reading. I assume from this comment that he read it when it came out rather than last week which wouldn't be so bad. While we are on this, apparently Márquez' and Mario Vargas Llosa have patched things up - just in case you were concerned.
Earlier this year there was controversy in Paris regarding book awards. Apparently, money and other things may have been changing hands - everyone was shocked and horrified. At least those that cared. Now comes word from The Sunday Times that good old Boris Pasternak may have had some help from the CIA and James Bond in winning The Nobel prize. Surely more interesting about this is the apparent success of the operation....
Lastly, in my predictions for 2007 I suggested that Skype would be sold by Ebay. Who knows but they haven't done what they said they would do with it which is integrate it into the auction process. Meanwhile Skype has continued to do well as this article details.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Harpercollins Buys Piece of Libre DIgital
In 2005, Harpercollins like many other major trade houses was looking for a digital content and distribution option. They penned an RFP and the best response came from Newstand, Inc which for many years had been digitizing and distributing electronic copies of newspapers on a worldwide basis. Newstand established a new business unit named LibreDigital and Harpercollins became its first customer. From the press release last August is a description of what they can do:
Yesterday Harpercollins announced that they had purchased a stake in the LibreDigital divison of Newstand, Inc and that Brian Murray would serve on its board. From the release,
This is an interesting entre into third party distribution for electronic content and I think a welcome one. As a publisher, there may be some initial doubts about working as a client publisher for such a large trade house but this will quickly be dispelled as irrational. While the content form is different there is not much difference between an 'hosting and distribution' deal for e-content and a third party distribution deal for physical content. This deal by Harpercollins could represent a long term win since I suspect once a publisher begins using the LibreDigital system it may be hard to switch to a competitive product later on. LibreDigital is likely to begin competing aggressively with Ingram Digital and some of the other minor players in the market.
The new LibreDigital Warehouse service enables leading publishers, such as HarperCollins Publishers, to quickly and easily bring top titles to the web, where consumers can search the entire content of a book and preview a percentage of its text and illustrations. This book publishing milestone is made possible using the ASP-based LibreDigital Warehouse solution, a one-stop-shop for publishers looking to simplify the complexities of Internet distribution and partner management, while providing secure, controlled online content to help sell books to millions of consumers.
Yesterday Harpercollins announced that they had purchased a stake in the LibreDigital divison of Newstand, Inc and that Brian Murray would serve on its board. From the release,
Publishers around the world have asked us to include their books in our digital warehouse and to make those titles available with our Browse Inside application," said Murray. "By applying the lessons we have learned with our first 10,000 digitized titles, HarperCollins and NewsStand have developed a turn-key digital solution to manage the digital publishing process from editorial to consumer. In the 21st century, we believe that all publishers must develop this capability, either in-house or through out-sourcing, to stay competitive and to reach the digital consumer.
This is an interesting entre into third party distribution for electronic content and I think a welcome one. As a publisher, there may be some initial doubts about working as a client publisher for such a large trade house but this will quickly be dispelled as irrational. While the content form is different there is not much difference between an 'hosting and distribution' deal for e-content and a third party distribution deal for physical content. This deal by Harpercollins could represent a long term win since I suspect once a publisher begins using the LibreDigital system it may be hard to switch to a competitive product later on. LibreDigital is likely to begin competing aggressively with Ingram Digital and some of the other minor players in the market.
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