Source Interlink Expands!

The anti-trust suit that Source Interlink bought against Time and several other publishers two weeks ago has been dropped - although the press release only refers to Time. Readers may recall that SI received a preliminary injunction that forced SI's existing customers to continue shipping product to them. According to the press release the company's used the strength of their long standing relationship to reach an agreement on a multi-year contract. No comment about whether SI has been successful in imposing any additional fee on Time Warner as part of this agreement. Speculation would be that if they have it will not be as high per unit ($0.07 per copy)and it will not kick in immediately. If this improves the magazine supply chain at all it will be a good thing.

From their press release:

"I am happy to make this announcement because it means the continuation of what has been a mutually beneficial relationship. We have enjoyed working with our partners at Time and plan to keep working with them for many years to come," declared Greg Mays, Chairman and CEO of Source. "This agreement is effective immediately and assures that we can continue to supply all our mainstream, specialty and international customers with the popular Time titles."

In addition (and hence the post title) SI appears to have picked up a number of important distribution clients out of the rubble that was Anderson News' magazine distribution business. From the press release:

In a separate story, Source Interlink Companies today reported that its magazine distribution unit, Source Interlink Distribution (SID), has been awarded important new business from Wal-Mart Stores, Kroger / Fry's Companies and Basha's Supermarkets. This additional business increases SID's store count by 662 stores in 9 states.

Borders Reduces Corporate Staffing

Here is the corporate announcement from Borders. We sincerely hope it doesn't go any further.

Borders Group today announced that it has reduced its corporate workforce by another 136 positions, which were eliminated effective today. The majority of the jobs, which represent about 12% of the corporate workforce but less than 1% of the company’s total workforce, are based at the company’s headquarters in Ann Arbor. The workforce reduction was spread across virtually all business areas, including marketing, human resources, field management and corporate sales. The reductions were made at various ranks, ranging from entry level to middle management. Affected employees are being offered transition pay, severance and job placement assistance.

Today’s changes follow the company’s announcement just over two weeks ago that several top-level corporate positions had been eliminated to reduce management layers and help drive expense reductions. “While reducing payroll is never easy and we respect the impact it has on employees and their families, it is one of the necessary steps we must take along with other non-payroll expense reductions to help get this company back on track financially,” said Chief Executive Officer Ron Marshall. “In this time of transition, I greatly admire the tenacity and focus that employees at all levels here have shown as we drive to significantly reduce expenses and bring other key financial measures in line. We will continue to move forward with deliberate speed to make the changes required to get Borders back on firm financial footing.”

Teleread on Amazon's Long Play

An excellent and enjoyable look at Amazon's strategy from Aaron Miller writing on the Teleread.org blog:

Interestingly enough, the Online Reader is also what authors can use to preview Kindle publications on the Digital Text Platform, Amazon’s foray into the self-publishing market. But it has all the appearances of a parallel project, something to enable reading on devices other than the Kindle. Clicking on the "Your online books" button exposes a "Media Library" and CoverFlow-like book list, which you can populate with books you’ve already purchased. Provided you’ve purchased the upgrade and the print version of the book AND the book is eligible for online access (up to publishers probably), you can read it in the Online Reader for less than $9.99, with highlighting and social annotations and bookmarking.

The Reader, DTP, Search Inside and Amazon Upgrade all have a rudimentary, R & D feel, even though some of them have been around for awhile. They’re loosely connected when used as free services, and yet as revenue generators, they’re dependent on each other in a baroque way that creates barriers to consumer adoption. This stifling of adoption on the part of a giant like Amazon seems deliberate, the equivalent of throttling certain latent channels in order to allow another to flow more primarily. The undeniable truth of all of them together which would steal the Kindle’s thunder is that they do indeed allow you to read your Amazon purchases in digital form, without purchasing a Kindle. It’s easy to overlook this capability given the lack of content and promotion for these peripheral products Amazon has. But it seems clear that they each figure into a longer-term strategy. They could easily be brought together and streamlined into a huge force in the digital book market if the right circumstances were first created and nurtured by the Kindle. Thus the name.

Thoughts on Tools of Change

At The Digitalist James Long summarizes very nicely some of the themes from the conference. They echo some of my thoughts on my "Presuming" blog post (and I wasn't even at TOC).

Link

Memorial Service for Jean Srnecz

BISG informed me of a service to remember Jean Srnecz. The following is from Michael Healy with the details on the arrangements:

Remembering Jean Srnecz

As some of you may already know, Jean Srnecz, Senior Vice-President of merchandising at Baker & Taylor and a longstanding Director of the Book Industry Study Group, was among those who tragically lost their lives in the crash of Continental flight 3407 on February 12.

Jean spent more than 30 years at Baker & Taylor and for many in our industry was the public face of that company. She believed passionately in contributing to the development of our industry and it was this belief that led her to play such an important role in BISG, in the Educational Paperbacks Association and in other industry groups.

Jean was not only a member of the BISG Board, but also a long-time member of our Executive Committee, a small group of industry leaders who guide our organization. In that role, Jean was a loyal and committed supporter of our work over a long period of time, and an insightful adviser.

For me personally, she was a generous source of sound advice from the time I joined BISG in 2006 to last Tuesday, when we spoke for the last time. Everyone at BISG will miss Jean, and on behalf of the organization she supported so strongly, I offer our sincere condolences to her family, her colleagues at B&T, and all her friends in the book industry.

Colleagues at Baker & Taylor have provided the following information about a Memorial Service for Jean:

Saturday February 21st and Sunday February 22nd 2pm-4pm and 7pm-9pm
Wood Funeral Home
784 Main Street East Aurora, NY

Funeral Mass – Monday February 23rd 11:00 am
St. Cecelia’s Roman Catholic Church
991 Centerline Road Sheldon, NY

A further service in New Jersey is planned but at this time no details are available.

Memorial Contributions may be made to the following organizations: Susan G. Komen for the Cure, 5005 LBJ Freeway, Suite 250, Dallas, TX 75244 or Mortel Family Charitable Foundation, PO Box 405, Hershey, PA 17033

Michael Healy Executive Director, BISG.

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 6): Borders, SharedBook, Tools of Change

Ingram Digital Chief Commercial Officer Frank Daniels has done an audio interview with Karen Holt at Teleread.org and among the topics covered are the following:

–Frank’s most recent title. “If it has to do with customers, it has has to do with me.” Earlier he was chief operating officer of Ingram Digital.

–E-newspapers vs. e-books—how they differ. Frank worked for both the editorial and business sides of the Raleigh News & Observer, which his family owned for many decades.

–Ingram Digital’s VitalSource e-reading software, whose interactive capabilities are especially useful in education-related apps, such as dental training. See video for more. Ingram bought VitalSource Technologies, of which Frank was president and CEO, in 2006.

–E-book prices, which he notes range widely. “E-books are going to be priced on convenience more than they’re going to be priced on format.”

–Kindle vs. iPhone. The device “that’s going to prevail has not been invented yet.” In fact, he’s doubts that the industry will standardize on a particular device the way the Apple iPod dominates music.

–DRM. Frank’s unabashedly pro. His DRM comments begin just short of nine minutes into the interview. Listen carefully. and please be civil in our comments section if you’d like to respond. “We’ve not seen DRM to be any kind of barrier to a sale.”

Borders' is able to extend the terms of their agreement with Pershing Square. It costs them $750,000 for expenses. The company now has until April 15th to repay a $42.5mm secured term loan. Coupled with this agreement the companies also agreed to extend the option to sell to Pershing the PaperChase business. Reuters Two businesses that were attempting to develop music and video "library" services on college campuses have folded. This week Cdigix sited the bad economy for their closure (Chronicle)

Cdigix, a company that focused on selling a service to colleges to place movies and music on reserve online for students, quietly ceased operations at the end of December and is in the process of dissolving. It cited a lack of clients and an inability to raise money to continue. The company initially offered an online music service for colleges, but it ended that service about two years ago to focus on offering reserves of electronic media.

Mark Brodsky, president and chief operating officer of Cdigix, said in an interview today that the company was “a casualty of the economic times.” It had about 25 to 30 colleges either signed up for the service or were testing it, he said, but customers were notified at the end of last year that the service would shut down.

Another service Ruckus also closed this week (Chronicle):

Colleges began signing up for Ruckus five years ago, and in 2005, almost one in five was considering a subscription to a music or movie service, according to a survey by the education-technology group Educause. At first Ruckus charged for campus wide access, but by 2006 it had shifted its focus from site licenses to advertising, still requiring colleges to sign deals, but not to pay.

SharedBook launched Smart Button technology a streamlined implementation of the SharedBook platform that, (SharedBook)

allows partners to apply SharedBook's customized creation capabilities with minimal resource application and maximum flexibility, delivering new revenue sources. Initially, Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors will use Smart Button to create a new line of books culled from their vast troves of content, arrayed to illuminate specific topics for their customers. Soon, visitors to Britannica.com will also have the ability to use Smart Button to make their own works, by selecting various articles and content, and with one click, add them to a custom, one-of-a-kind volume. "Smart Button turns the historical process of publishing a book on its ear, bringing specialized content to our users faster than ever before", said Joe Miller, Managing Director of Encyclopaedia Britannica's Consumer Division.

In addition to EB, Legacy.com and Sohio Blackwell was accused of 'dechristianising' their Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization (Guardian):

The Encyclopedia's editor-in-chief, George Kurian, claims that under pressure from an anti-Christian lobby, Blackwell decided that entries in the four-volume book were "too Christian, too orthodox, too anti-secular and too anti-Muslim and not politically correct enough for being used in universities". Kurian also claims that the press wants to delete words including "Antichrist", "Virgin Birth", "Resurrection", "Evangelism" and "Beloved Disciple" from the book, as well as objecting to "historical references to the persecution and massacres of Christians by Muslims".

Proceedings from last weeks Tools of Change Presentations. (TOC) Eduardo Porter writing in the New York Times on what Newspapers do (NYT):

Companies in countries with a larger daily newspaper circulation are fairer to minority shareholders and have a better record responding to environmental concerns. And a 2000 study by Timothy Besley and Robin Burgess of the London School of Economics proved Sen to be right: governments in India provide more public food and disaster relief in hard times in states where newspaper circulation is higher.

It’s easy to forget the role of an independent press in the development of democratic institutions in the United States. Through much of the 19th century, newspapers were mostly partisan mouthpieces. But as circulation and advertising grew, they shed political allegiances and started competing for customers by investigating shady deals and taking up populist causes.

Thinking about The Satanic Versus (BBC):

For Professor John Sutherland, critic and Booker prize judge, The Satanic Verses should now be seen as Rushdie's best novel, prophetic and the fruit of his obsession with on the one hand the magic of the Arabian Nights and on the other the literal truth claimed for the Koran.

"Rushdie is fascinated in the way that novels are true and the ways in which they become true through multiple untruths," he said.

"People looking for something offensive, heretical or blasphemous won't find it. It's not a diatribe, a calculated insult. It's an extremely good novel."

Jean Srnecz Dies In Crash

Noted via Publisher's Lunch the very sad news that Jean Srnecz SVP Merchandising at B&T was aboard the Continental flight that crashed in Buffalo. I didn't know Jean well but served on the BISG board with her and also sat with her on numerous panels. She was very well respected by me and many in the industry and all will mourn her loss.

Here is a statement for Baker & Taylor:

Baker & Taylor Mourns the Loss of SVP of Merchandising Jean Srnecz
Baker & Taylor, Inc.( 02/13/2009 )

CHARLOTTE, NC, February 13, 2009 - Baker & Taylor, Inc., the world's largest wholesale distributor of books and entertainment products, today mourns the loss of SVP of Merchandising Jean Srnecz. Srnecz was among the passengers of Continental Flight 3407, which crashed late Thursday night outside the Buffalo airport.

"We are all tremendously shocked and saddened at this terrible loss," said CEO Tom Morgan. "Jean was extremely highly regarded throughout the industry. She had tremendous industry expertise and was integral to Baker & Taylor's strategic growth, but was also valued as a kind and good person by all who knew her. She will be greatly missed by scores of people throughout our industry, and especially throughout our company. Our thoughts and prayers remain with her family."

Srnecz held many positions during her 33-year career at Baker & Taylor, ascending to SVP of Merchandising in 2001. She served on the boards of the Book Industry Study Group and Educational Paperback Association.

"I worked alongside Jean for 30 years and there was no one more knowledgeable and respected, as a professional and a person," said Baker & Taylor President Arnie Wight. "Jean truly loved this business and was loved by many in it. She will be sorely missed."

In her most recent position, Srnecz was responsible for all buying and inventory management activities, including Children's, General Interest, Adult, Academic, Professional, Higher Education, Mass Market and Audio. She was also responsible for Publisher Services, Publisher Sales Reporting, Inventory Analysis, Publisher Relations, and Advertising in B&T publications.