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EDITORIAL
(from April 03 issue)
Not just the London Book Fair
Between the London Book Fair and various events
and seminars I hardly saw my colleagues last month. The first
was "Cross Media Production", hosted by PIRA and contributors
included Nature, Cambridge University Press, John Wiley and Palgrave
Macmillan. It would seem that most of the larger publishers are
well on their way to working with sophisticated content management
systems and xml workflows. The high level of interest in this
event took PIRA by surprise, and many applicants were disappointed
to hear that it was over-subscribed. PIRA is already planning
on a second event and I understand that it may take place in July.
We will have full details in next month's Book People.
Next came ePubLondon, chaired by Tony Feldman (as previewed in
January). While many of the issues PIRA covered were also aired,
this was a broader conference with fascinating presentations including
internet marketing, challenges for managing the rights aspects
of multichannel publishing and the impact of online bookselling
on the supply chain.
This item, from Mike Shatzkin, forms the basis of his feature
in this issue.
Key speakers included: Christopher Woodhead (Ingenta); Christy
Lally (business development manager, Oracle); Kate Worlock (director,
Electronic Publishing Services Ltd); Ken Brok (Jr president, Publishing
Dimensions); Helen Bailey (production director, John Wiley); Jonathan
Glasspool (publishing director (Reference); Bloomsbury); Adrian
Laing (AMS); Sheila Lambie (Sheila Lambie Sales and Marketing)
and Barry Flynn (director, Media and IT Services).
Against a backdrop of technological development and growing feeling
that everything had a certain inevitability, it was refreshing
to hear Jonathan Glasspool from Bloomsbury remind us just how
unsuitable some content is for multichannel publishing.
Finally, I attended a seminar by Macromedia, whose software is
at the sharp edge of enabling content delivery through the internet.
I won't pretend to have understood how it’s all done, but
I was impressed that the need to improve the experience for the
internet user is driving much of the thinking.
This issue sees the first of our 2003 publishing software features.
It would appear that there is a lot going on. I hope you find
the information useful.
Paul Thorne
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Audited
circulation for the year to 31st December 2002. Average circulation
of 5,707.
Book
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INTERNET
BOOKSELLING AFFECTS THE TRADITIONAL SUPPLY CHAIN (By Mike Shatzkin)
The
future of internet bookselling and its impact on the supply chain
creates many opportunities for discussion and digression, believes
Mike Shatzkin.
Mike Shatzkin at LBF last month
The first "supply chain impact" of internet bookselling,
perhaps the only channel that is growing at the moment, is that
it has its own supply chain components that we didn't really have
to think about before the internet came into existence.
Amazon, by far the market leader in internet bookselling all over
the world, and very much so in both the US and UK, has demonstrated
that the key to long-term success is "owning the transaction".
Through affiliate programs, Amazon, and its only true remaining
competitor in the US and perhaps anywhere in the world, Barnesandnoble.com,
have empowered a good many websites to become internet booksellers
to vertical and niche markets. Sometimes the referral fees are
generous, as much as 15% of the purchase price for doing nothing
but sending over the customer. But ultimately these become legacy
customers to the site that books the transaction, not the one
that initiates it.
From the beginning, Amazon also demonstrated what was another
key component of the online supply chain: the title-offering database.
Some observers were sceptical in 1995 when Amazon went on to the
internet using a historical database that had been compiled by
Ingram, Bowker, and then later Baker & Taylor over the preceeding
decade or more.
Because of its origins, the database contained many titles that
were out-of-print and, by the capabilities Amazon then had in
place, impossible to fulfill. But the database itself was a tool
for Amazon's visitors from the very beginning; the consumer recognised
immediate value in being told that a book was out-of-print, even
at a time when the online bookseller couldn't do much more to
help the customer locate the book.
Online bookstores, like terrestrial ones, are judged by their
customers on their ability to fulfill. Jeff Bezos realised that
what enabled Amazon to exist in the first place was that the broad
stock positions of American wholesalers, particularly Ingram,
enabled any internet bookseller to satisfy most customers within
days, without holding any inventory at all. The key, which Amazon
also recognised from the start, was the management of "promise
dates". Tell the customer in advance, before the order is
placed, which books will take three days to arrive and which will
take three weeks, and business runs smoothly with a minimum of
customer service required.
Amazon seemed to be embarking on a strategy of substituting its
own book supply chain for the wholesalers a few years ago, but
has apparently backed off trying to stock sufficiently to supply
all its own needs. Instead, Amazon in the US now uses a mixed
strategy that includes stocking some of the books, presumably
those that sell in the largest and most predictable quantities,
and dividing the rest of their business between Ingram and Baker
& Taylor. And Ingram and Baker & Taylor have developed
the capability to ship directly to the consumer, which means that
any internet bookstore can fill most customer demand without ever
needing to touch the book. Each year, an increasing number of
books are shipped to online purchasers in this way. UK wholesalers
provide a similar service.
Barnes & Noble, of course, has its own distribution centres
stocking more titles than any wholesaler, even Ingram, which in
turn stocks more titles than any other wholesaler in the US or
elsewhere in the world. B&N and Ingram, in fact, may be unique
in their desire to order virtually every trade book directly from
the publisher. Baker & Taylor in the US and Gardener's in
the UK stock in the neighbourhood of a quarter million titles,
much less than half what Ingram and B&N carry on board. B&T
and Gardener's - and perhaps others - can offer virtually any
title they don't stock on a slightly longer and less predictable
timetable by an "order to order" strategy. That is,
when they receive an order for a book they don't carry, they will
place an order.
In the US, this means that B&N can offer the best promise
date more often than anybody else with its own deep warehouse
inventory; Amazon is second because it is stocking the fastest
movers; and everybody else is tied for third, ordering most from
Ingram and sometimes from Baker & Taylor. In turn this makes
an online bookstore proposition that does not offer just about
every title in print competitively inferior and, one would think,
short-lived.
. . . many online booksellers are offering used books
through other alliances.
In a conversation about publishing's future in London a few years
ago, we suggested that the concept of "complete selection"
would be redefined, and Amazon is doing the most to redefine it
By leveraging its enormous customer base and unmatched technology
skills, the group has created a peer-to-peer network to sell used
books that compares to what eBay, which specialises in peer-to-peer
sales, can do. But Amazon does something eBay can't: it offers
the used books customers want to sell on the same screen that
describes the book and peddles the publisher's edition. So for
many books, a cheaper used copy is available instead of the publisher's
fresh new copy. At the same time, many online booksellers are
offering used books through other alliances. All this just makes
life more difficult for publishers and is likely in the future
to make it hard to even measure the growth or contraction in the
publishers' market for new books on an industry-wide basis.
Indeed, both the US and the UK just experienced a year where brick-and-mortar
sales were estimated to have stayed flat or slightly declined,
while growth occurred in the online channel. But how much of those
online sales were used books and no contributor to growth for
the publishers at all? I am not sure we really know.
Amazon is redefining "complete" in another way: with
its eDocuments offering. EDocs are high-priced reports from companies
like Accenture, which are more likely using Amazon as a channel
of convenience to reach existing customers than as a way to create
additional sales. But, either way, there is a wide range of useful
offerings available through Amazon that are not in any other bookstore,
giving the group a USP that any competitor will be hard-pressed
to match in the future.
Barnes & Noble and Borders have also made attempts to redefine
"complete" by producing proprietary books available
only in their own stores. Although this is not, strictly speaking,
a supply chain impact of online bookselling, it is a point that
raises some interesting supply chain questions which are of interest
on both sides of
the Atlantic.
The development of proprietary books, usually by purchase by one
of the chains directly from a packager, has been going on for
quite some time. A few years ago, B&N bought the packager
Friedman-Fairfax and made it an in-house operation. Then a year
or so ago, B&N bought Sparknotes, a study guide series that
has a large internet following among students and a unique online
proposition. All Sparknotes content, the complete texts, are viewable
at their website for free. Downloadable, printable pdfs are available
for the same price as the books. A substantial business in pdfs
and books is done online.
When B&N rolled out Sparknotes, they stopped carrying Sparknotes'
most successful direct competitor, the long-established Cliff
Notes, which are now owned by John Wiley. Now that's a supply
chain impact bound to get publishers' attention.
For a few years, B&N had a distribution arrangement for some
of the books it generated through Sterling Publishing, which offered
books branded as "Friedman-Fairfax", not "Barnes
& Noble", to other stores, chains and independents. Some
of the titles produced were kept as exclusive by B&N which,
like Borders, believed in the advantage of having some attractive
merchandise not available anywhere else.
Last spring, B&N decided to press that advantage by not offering
the visible and up-and-coming Sparknotes line to other stores.
That strategy tacitly expressed the view that the advantage of
having unique product for the bookstores outweighed the additional
profit from a wider distribution of the proprietary publishing.
Then, as we all know, B&N acquired Sterling last December.
Sterling is such a strong player in certain niche categories like
Crafts and Puzzles & Games that many retailers would see those
sections suffer terribly if Sterling books weren't available there.
But B&N has apparently reversed course strategically with
Sterling, making an even wider array of the proprietary books
available through Sterling than they did before. Even Sparknotes
will soon be offered to the general trade.
Some of B&N's competitors, most loudly and publicly the Borders
chain and the mass merchant, Costco, have decided that buying
from Sterling supports their top competitor at retail, so they've
announced that they will not buy from Sterling. The question of
whom this will hurt, or whether the boycott threat will even be
executed for very long, is still open. But it is an interesting
paradox that at one time B&N thought they gained an advantage
having these titles to themselves and now their biggest competitor
is saying: "have these titles to yourself!"
. . . concern when Hodder Headline was acquired by WH
Smith
These
questions are neither new, nor unique to Barnes & Noble. Of
course, Hodder Headline in the UK was acquired by WH Smith a few
years ago and I remember concern expressed at the time that the
publisher would gain an unfair advantage at the country's most
ubiquitous book retailer. Advanced Marketing Services (AMS), is
known in the US as the wholesaler that enables mass merchants
to be in the book business, which would otherwise be too complex
for them to manage. AMS recently bought PGW, the largest distributor
in the US of independent presses. And as far back as the 1950s
and 1960s, US publisher Doubleday owned a chain of bookstores
and US publisher Macmillan owned the Brentano's bookstore chain.
The prevailing wisdom about retailing brands, always subject to
change, is that they will have to serve customers both on and
off the Net to keep their customers. Most of us who buy online
don't buy everything online. Generalising from one's own experience
is a dangerous practice, but I find myself in synch with most
people I know in that I buy some books online and some in stores.
And while the online market is still taking new customers from
brick-and-mortar every day, and will for some time, most customers
will split their purchases for the foreseeable future.
To the extent that having a presence both online and in cyberspace
helps hold customers in both places, Barnes & Noble has the
clear edge in the US market. B&N competes with Borders on
land and with Amazon online, but nobody competes with B&N
nationally as a total solution for the book consumer. How important
this will be as a success factor remains to be seen and depends
somewhat on how well B&N can exploit its presence in both
places.
Barnes & Noble does have an offer of same-day delivery within
Manhattan of books ordered through Barnesandnoble.com, a capability
afforded by the large number of its superstores in New York City
and the presence of an enormous Distribution Centre in nearby
New Jersey. How scaleable that particular offer would be is difficult
to guess, but an integrated offering that allowed shopping from
the store or from home or office to result in books available
at the store or delivered to home or office, would definitely
build customer loyalty among the biggest book consumers. How quickly
B&N can build such a capability and how effective it will
be as an affinity tool remain to be seen.
Some other components of online bookselling in the US should be
mentioned, even though it is likely that Amazon and Barnesandnoble
comprise as much as 90% of the online book sales. Almost all independent
booksellers have online presences now, many through the American
Booksellers Association's BookSense offering. As a unified site
that competes with national online brands from Amazon and the
two large national chains, or even smaller regional ones like
Booksamillion, Booksense is apparently not cutting it. But the
turnkey and inexpensive capability for stores to have their own
sites, dressed up with their own reviews and recommendations,
and enabled to sell a broad catalogue with shipment direct by
Ingram or Baker & Taylor, has at least permitted independents
to offer their customers an online choice other than simply abandoning
their local merchant.
Powells.com is worth a mention as well. Powell's, in Portland,
Oregon, is the biggest single-store vendor of used books in the
US. For many years, Powells has sold new books and used books
side-by-side in its store; now it offers a database combining
the two online that is even more integrated than Amazon's. In
fact, the noted observer of the American book scene, Michael Cader
of Publishers Lunch, suggested to me that a merger between Powells
and Booksense would be a logical one. From the consumer standpoint,
he's right, but the business issues of engineering that combination
would be daunting.
. . . online is not an equal opportunity channel
All this suggests that the day of the new-book only bookstore
may be waning. I think it is. There is another important way in
which online sales are changing the supply chain: online supply
is not an equal-opportunity channel. Some books sell much better
online than others and, more importantly, that for some books
the sales are migrating from brick-and-mortar to online. That
is: for some books, the customers' ability to buy online is destroying
the market at traditional retail.
This effect seems to be noticeable first to university presses
in the US, which are seeing huge growth in online sales while
experiencing what feels like a meltdown in some of their brick-and-mortar
channels. Our company has been analysing sales for many publishers
at Barnes & Noble for the past year; one thing we look at
is the relative sales levels, by title and category, through BN.com
versus what the superstores sell. On titles that are readily seen
to be books that would be discovered by academics and professionals
through what would now largely be online information sources,
sales online have mushroomed and brick-and-mortar sales have often
collapsed. Until the publishers and booksellers get a handle on
these changes, they result in large returns that are costly to
both sides.
Certain other categories, like business books, are also seeing
sales migrate to online.
There is another development at retail, which we also see in the
UK and to which we alluded earlier: the entry of mass merchandisers
into the business of selling the top titles at deep discounts.
If online bookselling is the only channel that is growing for
most publishers, sales through mass merchants still represent
a growth channel for the much smaller number of publishers who
carry one of the small minority of titles these outlets sell in
prodigious quantities.
There would appear to be a real danger that the combination of
online bookselling bleeding away the sales of the hardest-to-find
books and the mass merchants taking an increasing chunk of the
bestseller business could cripple the general bookstore business
as we have known it. Half of the sales of major bestsellers, or
even more, can elude the book trade through these channels. What
we know for sure is that forces are at work which are making new
demands on all the players: publishers, chain and independent
booksellers, wholesalers, and online booksellers as well.
Mike Shatzkin, 240 East 56th Street, Suite 4E, New York, NY 10022.
Tel (212) 758 5670.
E-mail: mike@idealog.com.
.
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DROP
IN NUMBERS AT BOLOGNA
Fewer exhibitors and visitors, but good business: this summed
up the 40th International Children’s Book Fair held in Bologna
from 2nd to 5th April.
1,100 exhibitors (1,376 in 2002) from 62 countries presented their
lists for children and teenagers during the four days of the fair.
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LBF
2003 – FACTS AND FIGURES
LBF talking busines . . .
13,532 visitors attended last month’s London Book Fair,
achieving a 19% increase on the total visitor attendance
in 2002 as well as an increase in bookseller attendance of 17%
up to 3,075.
A truely international event, the additional marketing focus to
international visitors was rewarded with an increase of almost
20%.
Record international attendance
There were more overseas visitors at this year’s London
Book Fair than ever before. The record attendance marks a massive
20% increase on last year and is particularly notable in the current
political and economic climate.Just under 5,000 visitors from
outside the UK attended over the three days of the Fair. Total
attendance (not including exhibitors) for the event also saw a
dramatic rise on last year.
Alistair Burtenshaw, director of London Book Fair 2003, said:
"It’s incredible that there have been more overseas
visitors this year than ever before – this in spite of the
effect media coverage of impending war could have had on London
Book Fair.
"I’m equally delighted that the number of booksellers
attending has also substantially increased, reflecting the huge
range of books, services and events on offer to retailers at the
Fair. These figures give a fantastic picture of the state of the
international publishing community and the support the industry
gives to the event."
• Overseas visitors totalled 4,995, up by 19.7% on last
year
• Number of booksellers was up by 17% to 3,075
• These figures apply purely to trade, i.e. they do not
include the number of consumer visitors (projected to be 1,000+).
They also do not include revisits on any day or exhibitor personnel.
Total Fair attendance, including exhibitors, are projected to
be in the region of 25,000.
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NEW
GLOBAL RIGHTS FORUM
The
world’s three leading book fairs have formed a joint programme:
the Global Rights Forum.
This is an educational track that will be co-branded in association
with BookExpo America (BEA), the London Book Fair (LBF), and the
Frankfurt Book Fair. The educational programme will be launched
at this year’s BookExpo America, to be held at the Los Angeles
Convention Center in Los Angeles (May 29 - June 1, 2003). The
Global Rights Forum will continue with sessions at this year’s
Frankfurt Book Fair (October 8 – 13, 2003), and next year’s
London Book Fair, March 14 – 16, 2004.
The Global Rights Forum at BEA will begin with two seminars focusing
on the potential of the American market for buyers and sellers.
Attention has been devoted to the sale of English language rights
to the foreign market; and there is now both reason and opportunity
to turn more attention to the purchase of translation rights.
The two-part Global Rights Forum will examine the needs and priorities
of both purchasers and vendors in this growing market from these
two points of view. First, How to Find, Edit, Translate and Publish
International Literature for the American Market will look at
the issues from an “inbound” perspective, studying
the benefits that accrue the seller, then Selling Translations
& English Language Rights Into the American Market: What Works
& What’s Hot will focus on the foreign perspective of
selling into the American market.
There will be one Global Rights Forum seminar at each of the three
participating international book fairs in the coming year. Officials
at each of the conventions acknowledge that they would like to
expand the Global Rights Forum to include other subjects of common
interest.
For more information concerning BookExpo America
and registration for the above events, call 800/840-5614 or 203/840-5614
(International) or visit the BEA website at www.bookexpoamerica.com
<http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/>
For more information concerning the Frankfurt Book Fair,
please call +49 (0) 69 2102 0 or visit the book fair website at
www.frankfurt-book-fair.com <http://www.frankfurt-book-fair.com>
For more information concerning the London Book Fair
and registration for the 2003 London Book Fair, please call +44(0)870
429 4678 or visit the LBF website at www.lbf-virtual.com m
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GARDNERS
AND LIGHTNING SOURCE
Gardners
Books is joining Lightning Source as a channel partner for print-on-demand
books.
The company joins other key companies already operating as Lightning's
channel partners in the UK including Amazon.co.uk, Bertrams and
Cypher Library Supplies
Malcolm Allen, managing director, Lightning Source, said: "As
we become channel partners with more wholesalers, more publishers
are attracted to our services because of the increasing outlets
for their books. Expanding the number of publishers in our programme
means that more books are available and more are sold. This growth
is resulting in increased revenue all around for booksellers,
our channel partners and publishers."
Gardners Books will be establishing a direct EDI ordering link
with Lightning Source in Milton Keynes. When orders are transmitted
to Lightning Source, books are printed on-demand using the latest
digital print technology, with prioritised production service
levels of 48 hours for paperbacks and 8-10 days for hardbacks.
For more information, visit www.lightningsource.com
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BOOK
NEWS
NEW
GODOFF IMPRINT UNVEILED IN US
One of the largest and most prestigious
lists of award-winning authors at one time had been acquired for
the new Ann Godoff imprint, The Penguin Press.
Ms. Petersen Kennedy, president of Penguin Group (USA) commented:
"The acquisition of these 13 bestselling, critically acclaimed
authors will bring at least three million new readers to Penguin
Group. The calibre and scope of Ann's debut list is a tribute
to her extraordinary talent and to her passion and commitment
to publishing quality literature."
[Ms. Godoff, president and publisher of The Penguin Press, said:
"As evidenced by our first list, The Penguin Press will be
all about the writers. It is our intention to publish authors
for the long term, and to build an imprint the old fashioned way,
book by book."] CAN BE CUT
The Penguin Press will have 12 titles on its first list. The editorial
load will be shared between Ms. Godoff and Senior Editor Scott
Moyers.
The Penguin Press Winter 2004 list, in alphabetical order:
Ken Auletta, one of America's most celebrated
journalists, investigates the most powerful people and institutions
shaping his industry, for good and ill, in BACKSTORY: Inside the
Business of News.
Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit expand
on their influential New York Review of Books essay in OCCIDENTALISM:
The Idea of the West in the Minds of its Enemies, a ground-breaking
investigation of the genealogy of anti-Western stereotypes and
their impact, from Tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany to Osama bin
Laden.
Ron Chernow, winner of the National Book Award
for The House of Morgan and the best-selling author of Titan:
The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., has written the seminal
biography of Alexander Hamilton, the innovative founding father.
Steve Coll, managing editor of the Washington Post, gives a news-breaking
investigative report on the twenty-plus years of mostly hidden
U.S. involvement in Afghanistan that preceded our post-September
11 war against the Taleban.
Evan Cornog, an associate dean of the Columbia
School of Journalism and publisher of the Columbia Journalism
Review, examines the ways in which Presidents (and Presidential
hopefuls) craft their public images as stories that they continually
revise as circumstances require in THE POWER AND THE STORY: How
Presidential Narratives Shape America.
Richard J. Evans, an Oxford historian, presents
in THE COMING OF THE THIRD REICH, his much-anticipated magisterial
reckoning with perhaps the single most important story of the
20th century: how Germany slid from a stable, modern country into
the "Hitler state" that left in its wake a Europe in
ruins and a world changed beyond all recognition.
Charlie LeDuff, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York
Times journalist, will publish WORK AND OTHER SINS: Life in New
York City and Thereabouts, a wry and singular look at the city:
the bars, the workingmen, the gamblers, the lonesome, the eccentric.
Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor, called"the
most important thinker on intellectual property in the Internet
era" (The New Yorker), and who argued the recent landmark
copyright case before the Supreme Court, presents FREE CULTURE:
Creativity and its Enemies, a powerful warning about how big interests
are using new laws and technologies to control how culture is
used.
Roger Lowenstein, best-selling author of Buffett and When Genius
Failed, gives what is sure to be the lasting examination of the
rise and fall of the great Wall
Street boom of the 1990s in ORIGINS OF THE CRASH: The Great Bubble
and Its Undoing.
Dean Smith, the most successful coach in the
history of college basketball, offers his wisdom on building and
maintaining winning teams in sports, business and life in THE
CAROLINA WAY: Lessons from a Life in Coaching.
Zac Unger, writing his first book, presents
WORKING FIRE: A Memoir, an unlikely fireman's funny, heartfelt
and harrowing account of growing into his calling in Oakland,
California, one of the most dangerous cities for firefighters
in America.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon presents his international
literary sensation, THE SHADOW OF THE WIND. This debut novel set
in 20th-century Barcelona, chronicles the journey of a rare-book
dealer's son who falls in love with a mysterious book and embarks
on a fateful, dangerous quest to find its author. Zafon's novel
dominated Spain's best-seller lists for two years and has already
been sold to over 20 countries.
A majority of The Penguin Press trade paperback editions will
be published by Penguin Books, of which Kathryn Court, who also
reports to Ms. Petersen Kennedy, is president. Penguin Books is
a trade paperback imprint of Penguin Group (USA).
CENTURY
ACQUIRE DEBUT NOVEL
Century has acquired Reproduction is the Flaw of Love, a stunning
first novel by American writer Lauren Grodstein, by associate
publishing director Kate Elton. The five-figure deal was done
with Caspian Dennis at Abner Stein, on behalf of Julie Barer at
Sanford Greenburger. The book will be published in late spring
2004 as a Century trade paperback, and then in Arrow in 2005.
Rights have so far been sold in the US.
Lauren Grodstein is 27 and received her MFA in Creative Writing
from Columbia University. Her short story collection, TheBest
of Animals, was published in the US by Persea Books in June 2002.
NEW
NISHA MINHAS TO SIMON AND SCHUSTER
Lorella Belli has sold to Kate Lyall-Grant at Simon and Schuster
A Spicy Seduction, the third novel by Nisha Minhas, author of
the very successful and hugely entertaining Chapatti or Chips?
Nisha's second novel, Sari & Sins, will be published by Pocket
UK in June 2003.
Simon and Schuster bought UK and Commonwealth rights for a high
five-figure in Nisha's next romantic comedy and Pocket will publish
it as a paperback original in June 2004.
A Spicy Seduction is a light-hearted and sparkling novel, the
underlining theme to this story is karma and cultural clashes.
How a past littered with mistakes can catch up with you later,
and you are challenged to confront your fears and demolish your
demons.
For more information, please contact Lorella Belli, LBLA, on ++44
20 7727 8547 or lorella@lorellabelliagency.com
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ALPSP/PIRA
JOINT SEMINAR
The seminar “Improving productivity
and reducing costs: solutions for the smaller publisher”,
takes place on Friday 2nd May 2003. Venue: City Conference Centre,
80 Coleman Street, London.
This one day seminar will focus on reducing production costs by
the use of techniques, such as workflow reviews and outsourcing,
and technology. It will present a mix of expert presentations,
case studies from publishers who will share their experiences,
and product reviews from key suppliers in the relevant areas.
Speakers include: Deborah Kahn, Pira International; Jayne Marks,
Nature; John Strange, Blackwell Publishing; Sheena Bassett, Pira
International; Matthew Smith, Thomas Telford; Robert Hay, Alden
Group; Chris Curtis, Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins; Graham
Lawley, Charlesworth Group; Phil Hurst, The Royal Society; Brian
Lewis, Aries.
For further information or to register online: www.alpsp.org/s020503.htm
Email events@alpsp.org
Telephone +44 (0)1245 260571.
SOCIETY
OF INDEXERS EVENTS
Calendar
of Forthcoming Events
9 May 2003, 10.30 am to 4.30 pm: Workshops. Editing the
index and Peer Review Session. For experienced indexers. £100
for both sessions, £70 for one. London.
7 June 2003, 10.30 am to 4.30 pm: Workshop. Newly
trained indexers. For newly Accredited indexers and those nearing
the end of their training in indexing. £100. Reading.
27 June 2003, 10 am to 4 pm: Workshop. The process
of indexing. For people thinking about taking up a career in indexing,
and who would like to find out more. £85. Glasgow
27–29 June 2003: Annual Conference –
‘A Scots Quair’. Strathclyde University, Glasgow.
Further details and booking forms are available on our website,
or from the Society:
Society of Indexers
Blades Enterprise Centre
John Street
Sheffield
S2 4SU
Tel: 0114 292 2350
Email: admin@indexers.org.uk
www.indexers.org.uk
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PUBLISHING
SOFTWARE FEATURE
A
brief overview
In this feature I obviously don’t have the space
to present a comprehensive run-down, but the various contributions
will give you a flavour of the current marketplace.
Publishing software may be a large field, but it is dominated
by a small number of major international companies. The most complex
solutions available integrate just about every aspect of the business
but historically for reasons of cost, these have only been available
to the largest publishing companies.
Servicing the larger publishers (turnovers in excess of £40m),
companies like Vista, Bookmaster and SAP are the major players.
When you come down the scale in publisher turnover, Vista and
Bookmaster still have a strong presence, but there are many more
companies with growing market share. Schilling, Klopotek and Trilogy
all have a significant client base in their own markets, and specialist
software providers such as Anko and Bradbury Phillips do well
in their respective niches.
A development that is starting to shake up the historical view
of "who can afford what" in publishing systems, is the
internet. Web-based delivery solutions such as those on offer
from Vista and the new Schilling ASP could possibly make sophisticated
solutions increasingly available to the smaller publisher. Of
course this is just another way of delivering the applications,
so as ever, it is the relative capabilities of the offerings combined
with the the way you want your systems to work that counts.
Vista,
serving publishing for 25 years
A global organisation with offices located in the US,
the UK, and Australia, VISTA caters to publishers in North America,
UK, mainland Europe, and Asia-Pacific. VISTA’s clients include
industry’s leaders such as Reed Elsevier, HarperCollins,
Holtzbrinck Publishers, News Corp., and Wolters Kluwer.
Many
of VISTA's customers are substantial international providers of
reference information supporting professionals in business and
government through a variety of media formats. Many of these companies
are supported worldwide, a number of which are large international
publishers and several are distributors and/or shared service/multi-publisher
installations. To the best of our knowledge, VISTA is the only
software company dedicated to the publishing industry, which has
successfully installed an enterprise-wide, integrated publishing
solution in organisations with revenues exceeding $100m.
VISTA offers a suite of applications called author2reader, with
applications for business intelligence, production management,
product information management, fulfilment and web applications.
As a framework designed specifically for the publishing industry,
author2reader enables publishers to configure the applications
to meet their specific business practices resulting in a flexible,
scalable solution.
VISTA’s Group CTO, James Murray, spoke recently at the London
Book Fair Supply Chain Seminar about how web services seamlessly
integrate applications regardless of the operating system they
run on.
“Web services offer the promise of fast, comprehensive and
flexible application integration, at a fraction of the cost of
custom enterprise application integration (EAI) and business process
integration (BPI) projects:” Web services require low overhead,
are based on open industry standards, and are designed to interoperate
across an organisation. Components of applications can be easily
interchanged, giving the users more freedom to tailor the applications
to align with their processes," said Murray.
In his presentation, Murray discussed the benefits of web services
and workflow: “When your business processes or procedures
were altered, it was difficult to reflect that change by changing
the integration points. This was difficult within a department
even or between departments — from the company view, it
was almost impossible to have a clear picture of how applications
could work together more successfully and monitor how changes
in business procedures affected the entire business. Web services
and workflow will change all that.”
A web-based solution that has received a lot of attention lately
is VISTA’s Publishing Intelligence. This flexible tool set,
supported by Cognos and VISTA’s publishing-specific data
architecture enables everyone from department managers to top
level executives the power to create the type of reports necessary
their position. By unlocking business critical information managers
are able to improve their ability to monitor performance while
executives are able to make better-informed strategic decisions.
Decision-makers have improved access to information concerning
buying trends, sales performance, budgeting, sales forecasting,
response rates, credit balances, etc. Information can be easily
dispersed using the publishing-specific standard reports or by
using a building-block approach to create customised reports with
ease.
While aware of the top technology trends, VISTA remains attentive
to the needs of the industry With more than two decades of experience,
VISTA is often sought out by publishers to add perspective to
issues. For example, as a direct result of concerns expressed
from leaders in the publishing realm, VISTA published an overview
outlining
the importance of accommodating new identifiers such as
the 13-digit ISBN along with recommendations for minimising risk.
For more on Vista visit www.vistacomp.com
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Best
of breed vs integrated systems
Two opposing approaches to providing publishing systems
were discussed at the recent BIC Supply Chain Meeting, held in
conjunction with the London Book Fair.
One approach, “Best of Breed”, entails choosing the
“best” application in each area – fulfilment,
rights and royalties, warehouse management, subscriptions, e-commerce
CRM – and integrating them to provide an in-house system
based on the “best” systems around.
The other approach is to use an integrated system designed specifically
for publishers.
Steve Hall, international sales and marketing manager of TMS Tailor
Made Systems, developers of Bookmaster, contends that while both
approaches have pros and cons the “best of breed”
approach has drawbacks that make it unavailable to all but the
largest publishers.
Because this approach relies on purchasing and integrating several
systems, each requiring a high investment, it is limited to those
publishers with deep purses and large in-house IT departments.
The “best of breed” approach is also highly dependent
on successful integration of diverse systems and carries high
risk associated with its inherent complexity.
This high degree of risk is shown by the number of well-publicised
projects that have been aborted, scaled back or completed at the
cost of massive budget and schedule overruns. In reality, finding
an example of a successful “best of breed” implementation
is almost as difficult as locating Osama Bin Laden.
Steve Hall believes the integrated approach is much more practical
and achievable – with one important caveat. For such an
approach to succeed there needs to be an integrated solution that
can demonstrably handle most, if not all, of a publisher’s
requirements.
“Our vision is a publishing-specific system that spans the
entire publishing cycle, from concept to consumer and beyond.
Publishers need to keep a vast amount of diverse information on
a title from the moment it is conceived until well after it goes
out of print. That information covers myriad areas – title
information, production, marketing, distribution, rights, sub-rights
and permissions, royalties, returns, financial and more.
“A truly integrated system should integrate the pre-production
phase with distribution, sales information and royalties and should
include vital areas like warehouse management, business intelligence,
e-commerce and relationship management with authors, customers,
contributors, and reviewers.”
Mr Hall concedes that while Bookmaster covers many of these areas,
it does not yet cover them all.
“In reality, I don’t think there will ever be one
system that will handle every single requirement of a publisher,
so we have made sure that Bookmaster can be easily integrated
with other peripheral systems. But the more you can do within
one integrated system the simpler and more cost-effective it is.
“I think the fact that TMS has more than 80 publishers of
all sizes in 16 countries using Bookmaster to run virtually every
aspect of their business is proof that an integrated approach
can work, and work well. What’s more, these customers, including
majors like HarperCollins, Pearsons, Macmillan, Lexis Nexis, Harvard,
Yale and MIT Presses, Thomson Learning and the like are very happy
with Bookmaster and are delighted to act as references –
as are our smaller UK-based customers.
“Now that TMS has opened an office in the UK for the first
time we’re looking forward to bringing the benefits of a
truly integrated publishing system to more British publishers
and distributors.”
TMS publishes a full list of its customers worldwide at www.tms.ws.Steve
Hall's e-mail: marketing@tms.ws
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ASP
from Schilling
For many years there has been a demand for a standard
publishing solution for the low end of the publishing industry.
The cost of implementing a complete new business system has been
excessive. Large media conglomerates as well as smaller independents
need the same basic management to run their business.
The biggest problem about using spreadsheets and other programs
is that you don't get the benefit of re-using the information
you have. It takes time to keep track of all your information/data,
and to manually type everything - and not be able to use that
information for billing, payment of royalties, or when tracking
orders, for example.
Currently available software that gathers all your information
in one system is expensive. Now there is a solution to help small
publishers become more efficient and able to expand with their
system. Schilling's ASP Solution offers small publishers the opportunity
to control and administrate their information, business deals,
payments, royalties, subscription, stock, sales orders and marketing
etc. in one system. At the London Book Fair this year, Schilling
launched Publishing ASP Solution with great success.
The ASP Solution is based on the standard of the existing publishing
ERP system that composes of our many years of experience and best
practices in publishing. Whether you require a fully integrated
publishing solution, a standalone module or service hosting, Schilling
can provide it: "Small companies now have the opportunity
to make the most of their daily work without risking their business
with large investments in software and hardware to run the system,"
says managing director Per Hessen-Schmidt.
Schilling's Publishing ASP Solution enables publishers to run
and administrate their business from financials including debtor,
creditor, order processing and inventory to marketing, subscription
and royalties etc. through an all-in-one solution package, hosted
by Schilling, for an exclusive monthly fee of £500 (including
start-up, three users plus 500Mb database and a four-days' induction).
The cost for an extra user is only £50.The requirements
to get started are minimal - just plug and play.
For further information contact: Anja Johansen _ marketing manager,
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7868 1648; E-mail: aj@schilling.dk
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Random
House Germany choose Klopotek Royalty
Random House Germany has chosen to introduce the Royalty
system from Klopotek & Partner.
For several years Random House has been using the Klopotek
Contract Management system as the basis for integrated Royalty
Calculations. In future with the full integrated system, the complete
royalty processes and statements arising from over 25,000 authors
and rights contracts will be carried out from Munich, using the
Klopotek Publishing Solution.
Random House Publishing Group, headquartered in Munich, includes
such Germany publishers as Berline Verlag, C Bertelsmann, Blanvalet,
Karl Blessing Verlag, Coldmann, Luchterhand Literaurverlag and
Siedler.
This project is being implemented by arvato systems GmbH, in Gutersloh,
in co-operation with Klopotek & Partner GmbH. At the Frankfurt
Book Fair 2002 the two companies agreed to collaborate at national
and international levels. Random House has already benefited for
several years from the experience and expertise of arvato systems,
the Bertelsmann IT service provider.
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Rights
2000 suite to suit you
Bradbury Phillips has produced PC-based software for publishers
and literary agents since 1987.
The company is still run by joint founders Alison Bradbury and
Anne Phillips and has 150 clients worldwide, ranging from one-person
organisations to multinational companies. Alison Bradbury explains
that initially the decision was to specialise in rights management,
author royalties and literary agents systems, and to build in
the flexibility to add links into almost all commonly used publishing
software. This means that, for example, publishers can import
title data from their contracts database into and export sub-rights
income to their author royalties system.
Their Rights 2000 suite of programs manages rights and permissions
and includes the new agents' accounts module launched at this
year’s London Book Fair.
The Bradbury Phillips author royalties software processes sales
data, which can be imported electronically and produces royalty
statements, and is particularly suitable for small to medium-sized
publishers.
For further information and a client list please e-mail info@bradburyphillips.co.uk
and check their website www.bradburyphillips.co.uk
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Next
stop: ONIX compliance
Gary Bowerman, marketing director, Anko Publishing Software,
warns publishers to prepare now.
Amid the frenetic talk at this year’s London Book Fair,
several salutary statistics were circulating. Here are three that
might make you wince:
• Typically, 20% of a publisher’s titles make up 80%
of its revenues.
• Seven out of 10 books published are unprofitable.
• Nearly 30 out of every 100 books a publisher pays to print
go unsold.
Such figures explain the LBF’s “It’s time to
talk business” sub-title. Whether you sit on the “with
a pinch of salt” or the “no smoke without fire”
side of the statistical fence matters little. Publishing is experiencing
a sea change.
Technological advances. Shifting patterns of consumer demand.
Uncertain economic times. Blame whichever causal factor you prefer,
but this year’s buzz phrases – “lower costs”,
“reduced wastage”, “more efficiency” and
“shorter print runs” – tell their own story,
and that hitherto unpalatable term “print-on-demand”
was hotter than ever.
However, one topic conspicuously absent was the ONIX (online information
exchange) standard. As e-commerce asserts greater influence and
improved product information is required throughout the publishing
supply chain, the common ONIX “language” for bibliographic
information will impose itself upon publishers. Late last year,
a leading US book retailer was reportedly preparing to charge
publishers US$12 per title for imperfect title data. In the UK,
the BIC is committed to promoting ONIX as the “standard
means of communication of product information across the UK book
trade”.
The technical smokescreen surrounding ONIX and uncertainty as
to when it will become fully operational as a standard remain
confusing, but the reality is stark. Publishers must prepare for
ONIX. Now. Bibliographic information delivery to the entire publishing
supply chain will soon have to be ONIX-compliant. And that involves
both advance planning and data conversion.
For more information on ONIX and the Anko ONIX Generator software,
visit Anko online at www.anko.co.uk or e-mail enquiries@anko.co.ukv
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