LJNDawson.com, Consulting to the Book Publishing Industry
Book Publishing Industry Consultant

PW up for sale

Now that The Book Standard is mysteriously re-routing to Kirkus Reviews, there seems to be very little coverage on the development that Reed is putting its information unit up for sale - which includes PW. John Mutter at Shelf Awareness and Michael Cader at Publishers Marketplace have had pieces - that's about as MSM as we're going to get on this.

Apparently Reed is looking to get away from the ad-subsidized business model. Michael Cairns at Persona Non Data has this analysis:

First, the online component of RBI is not growing fast enough to keep up with Elsevier, LexisNexis and Martindale. This will dampen long term revenue growth for RE. Second, the timing and investment required to speed the process could be significant and Third, the payback is not obvious in so far as online ad based 'magazine-type' content has yet to establish itself as a business that can replace revenues from print based subscription and advertising. Davis's comments reflect forward thinking regarding the strategic growth of RE as a platform based content solutions provider: Financially the current position of RBI is quite strong versus their segment. Indeed their performance supports the suggestion that Davis will not rush to sell RBI and is open to various scenarios.


It's worth remembering that Michael Cairns was CEO of Bowker, which for quite a while owned PW before selling it to Reed.
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