iPad and Publishing

With all the mad-dash think-tanking going on about how to monetize online content occupying all the publishing executives' every breathing moment...what are they coming up with?

Not much...But some possibilities are materializing on the horizon (not entirely from their intellectual efforts)...Even online, digital companies such as Google, who at first took business away from print, is working with apps to assist newspapers and magazines with monetizing business models...

And, of course, there is this thing called the iPad. It's popularity might make paying for quality online content more acceptable and the money-generating apps that will allow this content to appear should put some more jingle in publishers' pockets.

Mark Wood, former editor-in-chief of Reuters and chief executive of ITN, writes this for The Australian (Business) about the iPad's future in publishing:

WILL Steve Jobs go down as the saviour of the newspaper industry? Quite possibly, if iPads are the big Christmas hit this year.
That would mean they are becoming essential gadgets for businesspeople, commuters, air travellers and the reading classes in general.

They might just mark a turning point in the fortunes of a British industry, particularly, grappling desperately with dramatic declines in sales, defection of advertisers and woeful returns on huge investments in glitzy websites and marketing budgets. It is an industry praying for a miracle.

Few newspaper readers appreciate the nightmare facing the companies that produce them.

Classified ads, once about a third of an average newspaper's revenue, have steadily migrated online -- a shift accelerated by the recession. Display advertising is now defecting too. And with so much content available cost-free on the web, and free-sheets given away to commuters, circulations are plummeting.

Normal readers are also defecting -- either grabbing a free-sheet on their way to work, or picking up their news via Google for free. Newspapers everywhere have been affected but no country, apart from the US, has suffered as much as Britain. Since 2007, British circulations have fallen by a quarter, according to an OECD report. In the US, they have fallen by a third -- with 293 newspapers and 1120 magazines folding last year alone. Advertising revenue may recover a little this year, but the trend is clear: over the past year, British broadsheets lost up to 16 per cent of their readers. Few businesses can deal with structural change on this scale. The losses are mounting.

The Times newspapers are losing pound stg. 1.6 million ($2.8m) a week between them. The Guardian and The Observer are losing pound stg. 3.2m. "No matter which way you look at it, the numbers are just unsustainable at this level," muttered one senior editorial figure after discussing the rosy hue painted on the results by Guardian Media Group outgoing chief executive Carolyn McCall. Something fairly substantial has to change.

Even the remaining profitable newspaper groups such as The Telegraph are not immune to the flight of advertising and readers.

What does a newspaper do? Salvation may come in the form of a Russian sugar-daddy, as it has for The Independent.

Others may give themselves away free, like the London Evening Standard.

But most proprietors and executives are frantically looking for a new way to make the newspaper business model work.

Newspapers may be powerful brands with high-quality content honed to the tastes of their target audiences, but hold on to the wrong business model for the digital age. Some 80 per cent of their costs tend to go on things like paper, printing presses and distribution. But the bit the punters are actually buying -- the content -- is as powerful a draw in the digital markets as at the newsagents.

The iPad and the host of digital tablets following may well become game changers, because the iPad makes browsing your book or newspaper feel almost like the real thing. And because it is a new mobile platform (a bit like a big smartphone), publishers believe there will be little resistance to paying a subscription, as long as it is not exorbitant -- maybe a tenner a month.

For their money, the punters will get a product miles ahead of the newspaper website. Publishers can deliver a complete, packaged paper, like a giant PDF, which means they can shape the layout, embed video and audio clips, and use clever navigation tools that learn about user preferences and give you your newspaper in the order you like to read it.

Once the principle of paying is established -- as it is already for music through the runaway successes of iTunes -- the next step will be to see if it can be applied to newspapers. Rupert Murdoch is, not for the first time, blazing a trail for his industry here by erecting a pound stg. 2-a-week paywall around the websites of The Times and The Sunday Times. The argument advanced by James Murdoch is that the company is "placing a proper value on creative endeavour" in the belief that its output is worth paying for. Journalists accustomed to loathing Rupert Murdoch now grudgingly wish him luck. If he pioneers a business model, others may follow.

Another potential lifeline is being offered by Google, which is the world's biggest media business.

This sounds ironic, as the company has long been described as the Darth Vader of the news world with its Google News search engine directing users to whatever they want to read, for free. It pledged resources to help fix the "monetisation problem" -- that is, how to persuade people to pay for the news found through its search engine. Google is cagey about details, but appears to be working on some solutions. One, apparently called Newspass, will be a system that allows users to make tiny payments to read articles and charge from a Google account. Google would, presumably, take a cut in the transaction.

As for the iPad itself, it is perhaps the biggest step yet on a road towards highly capable, light, portable reading devices that will make paper and smudgy ink look medieval. If it takes off, it could be the portal that allows users of both Google and Murdoch to pay for their product. Each publication could sell an app. What has made newspapers and magazines huge successes over the decades -- their range and their personalities -- ought to triumph on the new platforms if properly projected.

The clock is certainly ticking. Microsoft gives newspapers 10 more years at most as printed artefacts. One Financial Times executive has suggested it will be out of the pink newspaper business in five. Other publishers give it longer, but the time frame is years rather than decades.

To stay ahead of the game, newspapers and magazines -- even the one you hold now -- will have no choice but to migrate to an online format that people will want to keep paying for.

In launching the iPad, Jobs probably never gave a moment's thought to the survival of age-old British newspapers.

But if his iPad takes off, and leaves its owners willing to pay a little for something of quality to read on it, then this device -- and its successors -- may well save Fleet Street.

Gannett Newspaper Publisher Talks Money

In previous posts I have reported on the re-blossoming of magazine publishing, including increasing ad pages and revenues...Are newspapers on the road to a financial comeback also?

This insightful article from guardian.co.uk by Mark Sweney gives a clue:

The US newspaper publisher Gannett, which owns the UK regional publisher Newsquest, has reported the best ad revenue performance at its publishing arm in three years and has unveiled a major ad partnership with Yahoo.

Craig Dubow, chief executive of Gannett, said that its publishing division had benefitted from cost cutting and lower newsprint expenses in its second quarter results published today.

"In our publishing segment this quarter was the best comparison quarter for advertising revenues since mid-2007," he said. "We benefited from continuing efficiency efforts company-wide as well as lower newsprint expense."

Gannett, which publishes USA Today and more than 80 other newspapers as well as running 600 magazines and 23 TV stations, said that ad revenue at its publishing division fell 5.7% year on year. Circulation revenue fell 5.9%.

Ad revenues were 4.6% lower in the USA and 6.4% down, in pounds, at Newsquest. The company said that figures in June, which show ad revenues down just 3.6%, were the best comparison "since early 2007".

Newsquest, which owns titles including Glasgow-based the Herald, saw classified ad reveue fall 6.8%, national ad revenue drop 11% and retail advertising fall 4.4%.

Gannett used its results to announce a local advertising partnership with Yahoo. All of Gannett's 81 local publishing organisations and seven of its broadcasting division sites will sell Yahoo advertising inventory.

Gannett reckons the partnership, which "may" include providing "select local content for programming across Yahoo sites in the US", will extend its local media organisation reach to cover "as much as" 80% of the total digital audience in the markets it operates.

"Working with Yahoo will allow us to offer targeted advertising messages with unmatched local audience reach," said Gracia Martore, president at Gannett.

Dubow pointed to Gannett's broadcast and digital divisions as the real drivers of growth, while a positive result for the embattled publishing division was continuing to achieve "moderating revenue declines".

"Our strong results this quarter reflect very positive revenue trends for our broadcast and digital segments and moderating revenue declines in publishing as we continued to close the revenue gap in the quarter," he said. "Stronger core advertising demand and increased political spending drove revenue growth in broadcasting while positive revenue results at CareerBuilder and PointRoll contributed to revenue growth in the digital segment".

Gannett's digital operation saw revenue increase by 8.3% while the broadcasting unit saw revenues climb by a massive 20.3% year on year.

Overall Gannett saw net profits rise 35.7% year on year to $146.5m. Total revenues fell 1.6% year-on-year to $1.37bn.

Big-Name Authors Sign Directly with E-book Retailers

Is big publishing getting the boot ?

At first, lesser-known and newbie authors were signing with E-book retailers; but now big-name authors are joining the trend and by-passing the middleman traditional publishers and signing directly with eBook retailers like Amazon, Smashwords and other companies !

More and more established authors are signing on the digital, multi-media publishing bandwagon...The latest is Ryu Murakami, author of Coin Locker Babies among others.

This report from the Wall Street Journal by Yoree Koh goes into more detail:

Ever since the arrival of the slim and snazzy electronic book devices, the magnates of the traditional publishing industry have feared the worst: that precious big-name authors might sign directly with e-book retailers, relegating the old-school publishers as the dispensable middleman.

Let the nightmare begin. Novelist Ryu Murakami plans to release his latest novel exclusively for digital bookworms through Apple Inc.’s iPad ahead of the print version. Mr. Murakami, the acclaimed author of over 15 novels including “Coin Locker Babies” and “In the Miso Soup”, replaced the publishers with a software company to help develop the e-book titled “A Singing Whale,” or “Utau Kujira” in Japanese. The digital package will include video content and set to music composed by Academy Award winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, according to the Japanese business daily Nikkei. The newspaper reports the e-book will cost 1,500 yen ($17) and will be ready to download pending Apple’s approval. Apple Japan and Mr. Murakami did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication.

Mr. Murakami’s decision is the latest step taken by well known authors in re-writing the business model of the publishing industry – but it’s a step beyond what others have done. In April, the master penman of suspense, Stephen King, released the e-book edition of his newest work “Blockade Billy” one month before the hardcover version published by Scribner, an imprint of New York publishing giant Simon and Schuster, hit retail outlets in the U.S. and Canada. Mr. King also published a story, UR, exclusively for Kindle, the popular e-book reader produced by Amazon, around the time a newer version of the device was released in February 2009.

In December of last year, Amazon scored another success when business guru Steven Covey granted the online retailer exclusive e-book rights for two of his best-selling books for one year. Until recently, Mr. Covey’s move to shift older titles, also known as backlist titles – the warehouse of past best-selling books with strong staying power that provide publishers a steady revenue stream each year – to the digital sphere has been the more common rebellion among successful wordsmiths. Brazilian writer Paul Coehlo and the estate of the late American novelist William Styron also moved the rights to sell e-book editions of older works to Amazon.

But in offering fresh material only in an electronic format, Mr. Murakami’s plan has basically removed the traditional book publisher from the calculation entirely. Mr. Murakami’s past novels have been published by venerated Japanese companies like Kodansha. The company wasn’t immediately available for comment. The new equation, in theory, would give authors a bigger chunk of royalties. Mr. Murakami said his initial goal of 5,000 downloads would cancel out the investment costs, and if the plan is approved, Apple will receive 30% of the revenue with the rest to be parsed among Mr. Murakami, Mr. Sakamoto and the software company, according to the Nikkei.

UPDATE, 14:05 p.m. JST: Kodansha, Murakami’s publisher responds, saying it’s talking to the novelist about releasing a hard copy version of “A Singing Whale”, though nothing has been finalized.

Read this post in Japanese/日本語訳はこちら≫

New Law to Protect US Writers and Publishers from Libel in Foreign Courts

Have you ever wondered how our American right to freedom of speech and expression is protected overseas?

It wasn't...But, it is now, or at least it is just a few clicks away!

This interesting report is from the guardian.co.uk by Paul Harris in Los Angeles:

American legislators have moved closer to shielding US authors, journalists and publishers from libel tourism in foreign courts.

A bill already known as the Speech Act – or the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act, to give it its full name – has been passed by the Senate judiciary committee. It is intended to hamper efforts to sue Americans for libel in overseas jurisdictions where rules governing freedom of speech are less strong.

Many places, including Britain, currently have stricter libel laws than the US, leading to libel tourism, where plaintiffs search for a jurisdiction most likely to be sympathetic to their case. Some human rights campaigners and legal scholars saying the practice is used by the rich and powerful to stifle dissent and criticism. The growth of publishing on the internet has sparked fears that libel tourism will grow rapidly in coming years.

The American bill – if passed by the full Senate – will make it difficult to impose any judgments made in foreign courts on US nationals if those decisions are seen as hurting their constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech. It would allow defendants to obtain a US court's judgment that the decision was not enforceable under American law, and would protect the assets of American citizens falling victim to libel tourism and not allow them to be used to pay damages.

The bill is based on a state law in New York that was passed after the American author Rachel Ehrenfeld wrote a book on the financing of terrorism and was sued for libel in London by a Saudi billionaire. In a blogpost, Ehrenfeld has said the bill is vital for opposing libel tourism. "[It] will help deter libel tourism and secure Americans' right to speak, write and publish freely to preserve the safety and integrity of our democracy," she said.

The bill got cross-party support and was sponsored by Republican and Democrat senators. "We take seriously the challenge of getting this right – to be respectful of foreign nations, many of whom are allies. But at the same time we could have a major detriment to the right to publish and speak freely in America if we don't confront this problem," said Jeff Sessions, a Republican senator.

Censorship - Is America a Free Country or Not?

A bad Massachusetts law (Massachusetts? I don't believe it!) may spur self-censorship by bookstores. The law, that went into effect yesterday, would severly restrict constitutionally protected speech RE anything that "could" be harmful to minors.

Isn't everything about real life harmful to minors without adult-instilled values, teachings and guidance! Parants don't seem to want to take time with their kids today and teach them about the realities of life, they'd rather just keep them in the dark and censor everything from their fragile view and learning...They can't handle the truth!...Pure BS. Children are much smarter than you think.

Anyway, this report is from the American Booksellers Association (ABA), who together with others, filed suit against the state of Massachusetts to block the censorship law:

On Tuesday, July 13, a coalition including the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE), Harvard Book Store, and Porter Square Books filed suit to block a broad Massachusetts censorship law that bans constitutionally protected speech on the Internet on topics such as contraception and pregnancy, sexual health, literature, and art.

The law, Chapter 74 of the Acts of 2010, signed in April by Gov. Deval Patrick, went into effect on Monday. It imposes severe restrictions on the distribution of constitutionally protected speech on the Internet and would make anyone who operates a website or communicates through a listserv criminally liable for nudity or sexually related material, if the material can be considered "harmful to minors" under the law's definition, said Media Coalition. In effect, it bans from the Internet anything that may be "harmful to minors," including material adults have a First Amendment right to view.

Violators can be fined $10,000 or sentenced to up to five years in prison, or both.

"The risk of five years in prison or a $10,000 fine will certainly have a chilling effect on booksellers with websites that describe their books available online or in a store," said Chris Finan, president of ABFFE, a member of Media Coalition. "Most bookstores are small businesses, and it is very likely that booksellers will try to avoid problems by engaging in self-censorship."

Other plaintiffs in the suit against state attorney general Martha Coakley and Massachusetts district attorneys are the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, the Association of American Publishers, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, the Photographic Resource Center, and licensed marriage and family therapist Marty Klein.

Since there is no way for websites to determine the age of an Internet browser and no way to block Internet users from Massachusetts regardless of the location of the originating website, Media Coalition said, "The law threatens Internet users nationwide and even worldwide. The suit seeks to have the law declared unconstitutional and void on its face, and to enjoin the state from enforcing it, on the basis of the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, and the Constitution's Commerce Clause."

"While this Act may have been motivated by the desire to protect children from sexual predators on the Internet, its effect is much broader," said John Reinstein, legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. "Its inevitable effect, if permitted to stand, is that Internet content providers will limit the range of their speech. There are no reasonable technological means that allow Internet users to ascertain the age of anyone who might access their online communications and then restrict access for minors."

"Courts have repeatedly rejected laws that lead to this sort of self-censorship," said Michael Bamberger of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP, general counsel of Media Coalition and counsel in the case. "We should have adequate safeguards to protect children, but those safeguards cannot unreasonably interfere with the rights of adults to access materials protected by the First Amendment."

If the law is struck down, the groups said, it would not limit the state's ability to prosecute obscenity, child pornography, speech intended to entice minors into inappropriate activity, or harassing speech.

Is Magazine Publishing Smoking the Victory Cigar Once Again?

Today I discovered that, in the world of magazine publishing, both ad pages and revenue are up! Does this mean that the print mags are making a comeback?

Maybe...

This report comes from Matthew Flamm of Crain's New York Business:

The last time both benchmarks bumped upward was end of 2007. Automotive ads were biggest driver of modest overall increase for the industry.

Magazines may not be quite out of the tunnel, but they're certainly seeing light at the end of it.

Total magazine advertising pages rose 0.8% in the second quarter, to 43,427, while rate-card-reported revenue was up 5.7%, to $5.2 billion, compared with the year-ago period, according to the Publishers Information Bureau, which released the numbers on Monday.

The results mark the first time in nine quarters that the magazine industry has seen gains in both ad pages and revenue. The last time that happened was in the fourth quarter of 2007.

“Magazines are benefiting from what appears to be an advertising economic lift,” said Nina Link, chief executive of Magazine Publishers of America, the trade organization that operates Publishers Information Bureau, in a statement. She credits renewed investment from key advertising categories, including automotive, finance, real estate, toiletries and cosmetics.

The biggest jump came from automotive, which spent $338 million on magazines in the second quarter, a spike of 41% over the same period in 2009. Ad pages in the category were up 28%.

The End of a Publishing Giant's Edifice

Todays post is about a slice of publishing history...Remember the very popular Collier's Magazine (a weekly), Woman's Home Companion, Country Home, etc., etc. I do! Damn, I'm getting old!

These magazines, and others, were published by the Crowell-Collier Publishing Co. that folded in 1956 after becoming one of the world's largest. Crowell-Collier operated (separately and merged) from approx. 1880 to 1956 and published 20 million periodical monthly in it's heyday!

Now, the 917,000 SF, city block building that was built by and housed this publishing giant on High Street in Springfield, Ohio is also on it's deathbed.

This report is from Jessica Holbrook, Staff Writer for the Springfield News-Sun:

Last week, a structural engineering report said the continued deterioration of the Crowell-Collier building posed a “serious and ongoing concern,” but the local landmark wasn’t always an eyesore.

Until 1956, the 917,000-square-foot complex housed the Crowell-Collier Publishing Co. The publishing house was best known for their magazines — “Collier’s Weekly,” “Woman’s Home Companion,” “Farm and Fireside” (later “Country Home”) and “The American Magazine” — and during its heyday in the 1940s was producing about 20 million periodicals every month.

The structure, which today fills a downtown city block, started in 1880 as a three-story building on the corner of High Street. The company continued growing in size and circulation throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, becoming one of the biggest publishing companies in the world. In 1938, a $1.5 million expansion brought the structure to its current size.

The company laid off 2,275 local workers when it folded in December 1956.

The building changed hands several times following the company’s closure and was bought by its current owner, Harry Denune, in December 1972. Denune has since used the building for his company, Dixie Distributing, a motorcycle-parts distribution business. While there have been suggestions on how to use the building — like a 1999 plan to convert it into low-income housing apartments — they have all fallen through.

About three-fourths of the building is currently being used for personal storage by Denune, said Nick Heimlich, assistant chief and fire marshal for the Springfield Fire Rescue Division.

On May 10, 1999, a large fire struck the building, burning for more than seven hours. The fire caused little structural damage to the building, but Denune was required to update the building’s sprinkler system.

The sprinkler system remains a concern for the fire department, which continues to check on the building, Heimlich said.

According to a structural engineer’s report from Jezerinac Geers & Associates, the building’s deterioration is significant but not unexpected in an old building. The outside walls of the building are made of brick and limestone, two materials that are negatively affected by weather and moisture over time. The structure was also constructed using now outdated building methods, which has contributed to cracking and shifting on the outside walls, the report said.

The report suggested razing the buildings, because repairs to bring the structure in line with Ohio Building Code and allow it to be used in another capacity, would be more expensive than just demolishing the complex and building new structures.

The city does not have an estimate of how much it would cost to demolish the building, because the structure is filled with Denune’s personal items said Shannon Meadows, Community Development director.

Any estimate would have to include the cost of removing the building’s contents, she said.

The building also holds significance for many people in the community, so making a decision about its future can be difficult, Heimlich said.

“I know a lot of folks with memories of that building, but those folks are fading as time moves forward,” he said. “I think our connection with the building is changing as time goes on.”