Bondi Digital to Create Rolling Stone Archive

Earlier this year Bondi Digital publishing announced an agreement with Playboy Enterprises to create a DVD compendium of every issue. They recently announced a similar deal with Rolling Stone. These were the guys behind The New Yorker archive that was released two years ago.

The first release of the Playboy titles (1950's) is due in October and the The Rolling Stone titles around the same time.

Just in time for Christmas.

Weekly Update

Deal News:
KKR and Carlisle group join the race for Thomson Learning. Reuters The Times
Wickes Group has retained Credit Suisse to look at strategic options for The Daily Racing Form. PRNewswire
Is Pearson Plc underweight? NewRatings

Publishing:
Harper SanFrancisco and the search for a follow-up to The Left Behind series. SF Chron
Iran proposes to publish UK Sailors memoirs. Iran news
12 Arrested in Turkish Bible Publisher murders. Guardian
BusinessWeek article about Korean Comic Publishing. Businessweek
Interview with Robert Harris. Telegraph

Other News:
Reed targeted by Protestors. The Independent
Predicted demise of Libraries not supported by visitor numbers. PRNewswire
WH Smith operating update. Hemscott

Turkish Bible Publisher Targeted

News is reported of a new attack on publishing freedom in Turkey. If you will recall a few months ago a highly regarded news reporter was killed outside his office and today comes news of a horific attack on a Turkish bible publisher. From the UK Guardian newspaper:

The three victims - a German and two Turkish citizens - were found with
their hands and legs bound and their throats slit at the publishing house.
Police went to the scene after receiving calls about a fight, Milliyet newspaper
reported.

Thomson Learning Sale Update

The Financial Times updates the status of the Thomson Learning sale suggesting that first round bids will be submitted at the end of April. As things go this is slightly later than originally planned but they also confirm that the purchase price is expected to exceed $5.5billion which is approximately 10x EBITDA. From the article:

The bidders include a consortium made up of Bain Capital Management, Thomas H. Lee Partners, the Blackstone Group along with Bertelsmann, the privately-owned German media company; a second bidding group is made up of Providence Equity Partners, which is possibly teaming with one other investor, and has the learning division’s management’s on its side, according to the sources. The Carlyle Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. are bidding alone, the sources said. Providence’s partners in the bid could not be confirmed, but one of the sources said it is teaming up with Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, while another source said it is teaming up with Pearson

Google Book vs Microsoft Live Search

I will post more on this next week but the differences between the two presentations was considerable. Regrettably, Microsoft may have the better product. Regrettable, because on the basis of attendees at the respective presentations, few publishers will know it is better because few publishers bothered to show up at the presentation. This may have been partially due to the difficult to find conference room in which the presentation was made; however, MS only had about 20 attendees versus two Google presentations in front of over 125 in each case.

Microsoft have definitely learned from Google in the way Google approached the presentation and the management of the publishers' content. The display is visually more appealing in the Live case and they have incorporated a number of widgets that allow outbound linking which will be very useful to users and publishers. It is the publisher 'work-bench' that I identified as a key differentiator. In Live, the access for a publisher to manage the content - particularly content access, pricing and rights information - is especially functional versus the Google model. I will look into and describe the benefits to Live next week.

No publisher should market and promote their books exclusively through the Google Book program. Intuitively, most publishers would understand this, but why there were so few people willing to spend the time with Microsoft is shocking. Microsoft Live for Books is the new kid on the block and it would seem more likely that having heard the Google spiel numerous times, publishers would be very interested in hearing from someone else. Especially when that someone else has gone out of their way to support publishers copyright.

London Bookfair

It is a fabulous venue for LBF this year; I missed last year's disastrous trip to the Docklands but against Olympia the venue at Earls Court is far superior. It also helps that the organizers have listened to the attendees and the publishers to make the aisles wider, the furniture and fixtures more accommodating and pleasant and made sure there were enough food outlets. Olympia was especially bad at food and drink outlets.

It is also an active show with a lot of seminars to attend but the traffic on the floor is also robust. There is more than enough discussion about the state of the business both from the perspective of publishers and retailers. There has been some expressions of concern I have heard about the state of book retailing in the UK and the unknown impact of the Border's divestiture. There have been rumors that Richard Branson is interested in acquiring the chain and if that were to happen perhaps it would invigorate the book segment. There is a pervading emotion of disappointment by publishers in the way book retail has been managed in the UK and there is a general feeling that publishers can not expect improvement any time soon. It is a sad circumstance.

Given the level of acquisition activity in education publishing, there is a sense from publishers I spoke with that this is going to continue to be a very active year. There is an expectation that the Harcourt and Thomson deals are only the beginning and that trade will also see at least one major house put on the block before the end of the year.

Weekly Update

As mentioned London Bookfair is next week and posts will be sporadic.

Deal News:
Wicks buys Thomson Education Direct (Distant Learning) Times Tribune
Torstar may be under attack and what of Harlequin? National Post
A possible buyer of the Borders' Australia and New Zealand stores. NZ Herald
Media finance conference in Europe announced. Release
Buyers are less then enthused with Primedia enthusiast magazines. Reuters
Reed Elsevier advised to gear up. The Independent
Nancy McKinstry thinks Germany is ripe for new deals. Reuters
Axel Springer likely to do more deals soon (doubtful in publishing). The Australian

Google News
Lorcan Dempsey linking to comment on Google and Publishers Blog
Adam Hodgkin on publishers grumbling about Google Blog

Education:
Harcourt have had a lot of problems in School academic testing this year. Casper Trib. ZDNET
Thomson revolutionizes marketing text Release
There will be more on this: Wikipedea 'broken beyond repair' according to founder. ITNews

Other News:
Penguin obsession Blog
Peter Brantley's lively discussion over a $58 Paperback Blog
Mike Hyatt on Imprints and the decision to do away with them Blog
GalleyCat linking to a Bookseller article about what works here but not there. Blog
Joe Wikert gets all riled up about the logic of Print Blog
Reed Elsevier can't trade mark 'Lawyers.com' Bloomberg
SmartMoney wonders why no one is excited about Gannett. Smartmoney
The commercial E-Book market is broken. Blog

People:
McGraw Hill Hire Dan Caton as Head of Learning Group Release
New Board Members for SIIA. Release
Riverdeep/Houghton Mifflin announce appointment of President. Release

Sport:
Man Utd into the Champions League semi-final in style BBC