The Future Of Touch Screens

Apropos of nothing, but at a conference this week someone showed a video that shows an impressive future for touch screen interfaces.

Here is the link.

Wiley Post Large Gain

From the John Wiley conference call (transcript) yesterday, CEO Will Pesce summarized their results as follows:

Year-to-date revenue of $1.2 billion increased 47% over prior year. Excluding Blackwell year-to-date revenue increased 6% or 4% excluding favorable foreign exchange. EPS for the nine months of $2, exceeded prior year by 36%, excluding certain one-time tax benefits and Blackwell, adjusted EPS increased 9% for the nine months. The Blackwell acquisition contributed revenue of $115 million in the quarter and $347 million in the year-to-date period. The acquisition was accretive to EPS by $0.9 per share in the quarter and $0.18 per share in the year-to-date period excluding certain tax benefits. Wiley's top line growth continues to be driven primarily by Blackwell, Professional/Trade revenue increased modestly in the quarter, but year-to-date results remain well ahead prior year and industry performance. US scientific, technical and medical revenue increased slightly in the quarter while global revenue advanced 5%. Higher Education showed signs of recovery in the quarter, bringing year-to-date revenue essentially on par with prior year.

Reuters

Borders Australia Sale Off

Apparently after proceeding through several rounds of regulatory review, Pacific Equity Partners the owner of New Zealand retailer Whitcoulls and Australian retailer A&R has backed out of the deal to buy the Borders stores in Australia. It seems that PEP shareholders aren't comfortable with the part cash part equity deal that would have had them partner with Borders in a potentially larger retailing group. This seems to be a strange turn-around for Borders that they would be even negotiating an equity/cash deal with a potential purchaser when they have seemed intent on running for the hills from any international entanglements. Perhaps, Borders has a much more expansive notion of the value and prospects for the Australian & NZ Borders stores and their pricing was not reflected in all cash offers. This could have set them down the road to consider an equity and cash deal.

The Age notes Whitcoulls as saying they were "comfortable negotiations had reached a natural conclusion." I doubt that is the same sentiment in Ann Arbor where they have made international retrenchment a focus. The company releases their full year numbers in a week but here is what they said about the international operations in their most recent (holiday period) release:

Total International segment sales from continuing operations for the period, at $109.3 million, increased by 36.3% compared to last year. Excluding the impact of foreign currency translation, total segment sales from continuing operations would have increased by 26.9% over the same period last year. Comparable store sales for International increased by 10.8% over the same period last year driven by strong performance in Australia.

So far no word from Borders.

Espresso Book Machine Perks Up in Canada

John Mutter at Shelf-awareness has a great 'real-life' article about the implementation of the Espresso Book machine at the University of Alberta bookstore. From his article:

Although the cost has been significant, the University of Alberta Bookstore, Edmonton, Alberta, which installed an Espresso Book Machine last November, has found the POD machine to more than meet expectations, according to Todd Anderson, director of the Alberta Bookstore, who spoke at a seminar at the CAMEX show and National Association of College Stores meeting in San Antonio, Tex., last week.The benefits of the Espresso machine have been both tangible and intangible. "The machine is a symbol of change for a lot of our professors and students," Anderson said. "They are very excited."At the same time, the store printed more than 50 titles in the first three months of operation, saved students buying some of the textbooks significant amounts of money and has kept the machine humming. The production model that the Alberta store has is "a workhorse and just what we need," Anderson said. "We are running flat out."

The article goes on to endorse the use of the machine as a tourist attraction but more importantly as an important new tool for the bookseller. They do suggest there are some issues with the work-flow particularly the binding process but the store appears convinced that the machine will be an important part of their customer service delivery.

BTW: Todd Anderson was head of the Canadian Booksellers Association and is one of the best advocates for the retail book industry and an all around good guy.

Just Excepting The Facts Ma'Am

The fake memoir crime wave in the publishing ghetto would have kept Sgt. Joe Friday in business for years. Sadly, the system is still broken, the system did not 'work' when the perp was caught after publication and sadly the whole thing will be repeated in weeks or months or years from now.

Perhaps the dumbest thing said about the whole episode was that to fact check every book would cause no book to be profitable. If that's the case, the industry has some bigger issues.

There are several articles about fake memoirs this weekend. Here is a selection:

Mendelsohn in the NYTimes:

But then, we all like a good story. The cruelty of the fraudulent ones is that they will inevitably make us distrustful of the true ones — a result unbearable to think about when the Holocaust itself is increasingly dismissed by deniers as just another “amazing story.” Early on in my research for my book, another very old woman suddenly grew tired being interviewed. “Stories, stories,” she sighed wearily at the end of our time together. “There isn’t enough paper in the world to write the stories we can tell you.” She, of course, was talking about the true stories. How tragic if, because of the false ones, those amazing tales are never read — or believed.

Tim Martin in The Telegraph:

Mis lit is, after all, literature's largest growth industry: W H Smith recently added to its Fiction and Biography shelfmarks a new one bearing the legend Tragic Life Stories, and the temptation to creative writing students must be great. Who says there's no future in fiction? Fake memoirs of the less pernicious kind, however, belong to a literary tradition that goes back through Defoe to Mandeville and beyond. It also comprehends some astonishing characters, particularly when the fakers were forced to appear in person.

The Los Angeles Times:

It should have been obvious, perhaps, but it wasn't. Certainly it never occurred to her publisher, Riverhead Books, to make even the most rudimentary check into her background, which would have quickly revealed Margaret Jones to be a character created by one Margaret Seltzer. Seltzer, who as Jones claimed to have entered the foster system after a sexual assault at age 5 and went so far as to invent an ethnicity for herself -- half Native American and half white -- is in fact all white and grew up with her biological family in Sherman Oaks.

Almond in The Trib:

But Seltzer became convinced that only by presenting the story as autobiography would anyone "listen to it." The sad truth is she's probably right. Over the past few years, publishers have responded to declining readership by developing an insatiable hunger for books that come with "author survivors" attached.Why? Because they know that such books are about 100 times more likely to get reviewed and featured on National Public Radio and anointed by Oprah. It's not enough anymore simply to offer besieged publishers a nuanced work of imagination. They need an inspirational figure the marketing people can dangle as interview bait. They need a pitch dramatic enough to resonate within the frantic metabolism of our perpetual news cycle.

I'd be willing to bet that if Seltzer (like Frey) had shopped her book as fiction, editors would have taken a pass. They might have even complained that the plot twists felt clichéd or unrealistic. But presented as a work of nonfiction, her editors knew they'd struck gold. They wanted to believe her story, so they did.

Lastly this one from NYTimes suggesting Kafka was lying

In a telephone interview, Mr. Kafka was contrite and tearful. “I know what I did was wrong,” he said. “I’m very alienated from myself, but that’s no excuse to lie. I took someone’s life and selfishly turned it into an enigmatic literary parable.”

Reed Business Information Sale

Various private equity firms are believed to be actively interested in the Reed Business Information group which was put on the block several weeks ago. If you recall Reed Elsevier announced the acquisition of Choicepoint at the same time. The list of firms interested includes Apax, Permira, Guardian Media, Candover, Cinven and Providence Equity Partners. According to several sources the sale price could exceed $2.obillion; however, this valuation may be too much for the debt markets to support. With several operating companies ruling themselves out, including United Business Media as the most notable, there are several interesting scenarios that may emerge.

Clearly one of the equity companies can buy the entire offering and at $2bill+ this would be an ideal outcome for Reed Elsevier. If the recent sale of EMAP's b2b division is anything to go by then the chances of a single buyer and a big price seems unlikely.

Apax and Guardian Media could combine an offer and seek to integrate the RBI titles into the existing businesses that each currently owns. When these companies agreed to buy the Emap titles there was some discussion of consolidation within the existing properties they own but they seem to have cooled to this strategy. Why that is may have something to do with the chance that they end up acquiring the RBI titles. Strategically Apax/GM could have significant repercussions because they would be in a position to collectively own the top 1 or 2 (or both) titles in numerous segments. They could subsequently discard any titles that don't fit that positioning and end up with a formidable trade publisher. Opportunities to consolidate across several market segments don't come up in bulk like this very often.

Reed Elsevier, in holding out for a high valuation, may also opt to retain an ownership position in one of the outcomes. If the scenario above holds up for example, Reed could end up owning 10% of a business with far better prospects than the trade business they already have and also get to pocket a lot of cash from the proceeds.

Once a deal is done (and my expectation is that there is no cherry picking to be had in advance of a sale), the acquirer will be looking to make some divestitures. Among the notable sales that could happen would be Variety which could gain a high price as a 'trophy' asset and the publishing titles Publisher's Weekly, LJ and SLJ. Bowker, Nielsen and several others would be interested in these titles so interest wouldn't be hard to find. New Scientist could also be considered a trophy title with Macmillan as a potential buyer.

Immediately after the announcement of the sale, there was some questions raised about the timing of the sale and whether anyone would be interested. It seems that these worries may have been pre-mature, but time will tell whether Reed Elsevier are as successful in selling these assets as they were selling their education division.

Sharing a Stage

Is it me or was it weird that B&N Chairman Len Riggio backed out of participating in yesterday's AAP annual meeting? Could it have had anything to do with Amazon's Steve Kessel also sharing the limelight? If there was something to this - and personally I never enjoyed participating in events with my competitors so I empathize - one wonders why the handlers didn't realize the possible problem and point it out a little further in advance of the meeting. No matter, George Jones, CEO of Borders seized the opportunity to speak to a room full (presumably) of publishers. According to Publisher's Lunch, he noted the initial success of the new store concept in Ann Arbor:

Borders CEO George Jones led off the APP's meeting this morning, saying that early indications from their new concept store are encouraging. Though the store carries twenty percent fewer titles than a typical superstore, "the number of titles selling has doubled" according to Jones, who calls the change "dramatic." The store has only been open two and half weeks, but Jones says "sales have been way better than expectations."

And according to people in attendance that was about it.

Laura Bush also spoke about the lack of reading in the US and specifically among the young. A particularly disingenuous speech given a) she said virtually the same thing in 2002, b) she was a librarian (of what level is suspiciously vague) and this shouldn't be a surprise and c) we are at a point where her administration can't do anything about it. (A little like Africa but on a smaller scale).