MIP tomorrow!

The Book Industry Study Group's annual Making Information Pay conference is on tomorrow from 9-12 at the McGraw-Hill Auditorium at 1221 6th Avenue. The program, co-presented with Mike Shatzkin of the IdeaLogical Company will include:

Carolyn Pittis – Senior Vice-President, Global Marketing Strategy & Operations, HarperCollins

Michael Raynor –author of the best-selling book “The Strategy Paradox” and a leading consultant with Deloitte Consulting LLP

Michael Cader – Founder, Publishers Marketplace

Todd Anderson – Director of the University of Alberta Bookstore

Malle Vallik – Director, Digital Content & Interactivity, Harlequin Enterprises

Gwen Jones – Vice-President, Publisher Information Systems & Technologies, John Wiley & Sons

Neil DeYoung – Director of Digital Media, Hachette Book Group, USA

Julie Grau – Senior Vice-President & Publisher, Spiegel & Grau, Random House Inc

Yes, I'm Twittering.

What the HELL is going on with PW?

BHL Raises Eyebrows

Swinging political philosopher (and Random House author) Bernard-Henri Levy is giving Parisians plenty to gossip about. While his actress wife, Arielle Dombasle, has been in the City of Light, BHL has been in New York squiring stout-hearted Irish brewery heiress Daphne Guinness, according to the New York Daily News.

Since when have they become Page Six????

Back to the Future

Barnes & Noble is apparently selling magazine subscriptions again on its website. They did this shortly after they launched the site, in 1997, but they dismantled this program a few years later. Interesting that they're going back to initiatives that they abandoned after the crash - rumor has it they're developing an ebook program as well.

Endeca in the OPAC

The Massachusetts Library Association Conference has its own blog, and today there's a great post about how the Phoenix Public Library system used Endeca in its OPAC, and walked away from ILS-vendor-supplied OPACs.

Phoenix was aware that the browsing function was going to be a challenge. Librarians “squawked” about using BISAC subject headings. Then one Phoenix librarian had a revelation. Book Industry Standards and Communications (BISAC) using Endeca for browsing was going to be a challenge. Used BISAC subject headings. “Its not about us, it’s about them” It’s people speak not catalog speak.

Peter Olsen out at Random

The Times just reported that Peter Olsen will be stepping down from Random House's helm "in the next few weeks." CEO since 1998, Olsen "has come under mounting pressure in recent months as Bertelsmann’s financial results have been damaged by lower profits at Random House and steep losses in its American book clubs, which he also oversees."

Ironically, Olsen had dismissed Ann Godoff in 2003 for similar reasons, "saying in a news release that she ran the only unit 'to consistently fall short of their profitability targets.' In an interview, he said it would have been disingenuous to attribute her exit to other reasons."

And more on Amazon/BookSurge

The complaints that we have received have come from across the country. It appears that the markets involved are national in scope. Thus, it may be more appropriate to refer this matter to one of the federal antitrust agencies for review.

For these reasons, and based on the information that has been provided to us, the Attorney General's office does not plan further action on this matter. However, and as noted before, this is not a conclusive legal opinion and anyone feeling that they have been harmed and wish to pursue a remedy should consider consulting with private counsel.

Writer's Weekly responds by squealing indignantly, and promptly educating readers as to how to file an antitrust complaint with the Department of Justice.

NY Center for Independent Publishing talks about Amazon and BookSurge

An interesting post on the NYCIP website about Amazon's insistence that POD publishers use BookSurge or stock copies of their books in Amazon's warehouse - Lloyd Jassin, the chair of NYCIP, has some rather odd assertions.

The first is this: "Traditionally, bookselling was separated from publishing, with booksellers (including Amazon) realizing the benefit of combining the wares of many publishers." This actually is not accurate. Perhaps reflective of the last 20 years, but bookselling is a much older business than that, and I think many of us can remember Doubleday bookshops, Scribners bookshops, and the like. Bookshops started out as the front-of-the-store to printing presses. So to say that bookselling should adhere to "tradition" by separating itself from publishing is, to use Jassin's own term, "specious reasoning".

Jassin also predicts the following:

If I had to guess, I'd say in the next 24-months Google buys Ingram (Googlegram?) for its digital group assets (including Lightning Source), and it out-Amazons Amazon by creating the ultimate digital warehouse/distributor in the sky.

If Google were to exhibit digital favoritism, it would steer book buyers to its wholly owned and super-efficient Lightning Source imprint. Amazon owns the online store. Google owns the web. Amazon merchandises books. Google sells them contextually. Balance is restored to the planet.

To which the only judicious response is: WTF?????

Ingram is a family-owned company that is doing extraordinarily well and always has, and which will definitely NOT sell off its digital group (which is a relatively new business for it) to Google even if such an offer were made. And a hostile acquisition would be seriously damaging to the business.

Jassin's an entertainment lawyer. He ends his piece by citing Napster. There are indeed many similarities between the music and publishing industries, but I think he needs to dwell a little more in the book world if he wants to make accurate assertions.

Faber goes POD for OP books

The Guardian had a great article on Friday on Faber's new imprint:

The new imprint, called Faber Finds, will publish such classic titles as Angus Wilson's Anglo Saxon Attitudes and John Betjeman's Ghastly Good Taste, as well as relatively recent titles such as John Carey's acclaimed biography of John Donne. Faber Finds will make use of print-on-demand technology in order to allow for print runs of between one and 50 books at a time, thereby avoiding the financial risks associated with traditional publishing's requirement for large-volume print runs.

Apparently the literary agency Peters Fraser & Dunlop has also cut a deal with Lightning Source to release POD versions of works which are out of print, but still in copyright - appealing to writers who want to have their OP works available for order over the web.

The Guardian article continues:

The Amazon Tax

In 1998, I got to Barnes & Noble a year after its website had launched, and there was a lot of hoo-ha over sales tax.

Ordering over the web was seen as ordering by catalog - you don't have to pay sales taxes unless you're in the same state as the company. So if you order turtlenecks from L.L. Bean, for example, you don't have to pay taxes unless you are in Maine, where L. L. Bean is headquartered.

At Barnes & Noble, the Riggios spun off the website into its own separate company, and sold half of that company to Bertlesmann. This way, they didn't have to charge sales tax on website orders from outside of New York - it was a separate company from B&N, Inc., and had no physical presence in 49 states.

This made everyone insane.

It diluted the B&N brand. Because they were two different companies, run by two different sets of officers, they were very compartmentalized. The stores were not trained to refer people to the website. Web customers couldn't return books to the stores if they'd ordered the wrong thing. People would print out web pages and take them into the stores, and couldn't get the books they wanted - the stores couldn't even order the books. There were two sets of distribution channels. There were separate warehouses. There were separate relationships with vendors.

And of course the customer didn't understand AT ALL what it meant that there were two different corporate entities called Barnes & Noble.

Eventually the Riggios realized that it might be worth charging sales tax for the convenience of having a single company with two distribution channels. So Bertlesmann was bought out, and the companies merged. There are still two sets of officers, but the back office is much more integrated than it used to be. There's cross-promotion between the website and the stores. It makes sense.

New York just instituted a law determining that Amazon affiliates count as physical presences in the state. In other words, if I sell used books on Amazon from my big storage closet that also houses my clothing, empty boxes I think might be useful someday, Rollerblades and ice skates, my old journals from college, miscellaneous office supplies, and 37 mismatched winter gloves - that storage closet counts as a New York shop. And I have to charge sales tax. Even on the mismatched gloves, if I am selling them (which I am happy to do if anyone wants them).

The caveat is that I must sell over $10,000 worth of merchandise for this law to apply to me and Amazon. Somehow I cannot see selling $10,000 worth of used books and mismatched gloves.

Additionally, this law does not apply solely to the affiliates - in other words, ALL of Amazon's inventory is subject to sales tax because my fragment of it is physically located in New York (and presumably I wouldn't turn away anyone who showed up at my doorstep wanting to buy it on-site). Because my inventory shows up in a search result for "used books and odd gloves" along with all the other inventory in all the other affiliates' shops, my inventory more or less contaminates theirs and they have to charge New York sales tax as well. It's guilt by association, sort of.

I would argue that the tax law should only apply to the inventory that is physically located in the state where the customer is ordering from. I think the New York law overreaches a bit. Another solution is a universal sales tax...but that's not going to go anywhere fast. The US doesn't like flat taxes.

I mean, this is embarrassing

It's been 13 days since my last post. Forgive me.

I've been productive, though! If you go to the Book Business website, you can download my webinar, Digital Strategies: Getting the Most Bang for Your Buck. I know there were questions that didn't get answered, and I hope to answer them in the coming days. If anybody has any new questions, email me and I'll answer them here.

I also have an article coming out in the Summer issue of "Library Trends". If you don't have a subscription, you can access it at your local library!

"Yeah, Microsoft - that defunct company"

Tim O'Reilly has a really cool post on his blog about Amazon's un-ecological approach to things lately. A (large - please forgive me, Tim) excerpt:

But as Amazon's market power increases, it needs to be mindful of whether its moves, even those that may be good for the company in the short term, are ultimately destructive of the ecosystem on which they depend. I believe that they are heading in that direction, and if they succeed with some of their initiatives, they will wake up one day to discover that they've sown the seeds of their own destruction, just as Microsoft did in the 1990s.

At O'Reilly, we have a motto: "Create more value than you capture." It's a wise motto for companies far bigger than we are to adopt. If you do that, you ensure a healthy ecosystem. If you capture more value than you create, watch out, because stagnation is on the way.

Amazon has, so far, created huge value for the publishing ecosystem. Now, as they become more powerful, they need to be especially watchful that they don't irreparably damage an industry on which they too depend.

A friend of mine responded to this with, "Yeah, Microsoft - that defunct company." And I admit I had the same thought - Microsoft is in no danger of dying anytime soon. But they did indeed do some damage to themselves, just as Apple did (anyone remember when Apple was struggling?), just as IBM did. In fact, IBM might be an even better example.

Tim's post is a good thought. It's a responsible thought. (But - as others have pointed out - not all businesses are responsible.) In the words of .38 Special, "hold on loosely."

Cool blog

In yesterday's Big Picture, I listed a bunch of blogs I follow, and I found a new one today: The CITE. It's run by Mark Nelson, who comes out of NACS, ECAR and EDUCAUSE. He tackles issues in textbook publishing, which is of course a hotbed of digital experimentation. Cool!

Textbook publishers sue GSU

I'd wondered when this was going to happen. In the white paper I wrote last year about publishing and libraries, Convenient Convergence, I proposed that textbook publishers look at licensing their content to libraries, so that students could seemingly access their textbooks for "free", and textbook companies could continue to get paid, just under a different model.

Looks like Georgia State University's library has gone ahead and done something just like this - only without making a licensing deal with the publishers involved (Oxford, Cambridge and SAGE):

As of Feb. 19, the university's library electronic course system listed more than 6,700 works that were available for more than 600 courses, the lawsuit said. By allowing such widespread access, students can obtain many of the required reading materials for their courses without ever setting foot in a bookstore or spending any money for them, the suit added.

OUP, CUP and SAGE have filed suit. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

New York attorney R. Bruce Rich, who represents the publishers, said other universities, when notified, have worked out license agreements with publishers over the use of copyrighted materials.

BookMooch

CNet reports on a service called BookMooch.com, a book-swapping website run by John Buckman. Members pay a fee to join, and then trade books for free online. (They have to pay for postage, but that's all.)

However, Buckman's taking in money as an Amazon affiliate. He's got a widget called the Moochbar, which links members' wish lists to Amazon. For every 25 books traded, someone actually will purchase a book, and Buckman makes the affiliate fee.

CNet points out, however, that Buckman's service is primarily of interest as a long tail phenomenon:

Apart from still-negligible sales, what should be more of a wake-up call to the book industry is how the site is tapping into the so-called long tail of book retail with a social, free service. The long tail, as the theory goes, accounts for as much as 60 percent of the goods sold in an industry, or all those unpopular works that find a home with only a few. It's said that the lion's share of Amazon's book sales come from works that have a low sales ranking.

What's more, within the next nine months, Buckman expects to have the inventory of books--distributed among its members--that would rival that of the largest book wholesaler in the United States. BookMooch now has an inventory of about 480,000 books among its 70,000 trading members, but at its growth rate it should rival Ingram Book Company's 1 million books by early 2009, Buckman said. BookMooch's decentralized warehouse of books serves the long tail the same way that centralized warehouses like those of Ingram's serves the top of the tail.

JISC Report: Metadata for Digital Libraries

The Joint Information Systems Committee has just issued a report on metadata and libraries in the digital age, available here. Judy O'Connell's blog Hey Jude helpfully digests some of the more critical points with Paul Anderson of Intelligent Content:

The problem for librarians is that when you are creating things like e-books, you have to think about a different set of ‘quality’ criteria because these digital objects will not be used in the same way that physical books are. They will need to designed so that they can be searched, for example, or delivered as separate pages. For the average library user, accessing information that spans multiple digital sources is increasingly a messy process and for those who are used to search tools such as Google and Yahoo this new and highly fluid environment can be a considerable barrier to accessing information from digital libraries and online collections. What is concerning about this is, unless we are careful, people will increasingly see the search results thrown up by Google, Yahoo etc. as the be-all and end-all of a particular area of interest or subject.