'Book-on-demand' website

A Flemish company has launched a book-on-demand website. The site allows writers across the world to have their work published and put on the market. It also gives readers the opportunity to find, order and print books that have long gone out of print. Initiated by the company Peleman Industries, the website WWAOW(World Wide Association of Writers) aims to unite authors, readers and publishers from across the world.

The site was officially launched on Wednesday in Antwerp in the presence of the Flemish Environment Minister. According to Wim Stuyck of Peleman Industries, the new concept is a blessing to the environment. 'The new procedure avoids the dumping of unsold books and because of that it saves trees from being cut unnecessarily', he says. In article on the web by VRT, a local television station, the concept is said to be novel and simple.

Wow, what a pretentious project.
- World Wide Association of Writers
- Prevention of dumping unsold books
- Protection of woods
- Novel concept.
I almost would think that those people never use internet. But as their site is on internet and does look okay in design, in content and e-commerce, the initiator most likely needed publicity. Let us look at the arguments.

World Wide Association of Writers. I have heard of PEN and the Writers’ Guild, but having googled for a website, I suspect this association to be a fancy one (if not mentioned in Google with a website, you do not exist). Looking at the site there are Flemish and English titles. And I guess that in a country like Belgium, where three languages are used (French, Flemish and German), more books will appear in all three languages plus English, but world wide.

Prevention of dumping of unsold books. This is a good argument. So far the traditional publishing companies in Belgium and The Netherlands have been unable to reduce the production of Dutch/Flemish titles. In fact when they underwrote the reduction some years ago, the amount of titles rose.

Protection of woods. Where did I hear this nonsense argument before? In the e-book discussion? Paper is produced from pulp and pulp is a half fabricate of trees. So far the argumentation is right. But these trees are coming from planned woods. So every tree cut will be replaced. But most of the present paper production comes from recycled paper. So the protection of woods is a nonsense argument.

Novel concept. This really sounds like coming from a stranger in Internet Jerusalem. I guess it was in 1997 when Joost Zijtveld and Hans Offringa started a fully laid-out publishing company on demand named Gopher. The company organised the whole production chain (from manuscript to book) through internet. The company was picked up by some uninformed speculators, who started international expansion with subsidiaries in Barcelona and Los Angeles, if I am not mistaken; of course this expansion was bound to fail. Now the company is in quiet waters and producing fine books. Of course since last year the international printing-on-demand company Lulu is on the market.

All in all, with this announcement we are informed that there is a book-on-demand publisher In Flanders. So there will be some competition between the WWAOW, Lulu and Gopher in the Low Lands.

Blog Posting Number: 659

Tags: book publishing, publishing on demand, books on demand

Apex bows out of PCM

Finally Apex has left PCM. It took 110 million euro along, according to the Dutch Financial Times. So PCM stands on it own again, after two year of having Apex as a dominant investor on the board. What has been the influence of Apex? Did PCM make any progress?

Apex walked into PCM two years ago and promised PCM to expand its basis. Up to that time, PCM had been a publisher of national and regional newspapers as well as a book publisher in the field of health care, education and general books. But Apex found the foundation Media and Democracy as a difficult shareholder at the table.

Looking back at the Apex era there has not been real expansion. Internet was rudely cut out as an independent division by Theo Bouwman, the former CEO of PCM; he compared internet with teletext or rudimentary text pages. The Sunday newspaper never came about nor did the free broad sheet. The ailing newspaper AD was given a lease of life with its merger of the regional newspapers of the Wegener company. The expansion in the RTV world was a sof, as Arrow radio was bought and is on sale again; a plan for an own television station Oasis never got off the ground. The newspapers attempted to get into web 2.0 with blogs and video. PCM bought the health care publisher BSL some two years ago and sold it again to Springer recently.

So what did Apex really bring? A new niche newspaper NRC Next. This daily newspaper aiming at young professionals has survived the first year. The question was already whether NRC Next would survive in the second year. A competitor in the shape of the free daily De Pers has shown up, giving the niche newspaper quite some competition.

Apex has had a difficult time with PCM. This is partly due to the lacklustreness of PCM. Apex has been unable to make some real progress and profit with the publisher. The final evaluation of the role of Apex was made by PCM, saying that the company had learned to manage its financial matters better. A real company policy was not present, except for a horizontal policy of newspapers and books, supported by internet, radio and television.

Where will PCM go? So far the successor of Mr Bouwman has indicated that he wants to slim down the company to a newspaper and educational publishing company. This means that having sold the health care publisher BSL, the general book companies are in the window. With this revenue of these sales new newspaper experiments can be paid and perhaps the Wolters Kluwer educational division can be bought. But the question is whether the company can use the revenues of the educational company in order to compensate the economic valleys in the newspaper area.

Now that PCM has its hands free, but is loaded with loans, it will be interesting to see whether Mr Ton aan de Stegge will be able to move forward with the support of the major shareholder. Will the two way policy of newspapers and educational publishing work? Or will PCM have to follow the example of Rupert Murdoch and pick up a service like MySpace and expand in RTV?

Blog Posting Number: 649

Tags: newspaper, book publishing

VNU is no more

VNU has changed its name to The Nielsen Company. After 40 years VNU will no longer be a brand for a multinational publishing company which started out in the Netherlands and moved over to the States to become a market data registration company.

For many people in The Netherlands, who worked for the company, it will be a sentimental goodbye to a publishing company. So it is for me. I was twice an employee for VNU. In 1970 I started out my career with Het Spectrum, the book publishing company most famous for its pocket lines, Prisma for consumer titles and Aula for the scientific titles. I joined the reference department, a new department tucked away in Amsterdam on an attic above an old synagogue; the new encyclopaedia project was most secret. I stayed for three years, before the publication of the first volume of the Great Spectrum Encyclopaedia.

In 1979 I was back at VNU. This time I had joined the Intermediair company, which published a controlled circulation weekly for academics and college students. The company had just been named the stepping stone for new activities of the just formed Business Press Group, which would undertake new activities and internationalisation. I got involved in both activities. In the media lab VNU Database Publishing International I got involved in online activities (videotext and ASCII databases) and from 1983 till 1986 I was seconded to the British branch of VNU in London (I was the second employee to be seconded abroad).

VNU started out as a newspaper and magazine publisher and had a joie de vivre, enthusiasm and creativity up to late eighties. At that moment the managers took over. Growth and further internationalisation were the key words. The balloon was pumped and pumped, until it burst. And it did with a bang: it was taken over by private investment companies, taken off the stock exchange, sold in parts and made lean and mean in the international data registration companies and associated American business publications. VNU had turned from a Dutch multinational publishing company into an American multinational market data registration company (part of the HQ are still in The Netherlands, but that is for tax reasons).

VNU is no more. The reason for the change of name is funny. A spokesperson for the Nielsen company said that Nielsen was better known as the name VNU. This was already since the first VNU representative in the US in the seventies. He used the acronym VNU as the full name United Dutch Publishers did not make much sense and even evoked the impression of a company with socialist statutes. Now the 40 years old company name has been replaced with the company name of a 75 years old. And with the change of name an end has come to VNU as a publishing company.

****************************************
At this occassion I hold a virtual VNU reunion. These people I met in the VNU company and still stand out in my mind. I have left out people who died.

Spectrum time
Mari Pijnenborg
Rob Emmelkamp
Inez van Eijk
Leo van Grunsven
Frits Oomes
Jolijn van Dop
Ids Haagsma
A van Loon
Ben Paul
Herman Vuijsje
G. Abels
George Beekman
Panc Beentjes
Midas Dekker
Frans Duivis
Leo Jacobs
Herman Kernkamp
J. Mabelis
H. de Nijs
Carla Rogge
Flip Vuijsje
Tine Keuning
Dick Ahles
Bart Drubbel
Cees de Jong

Intermediair
Joep Brentjes
Xavier Koot
Koos Guis
Rob van de Bergh
Pim de Wit

VNU DPI
Jay Curry
Arjen Everts
Wim Poelman
Tom Otting
Hans Rademaker
Geert de Groot
Pieter van Rooijen
Emily Knegtel
Marjan Hokke
Paula Zwan
LidaVerhagen
Lia Baarsen
Jeanette Liebeek
Chris Schippers
Lucy in the Sky

Media Info Newsletter
Chiel Kramer
Bert Wiggers
Sandra Dol


Blog Posting Number: 639

Tags:

Never a dull moment at PCM (2)

While on the subject of PCM, there is more corporate news. It is clear that Ton aan de Stegge wants to change the company. But he has to deal with the British venture capitalist Apax, which holds the majority of the shares, and a foundation. This gives a lot of tension and this shows in the policy decisions.

PCM was split off as the newspaper conglomerate from the Elsevier publishing company as a run-up for Elsevier to the merger with Reed. The conglomerate consisted of a newspaper company with national newspapers, regional newspapers and door-to-door papers. In addition to the newspapers a book publishing division was formed. Internet has been an additional activity so far with every newspaper having its Internet site. In the fall of his term, CEO Mr Bouwman, a magazine man by origin, looked for diversification in other analogue media. The radio station Arrow was bought, while a TV project Oasis was under development.

Soon after his inauguration Mr Aan de Stegge made clear that company is going to follow a new strategy in which there are two divisions: newspapers and educational publishing. He minced no words and made clear to sell up the book publishing division and he is doing so; the healthcare publisher Bohn Stafleu Van Loghum (BSL) is rumoured to be sold to the Dutch subsidiary of Springer Verlag for 50 million euro. Also the radio station is for sale.

The combination of newspapers and books, including educational books, is not uncommon abroad and in The Netherlands. There is an economic rationale: the revenues of the books are there to even out the steep revenue valleys during economic low tide. Now PCM wants to narrow the scope to newspapers and educational publications. It is hard to see the economic and organisational synergetic effects, especially as the educational publishing division is not that large. (Of course this can solved by acquiring Malmberg, a former educational publishing division of VNU, from a venture capitalist or the educational division of Wolters Kluwer which is put up for sale).

At least the free newspaper and multimedia assets would fit in this strategy. And the company would have money from the sale of the healthcare publisher and radio station to start up a multimedia newspaper project with KPN. The multimedia aspect is not clear yet. KPN has the Internet service Planet Internet, the TV service Mine and the mobile services. The free newspaper and the multimedia services could lead to a well integrated crossmedia project, which would serve as an example for the paid subscription newspapers.

IMHO, PCM is not yet on a course to stability.

Blog Posting Number: 638

Tags: newspaper, book publishing