MediaWeek (Vol 3, No 42b): Midnight's Children, Harold McGraw on Technology, 50 Best Bookstores

The Independent is reporting that after years of working on a script Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children is to become a movie (Independent):

The novelist has been working for two years with the director Deepa Mehta on a script of a film version of the book that originally made his reputation. This week, the Harold Greenberg Fund, set up by the Canadian media firm Astral in honour of one of Canada's leading film directors, announced it was giving an award for "polishing and packaging" the script. Deepa Mehta, an Indian-born Canadian who has known Rushdie for many years, is best known for her trilogy Fire, Earth and Water, which she directed between 1996 and 2005. She and her husband, David Hamilton, run up the film company Hamilton Mehta, in Toronto. He will produce the film, which she will direct. The book's protagonist, Saleem, is born in Bombay at midnight on 15 August 1947, the moment when India became independent, who discovers that all Indian children born in that first hour have magical powers. The novel won the Booker Prize in 1981, then 12 years later was named the "Booker of Bookers". In 2008, in a contest to mark Booker's 40th anniversary of the prize, was again singled out as the best novel ever to win the prize.

Harold McGraw III and Philip Ruppel of McGraw Hill opine about the impact of technology on reading in (the) USA Today:

Today, it is not uncommon to hear predictions that the names of the great publishing houses will soon fall from the covers of books to the footnotes of self-published history tomes. Casual observers could be forgiven for thinking this way based on headlines on the e-reading revolution. First, Amazon announced that its e-book sales topped its hardcover sales for the first time. Then, in August, the Washington Post Co. sold iconic Newsweek amid questions about the future of weekly magazines. And just recently, this newspaper launched a " major organizational restructuring" as part of a continued shift from newsprint toward more digital platforms. While this tide of headlines speaks to the sea change sweeping the publishing world, the industry itself is anything but washed out. In fact, many parts of the industry are thriving in the digital age. Nowhere is this clearer than in the success of the e-book. The Association of American Publishers recently reported that e-book sales for the first half of the year were up more than 200%. Far from being the end of the publishing industry, this number is a sign of a new beginning. Why is there such a gap between the perception of a dying industry and the reality of a rapidly adapting one? It begins with five common myths about publishing:

Traveling England? What better guide than the 50 best bookshops Independent A deep write up and review of the conference eBooks: Libraries at the Tipping Point from Librarian in Black (Link) From the twitter: @Personanondata The Independent: What do you do with 8 million books? Build a shelf 153 miles long Independent Bodleian's offsite storage Elsevier Introduces Article-Based Publishing to Increase Publication Speed PR MediaPost: Wave of New Data On E-Reader Owners MediaPost Frankfurt Book Fair - Digital heads discuss the e-book market and the challenges that face us all PaidContent Picture Books Languish as Parents Push ‘Big-Kid Books’ - NYT See comment number 1.

MediaWeek (Vol 3, 42a): Frankfurt 2010 from the Show Dailies

There were dueling show dailies at the FBF this year and between the three of them they may have been able to pull together a decent single issue each day. Both The Bookseller and Publishing Perspectives had pdf versions of their show dailies and their content isn't yet (or maybe never) separately available on their sites. Publishers Weekly/ BookBrunch also had a show daily but I had no luck finding the show daily content I was looking for on their websites. If it was there it was buried. (As an aside, I was bemused that PW had a lead story on day two about the $100mm HMH fund for learning that I mentioned a month ago). (And I do realize the images look like they were taken out a prison window). Day One The Bookseller Daily- Day 1

Tour de Force (Pg 21) Events have helped the music industry cope with digitization. But, Anna Coatman asks, can author tours ever become a viable revenue stream for books? Going Native (Pg 23) The generation that has grown up with digital represents a challenge for academic publishers. E(uro) Files (Pg 8) Price maintainance, some EU laws and high VAT rates mean digital still hasn't caught fire in some European markets. Publishing Perspectives: Money For Nothing, And Your Pics For Free - Gwyn Headley on how Ebooks are finally embracing color images, but how much should you pay for them? (Pg 11) Day Two: The Bookseller Day 2 New Model Army (Pg 13) Perhaps today's biggest publishing challenge is how to repurpose and monetise digital content. Publishing Perspectives Day 2: Hunting for E-books Around the Globe: American bookseller Barnes & Noble’s Patricia Arancibia is in search of the best the world has to offer. (Pg 15) Day Three: The Bookseller Day 3 Up to 3mm searches per day for pirated eBooks. (Pg 4) Publishing Perspectives Day 3: Why Publishers Need Agile Content (Pg 10) Clearing the Air about Copyright: Users need education, rights-holders need to get paid. (Pg 11) The American Gentleman: At first publisher Roger Straus was reticent to come to Germany for a book fair, but once he did, the legendary publisher made friends, struck deals, and left a lasting legacy. (Pg 12) Scheherazade in the App Store: Can Digital Free Arabic Publishers. (Pg 15) The Future of Rights: Digital publishing raises countless rights issues, but work towards a universal international framework for clearances is beginning. (Pg 16) Moscow at Night: Is there such a thing as Russian noir and could it be the next big thing? (Pg 19) All in all Publishing Perspectives seemed to have a more expansive and interesting selection of stories than either The Bookseller or Publisher's Weekly. (IMHO of course). Here are all PW's Frankfurt posts.

Slums in Hong Kong: 1969

Slums of Hong Kong 1969

A weekly image from my archive. Click on the image to make it larger.

MediaWeek (Vol 3, No 41): Springer, Reading, Personal Librarians

Book business magazine profiles Springer's success in migrating to e-Journals (BBM):

Journals were early adopters in transitioning to digital, and since have become almost ubiquitously available in electronic formats. By 2009, there were about 25,400 active scholarly peer-reviewed journals, and more than 96 percent were available electronically. When Springer began offering e-books, the decision was made to follow the journal model. Libraries and patrons had become accustomed to this model, and a chapter in a scientific, technical or medical (STM) book often is viewed much like a journal article. Also, search engines have fundamentally changed the way that research is conducted and made print books largely obsolete for this purpose. Researchers now expect to be able to quickly sift through vast quantities of information at their fingertips. Because of this, Springer e-books and e-journals are searchable on a common platform, providing access to much more high-relevance information than was previously available. Where e-books are readily available, researchers are increasingly accepting and utilizing them. While Springer saw overall digital downloads increase 33 percent in 2008, e-book chapter downloads rose 70 percent and e-book usage more than doubled between 2007 and 2009.

You are what you read is the suggestion from Boston Globe reporter Natalie Southwick (BG):

Of course, the definition of “interesting’’ is hardly universal. The folks who might want to discuss the “merits’’ of “Atlas Shrugged’’ could be fascinating from a sociological standpoint, but that’s not something I want with my morning coffee. Or ever. But people attracted by the crustacean waving from the cover of “Consider the Lobster,’’ by the late, great David Foster Wallace? That’s the kind of interesting that interests me. But, as Stein points out, navigating the subtleties of commuter-lit culture is as much about context as familiar names: “The trick is to choose books that have cult followings, and so create a sense of secret fellowship — but that large numbers of your fellow-riders have actually read,’’ he advises. He recommends various authors and books for individual New York subway lines — according to his picks (Roberto Bolaño’s amazing “2666,’’ and my current T tome, Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow’’ ), I’m a G train girl.While Boston has fewer subway lines, Stein’s point still applies here. Would Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, “Freedom,’’ appeal as much to the college-age crowd on the Green Line as it might to the professional riders of the Red, or would you have more success opening Charlaine Harris’s latest Sookie Stackhouse novel as you head down Comm. Ave.? Perhaps Michael Pollan’s “Food Rules’’ would be appropriate for the South End-bound foodies of the Silver Line, Jon Krakauer’s “Where Men Win Glory’’ for Orange Line commuters, or a Dennis Lehane novel for the Revere Beach-goers of the Blue. As for the Commuter Rail — shouldn’t you be checking your BlackBerry?

A look at university libraries that are taking the personal approach to students (IHE):

The obligations are not nearly the same as those between academic advisers and advisees; in fact, students are not required to meet with their personal librarian, or even acknowledge them. The important thing for the library is that students know the library has not just books but also familiar-looking people who know their names and want to help them. The idea is that getting that name might make students more likely to schedule a sit-down meeting to learn how to use the library's various interfaces, collections, and specialists. Sit-downs, or even e-mail correspondence, are much more effective than group orientations, says Patricia Tully, the university librarian at Wesleyan. If personal librarian programs are a trend, the trend is a recent one. Barbara Rockenbach, director of undergraduate and library research at Yale, frames the movement toward “personalization” as a foil to technological forces that have made the library seem more impersonal. With many libraries canceling subscriptions to printed journals, shuttling underused books off to remote storage, and making more of their resources available on the Web, students might increasingly view the library as a database they can use from a solitary dorm room rather than an actual place populated by helpful humans.

The pulping of Franzen's book got a huge amount of press this weekend in the UK. Even my mother asked me if I had heard about it. (Independent) Review of all many touched by Twilight (Independent):

In an effort to strike a blow for anonymous catalogue models everywhere, Hickey told the New York Post that she is now hoping to audition for a walk-on role in the forthcoming fourth instalment in the Twilight film series. "If I could get a little background part, it would be fantastic... even if they only wanted my hands in it."Her success at exploiting such a tenuous connection with Meyer's first novel goes at least some way towards illustrating the huge commercial power of the Twilight franchise. The first three films in the series were made on budgets of $37, $50 and $68 million respectively, but generated a combined $800m at the box office for the previously-small Los Angeles firm behind them, Summit Entertainment.The vampire-themed romance novels have meanwhile overcome their sniffy critical reception to be translated into 37 languages, selling over 100 million copies, and turning Meyer, a 36-year-old Mormon who lives in a remote corner of Arizona, into a global publishing phenomenon with an annual income which has been estimated by Forbes magazine at over $50m.

From the twitter: Stephen J. Cannell, Prolific TV Writer, Dies at 69 - http://nyti.ms/9wrMGm Publishing Houses of Today, Yesterday and Tomorrow: Gene Schwartz' latest blog http://bit.ly/ayNTgi Kara Swisher BoomTown AllThingsDExclusive: Chegg Raises $75 Million in Additional Funding from Asian Firm http://bit.ly/brhJ8F

Repost: Frankfurt Presentation: Publishing in a Digital Age

Repost Friday and this post originally appeared on October 20th, 2008. Since I am addressing this same meeting on Tuesday I thought I would re-visit the last presentation.


This week I presented at the 30th International Supply Chain Specialists Meeting at the Frankfurt Bookfair. The presentation is available on Slideshare

Frankfurt Bookfair Supply Chain Meeting: Publishing in a Digital Age from Michael Cairns

If you click on the notes tab below the slideviewer you will be able to read my verbal comments attributed to each page. Without these comments the presentation is likely to be next to meaningless. (For some reason, you will need to click back from page two to page one to see the notes for page one - looks like a small bug to me).

Also, the presentation was videotaped (here). My video is the second one. The A/V guy starts in on page three for some reason.

It is about a 24 minute presentation. Some seemed to enjoy it and a number of people came up to me at the end although, I wondered why no one asked me who 'Kenneth' was. The other presentations that day were interesting and I will note the link to the editeur site when they are all up.

Ala Moana Beach Park & Diamond Head Honolulu 1975

Ala Moana Beach Park and Diamond Head 1975

A weekly image from my archive. Click on the image to make it larger.

Another beautiful day in paradise and while the skyline has changed considerably Honolulu is still a great town. Just left of center in this photo is the Illikai hotel with its revolving restaurant on top. About five years ago, the hotel had a major renovation and added time shares. One of my ex-colleagues from Bowker owns one. In the distance is Diamond Head (never any diamonds) around which I have run many times although I only lived in Honolulu briefly in the summer 1982. The Honolulu marathon goes around the edges of that going out and coming back. Makes it rather challenging.

PND Technology: Jibe

My weekly (kind of) recap of some of the interesting technology I've heard about at the tech meet-ups I've been going to (NYTech)

JIBE is a site that combines your social network with your job search. The site includes listings from companies (which are paid) allows you in the application process to include specific recommendations from your social network in support of your application. For example, if you are applying to a position at Conde Nast (launch partner) and you have a facebook or linkedin connection at that company you can ask for and attach a specific recommendation or endorsement to travel with your application for the position.

The company has also developed some intelligent software that decodes information from your network on linkedin and facebook so that you can organize your contacts by business and/or business segment. In effect, JIBE creates a set of profiles of your profiles but applicable to work and job seeking.

Check out the video:

Watch live streaming video from nytechmeetup at livestream.com