Simon & Schuster Report Higher Quarter

S&S saw revenues increase for the quarter by 5% over the same period last year although the performance was not enough to push them into positive growth for the year. Year to date revenues are $612mm vs $643mm in the period last year and Operating Income was $59.9 vs $67.7mm last year. Summary details from the CBS press release as follows:

Publishing revenues for the third quarter of 2008 increased 5% to $225.0 million from $214.2 million for the same prior-year period reflecting the success of best-selling titles in the third quarter of 2008, including The War Within by Bob Woodward and Real Life: Preparing For the 7 Most Challenging Days of Your Life by Dr. Phil McGraw. Publishing OIBDA and operating income both increased 8% to $25.8 million and $23.4 million, respectively, driven by the revenue growth partially offset by higher royalty expenses and selling and advertising costs. Publishing results included stock-based compensation expense of $1.2 million and
$.9 million for the third quarter of 2008 and 2007, respectively.

Dohle'n Out Some Change

Article in the New York Observer about Random House and Marcus Dohle. They contrast RH with the fortunes of the Hachette Book Group although this is done by illusion since the author seems to be saying just because Hachette is smaller they are better.

That would be between 600 and 700 titles per year, if you’re keeping score. Random House, which one rival publisher recently called “the biggest, fattest, most grotesquely obese company ever,” last year published more than 3,000.

Of course, the vast majority of those books were signed under Mr. Olson, whom Bertelsmann replaced late last spring with a much younger, more German man named Markus Dohle.

MR. DOHLE, who at 40 years old has never worked in publishing before but had previously managed a large printing company, has not yet ordered any major changes since moving to New York from his home in Gütersloh and taking up the frayed reins Mr. Olson left behind. There have been some adjustments, to be sure. For one thing, Mr. Dohle has hired several new people at the corporate level, including a director of human resources who, like his boss, is very young and comes from Germany (one editor said, half seriously, that “there do seem to be a lot more people speaking German in the elevators”). For another, some division heads have asked their employees to cut back on expenses such as lunch and travel.

Also, as an example of Dohle's impact they note (only) the elimination of 16 jobs at Doubleday. These apparently "stunned" the industry. Someone needs to point out to the Observer that we are in a recession and 16 jobs (with due respect to the people that held them) is small beans. Stunned is just silly.

Google Announces Settlement in AAP Lawsuit

Certainly the publishing environment has changed fundamentally since the AAP and Author's Guild filed a lawsuit to halt the Google Book digitization program. Fears that in-copyright material would be 'stolen' in the process of digitization has now been trumped by greater fears of a digital book future where publishers will only be cursory participants. Rapid expansion of eBook programs at Amazon, SONY, Apple, Google and Ingram have changed the landscape so that publishers are keen to open all avenues for digital distribution of their content. This agreement may make Google the eBook leader ahead of Amazon.com although we will not know this until the dust settles. That eventuality however, will be exactly what publishers will be looking for as they have become increasingly concerned about the position and power of the Amazon eBook (Kindle) offering.

With this agreement, Google will be opening up a vast digital archive of out of copyright books for preview, sale and lending either direct to consumers or via institutions. Additionally, publishers will allow this technology and distribution to be applied to in-copyright material - this is where much of the controversy focused. Google, it was assumed, were digitising materials regardless of copyright status. They placed a moratorium on this process but what content that has been digitized can now be made available and the digitization process can resume. Google has added functionality that enables the copyright owner to turn on or off certain capabilities such as preview or buy.

The agreement also calls for the creation of a rights registry which will create a bibliographic database of copyright ownership information. There will be motivation for publishers and authors to maintain their information in this database since this will be the mechanism used to ensure that they get compensated.

All around on the surface this looks like an excellent compromise. Indeed, it could represent a momentous shift in the way we interact with books and book content. Congratulations to all parties for getting this agreement completed without too much blood spent.

The agreement itself can be found here. It should be pointed out there is compensation to be paid by Google to the AAP and AG. This will fund a pool of money to be dividended to copyright holders whose content was digitized without permission, money to create the copyright registry and attorneys fees. (I wonder who will be doing the registry thing - will it be an RFP?)

UPdate: Other reaction summarized here. (TOC)

Window Shopping at Amazon

Amazon.com has launched a new site app named WindowShop which is designed to enable you to do exactly that. Mimicking the concept of a store window, Amazon is trying to draw attention to those hot, new books, cds, games and dvds that a store manager might place up front to draw in customers. The application is fun to play with - you can move across categories as well as up and down. For example, if you navigate to a book title Fighter, The Fighters of the UFC (which is the first title in the version I am looking at), using the down arrow button you can view many more books merchandised. Grow tired of books and you can hit the right or left arrow keys to view another category.

By my count there are 10 books selected for inclusion. From the splash page for WindowShop I would rather have been able to chose which category to look at; however, as you use the app. it becomes easier to navigate and this is only a mild inconvenience. For example, if you zoom out so you see all the categories and products, you can hold the left cursor button and move your mouse around the screen to immediately navigate to a new title in any category.

Interestingly, the thing will just play itself and since everything is audio and visual rather than text - book blurbs are read aloud - you can leave it on in the background and come back to it if something gabs your interest.

EDItEUR Seeks New Director

EDItEUR, the international standards body for books and serials, announced important changes to both its management and governance structure at its meetings during the Frankfurt Book Fair Brian Green, the current Executive Director, is standing down from the post in 2009 in order to concentrate on his role as Executive Director of the International ISBN Agency, whose management is contracted to EDItEUR. EDItEUR is seeking both a new Executive Director (full or part-time) and a full time Associate Director who would be responsible for supporting the management of both the International ISBN Agency and EDItEUR. The location for these jobs is flexible.

In addition, a new management committee will be formed, consisting mainly of nominees of representative national and international trade bodies with interests in standards. This committee will work with the new Executive Director to propose new areas for standardisation and agree EDItEUR’s work plan and priorities.

“We discussed all possible options for the future of EDItEUR with the major stakeholders,” said EDItEUR’s Chairman, Friedemann Weigel of bookseller and subscription agent Otto Harrassowitz, “and there was one hundred percent agreement that the need for an international standards body for the book and journals sectors has never been greater than in the current digital environment”.

Expression of interest in the key industry roles of Director and Associate Director of EDItEUR should be made to Brian Green (brian@editeur.org), from whom further information is also available, by 14 November. The successful applicants are likely to have a background in the book or serials sectors, a commitment to the benefits of standards and excellent communication skills. In addition, basic management and business skills are important. The applicants should also be prepared to travel to conferences, seminars and book fairs.

About EDItEUR: EDItEUR is the international group coordinating development of the standards infrastructure for electronic commerce in the book and serials sectors. EDItEUR currently has 70 members from 17 countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, Russia, United States and most of the European countries.
Contact: Brian Green, brian@editeur.org

Oprah's Impact

I thought I would track the impact of the Oprah announcement on the sales of the title specifically mentioned in the 'endorsement'. The Kindle version of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is being offered at 10% off the regular price. The book was previously an Oprah pick in print form.

So just prior to the show airing on the east coast the Kindle version was ranked at 136 in the Kindle store. Now approximately 24hrs later it holds the 16th spot.



Here is a chart:

In isolation, it is hard to understand what it means in terms of units to move from 136th to 16th. It might be interesting to see what the respective print and kindle curves look like for future Oprah picks.

(I should have looked at the rank for the print version as well).

Looted Books

Der Spiegel has an interesting two part article about books looted in the run up to and during the Second World War. LINK

The records indicate that the city library purchased "more than 40,000 volumes from the private libraries of evacuated Jews" through this office. And, this being Germany, the librarians maintained meticulous record books to keep track of their purchases -- even though parts of the German capital were already in ruins. As always, preserving order was paramount. The librarians signed each volume and gave it an accession number, beginning with the letter J.

And,

The book thieves were able to expand their range of operations considerably after the war began. German occupiers in Eastern Europe raided 375 archives, 957 libraries, 402 museums and 531 research and educational institutions. They were also active in France, as the odyssey of sheet music once owned by the pianist Arthur Rubinstein shows. The history of the copies and prints of these works of various composers, some with personal dedications, mirrors the catastrophes of the 20th century.

Worth reading the whole thing just to keep things in perspective.