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Bullying Becomes Hot and Profitable Topic for Publishers

March 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Publishing houses are flooding the market with titles that tackle bullying. The books are aimed at all age groups — from “Bully,” a picture book for elementary-grade students, to the “The Bully Book,” for middle school children, about an average kid who suddenly becomes everyone’s favorite victim, to “Sticks and Stones” by Emily Bazelon, a recent release for adults that includes both stories and analysis. According to World Cat, a catalog of library collections worldwide, the number of English-language books tagged with the key word “bullying” in 2012 was 1,891, an increase of 500 in a decade.

There are even more to come, said Elizabeth Bird, who tracks coming books and trends for youth collections at the New York Public Library. “Bullying has always been a popular topic, but this year we are seeing bullying titles coming out as never before, and there is no end in sight.”

The publishing world’s preoccupation with bullies does not end at the bookshelf. Several publishing houses, including Random House, Simon Schuster and even Harlequin, have started antibullying campaigns built around their books. Authors have taken action on their own as well. Two young-adult authors, Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones, assembled an anthology of personal essays, called “Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories,” (HarperTeen 2011) by prominent writers like R. L. Stine, with a portion of the proceeds going to charity.

Ms. Hall and Ms. Jones also came together to form and maintain a Facebook site called Young Adult Authors Against Bullying that identifies cruel Facebook pages and lobbies to have them taken down.

Bullying has become such a common topic for authors that in October there will be a conference in Missouri for authors of books on the subject. There is space for only 300 participants but already 80 have signed up to attend.

The surge in antibullying books reflects the broader cultural alarm about the problem, spurred in part by several high-profile cases of cyberbullying that resulted in suicides.

The White House held its first conference on bullying prevention in 2011. In response to government cues, libraries, schools and even bookstores like Barnes Noble, the nation’s largest retail book chain, have been holding events to talk about the problem and provide help for parents and children. Those resources often come at least in part in the form of books and lectures by authors.

For publishers and authors it has been hard to miss the perfect synergy that results: They can promote a cause that most people avidly support while promoting their own products.

“The intention is service, to help the teachers and librarians who are looking for resources,” said Michelle Fadlalla, director of education and library marketing for Simon Schuster, which published the early antibullying success “The Misfits” in 2003 and this year published “Justin and the Bully” by the former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy. “At the same time it is definitely an opportunity for us to gather sales because it is such a hot topic.”

A case in point is “Wonder” by R. J. Palacio, a book about a boy with facial deformities that came out last year and is No. 1 on the New York Times children’s middle-grade best-seller list, with more than 350,000 copies. Although it was not written as an antibullying book, many teachers and librarians began assigning it that way to students. The publisher, Random House Children’s Books, saw an opportunity and created a “Choose Kind” campaign based on sentiments expressed in the book, in which individuals or classrooms can pledge to do acts of kindness.

The book’s message of tolerance and empathy is so popular that this year both Fairfield, Conn., and Santa Monica, Calif., chose “Wonder” for their communitywide reading initiatives.

Marketing opportunities do not completely explain the boom in the number of titles, however. Heather Brewer, the author of “The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod” vampire series, about being an outsider, said that bullying strikes a common chord with many authors.

“There is a certain personality to being a writer, a quirky introverted type maybe not as socially adept, and they tend to be picked on a little bit more than others,” she said in an interview.

Ms. Brewer is organizing the antibullying writers’ conference in October in part because she was a victim herself when she was growing up in Columbiaville, Mich. “I would have books knocked out of my hand,” she said. “I would be pinched and shoved. So letting people know about the dangers of bullying is important to me.”

Ms. Hall, who collaborated on the “Dear Bully” anthology after Phoebe Prince, a bullied high schooler from South Hadley, Mass., committed suicide in 2010, said she had to turn away authors who wanted to be included in the collection.

“A lot of the authors say books saved their lives during those difficult teen years,” Ms. Hall said. And authors, in turn, can be fiercely protective of their vulnerable, bookish readers. “They know that their fan base is people like them,” she said, “people who consider reading as a refuge. We want to be there for teens to let them know it will get better.”

Surviving a meanspirited peer is an age-old element of young-adult literature of course. But the context has changed, said Gillian Engberg, an editor at Booklist magazine, a publication of the American Library Association. Instead of being a rite of passage that must be endured or to be overcome, it is now analyzed in a much more psychological way. Some books, like “Leverage,” which depicts the rape of a male high-school gymnast by three football players, are graphic and decline to offer happy endings.

Several books now include the perspective of not just the victim but also of the bully, bystanders and even the adults who enable or ignore the behavior. “There is a nuanced approach,” Ms. Engberg said. “We are seeing more and more of these books that take on all of these perspectives.”

Jay Asher, the author of the best-selling novel “Thirteen Reasons Why” (2007), about a girl who sends tapes to people explaining their roles in her decision to take her own life, said the biggest difference for books about bullying now is the level of adult concern about the issue.

He said he is now asked to speak at schools three or four times a month, as well as to adult groups. What’s more he is often asked to speak in conjunction with others, like representatives from suicide-prevention help lines. Mr. Asher, 37, said he sees a real change from the time when he was growing up.

“What is different now is that adults really take this stuff seriously,” he said, “and they don’t want to turn their backs.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/books/bullying-becomes-hot-and-profitable-topic-for-publishers.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Media Decoder Blog: Macmillan Settles With Justice Department on E-book Pricing

February 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment

11:58 a.m. | Updated Macmillan said on Friday that it had agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice over the pricing of e-books, asserting that the potential costs of continuing to fight the action were too high.

The agreement means that all five major publishing houses have settled the charges brought by the government last spring.

Apple, which is also a defendant, will continue to trial in June, according to the Department of Justice. A company spokeswoman declined to comment on Friday.

In a letter addressed to authors, illustrators and agents, Macmillan’s chief executive, John Sargent, said that the risks were too great to go it alone.
“Our company is not large enough to risk a worst case judgment,” he said. “In this action the government accused five publishers and Apple of conspiring to raise prices. As each publisher settled, the remaining defendants became responsible not only for their own treble damages, but also possibly for the treble damages of the settling publishers (minus what they settled for). A few weeks ago I got an estimate of the maximum possible damage figure. I cannot share the breathtaking amount with you, but it was much more than the entire equity of our company.”

In a suit filed last April, the Justice Department accused the publishers and Apple of conspiring in e-mails and over lavish dinners to set the price of e-books at an artificially high level. The publishers had moved from a wholesale pricing model, which allowed retailers to charge what they wanted, to a system that allowed publishers to begin setting their own e-book prices, a model known as “agency pricing.”

The defendants said they were trying to protect themselves from Amazon, which was pricing e-books below their actual cost, putting financial pressure on the publishers that they said would drive them out of business.

Nevertheless, three publishing houses, HarperCollins, Simon Schuster and Hachette, settled with the government immediately. Penguin, Macmillan and Apple decided to fight the charges. But in December, to clear the way for its merger with Random House, Penguin settled too.

The terms of the Macmillan settlement mirrors that agreed to by the other publishers. Macmillan will immediately lift restrictions it has imposed on discounting and other promotions by e-book retailers and will be prohibited until December 2014 from entering into new agreements with similar restrictions. The publisher must also notify the government in advance about any e-book ventures it plans with other publishers.

Macmillan had been holding firm that it wouldn’t settle, and analysts offered varying explanations for the sudden turnabout. James McQuivey, an analyst for Forrester Research, said that potential merger talks might be one motivation. The publishing industry has begun to consolidate to respond to the threat from Amazon, and when Penguin and Random House announced last October that they would merge, it fueled speculation that more alliances would follow.

“This was a fight not worth fighting in the first place,” Mr. McQuivey said of the lawsuit, “and given the likely nature of merger conversations behind the scenes, that’s where you finally decide the litigation is an obstacle to those talks, which are much more important.”

But Mike Shatzkin, the founder and chief executive of the Idea Logical Company, a publishing consultant, downplayed the role of a potential merger. “There have been no rumors and no signs that Macmillan is merging,” he said. “I would actually take their statement at face value.”

He said he thought it was more likely that Macmillan realized that their stand on pricing was having no effect on the market. E-book prices have been declining steadily but not precipitously since the settlement with the first three publishers went into effect last September. “Their settling doesn’t change the overall market, and it looks much more that way to them now than when they were originally fighting,” Mr. Shatzkin said.

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/08/citing-potential-damages-macmillan-settles-with-justice-department-on-e-book-pricing/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Economix Blog: Bruce Bartlett: How to Avoid Reinventing the Wheel on Tax Reform

January 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment

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Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul.

An extensive discussion of tax reform is likely to take place over the next couple of years because it’s necessary and long overdue and because both political parties have things they hope to get out of it. Taken together, these suggest that something might actually happen.

That’s the premise of my new book, “The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform — Why We Need It and What It Will Take” (published today by Simon Schuster).

Today’s Economist

Perspectives from expert contributors.

Like many inside-Washington policy debates, much of that involving tax reform is unintelligible except to those who understand the jargon, players, history and unstated assumptions that underlie it. For those interested in following the discussion, which is likely to be protracted, my book is intended as a primer on some of the basic issues and concepts that will inevitably be part of the tax debate.

One of the main points I make is that tax reform is not a new subject, and many issues likely to be in the forefront of the debate have already been pretty thoroughly analyzed in ways that are still relevant.

Here’s one good example: “Blueprints for Basic Tax Reform” is perhaps the most important tax study of the postwar era. It was published 35 years ago this month – in the last weeks of the Ford administration. For many years, it was difficult to find and known only to hard-core tax experts; fortunately, the Treasury Department has made it available on its Web site.

The “Blueprints” study is important because the fundamental debate on tax policy is between two opposing ideas about the tax base – that is, what is taxed.

Historically, the “liberal” idea has been based on a definition of income devised by the economists Robert M. Haig and Henry Simons. It consists of all consumption during a calendar year plus the change in net worth. Thus, it consists of everything a taxpayer takes out of the economy plus the additional amount he or she could have taken out without diminishing her or his net worth.

Under a Haig-Simons definition of income, unrealized capital gains would be taxed as ordinary income, homeowners would be taxed on the imputed rent they pay to themselves by virtue of, in effect, being landlords who rent to themselves, and workers would pay taxes on health and other benefits they receive from their employers over and above their cash wages, among other things.

Almost all discussion of tax policy and tax reform from a liberal point of view assumes that the Haig-Simons definition of income is the correct one. Anything that deviates from it is an unjustified tax loophole, often called a “tax expenditure.”

The contrary “conservative” view is that only consumption should be taxed. This can be done directly, such as through a retail sales tax or value-added tax, or indirectly by exempting all saving from taxation.

Think of it this way. There are only two things one can do with income – save it or consume it. If saving is not taxed, all taxes must necessarily fall on consumption. The idea of taxing only consumption is most associated with the work of the economists John Stuart Mill and Irving Fisher.

During most of the postwar era, virtually all tax reform discussion was premised on the Haig-Simons view, and the Mill-Fisher view was largely forgotten. The tax reform acts of 1969 and 1976 represented efforts by liberals to make the tax code conform as much as possible to their vision. There was essentially no conservative alternative, and both bills were signed into law by Republican presidents.

Treasury Secretary William E. Simon, who served from 1974 to 1977, was disturbed by the lack of a conservative vision of what an ideal tax system should look like, and he recruited the Princeton economist David Bradford to come to Washington and devise one.

“Blueprints” was the result. It proposed two ideal tax systems: one based on a liberal Haig-Simons definition of income and another based on the conservative idea of taxing only consumption.

The liberal alternative in Professor Bradford’s study was largely ignored, because most tax theorists already understood and accepted it. But the conservative option was received as a revelation by conservatives, many of whom didn’t know there was a coherent conservative philosophy of taxation.

Subsequently, the “Blueprints” outline formed the foundation of the flat tax, Fair Tax and just about every other comprehensive conservative tax reform plan.

The reason why the “Blueprints” study remains relevant is that both liberals and conservatives have lost touch with the basics that underpin their respective philosophies of taxation. That is because since the Tax Reform Act of 1986 virtually all tax debate has either been about raising taxes to reduce the deficit or cutting taxes to stimulate growth.

First principles of taxation have been absent or implied rather than stated forthrightly. It would improve the debate on tax reform if each side understood the basics of its own philosophy.

In particular, both have forgotten the importance of defining the tax base properly, and both emphasize the rate schedule far too much. The truth is that statutory tax rates are far less important, either for the economy or fairness, than either side understands.

One goal of my book is to remind people that much of the heavy lifting on tax reform has already been done. The “Blueprints” study is just one example.

Both parties would benefit from better understanding the history and basics of their own tax philosophy. It would both save time and increase the chances that a new tax reform would improve the tax code if they get up to speed before tax reform becomes a partisan political football.

It is not necessary to reinvent the wheel. Policy makers can learn a lot about where we ought to be going from tax reform efforts in the past and the insights of experts whose work is still relevant. And thanks to the Internet, it is easily available.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=802bc399abbf8f822e5b4be1aea7738b

Filed Under: Economy News Tagged With: , ,

European Inquiry Focuses On Setting of E-Book Prices

December 7, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The European Commission said that Apple might have helped imprints like Penguin, owned by Pearson of Britain, and HarperCollins, owned by News Corporation of the United States, engage in “anticompetitive practices affecting the sale of e-books.”

In particular, the commission said it was “examining the character and terms of the agency agreements entered into” by the publishers and retailers of e-books, like Apple.

The three other imprints named by the commission were Hachette Livre, owned by Lagardère of France; Simon Schuster, a division of CBS of the United States; and Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck of Germany.

Apple declined to comment.

In a statement, Pearson said it did “not believe it has breached any laws, and will continue to fully and openly cooperate with the commission.” HarperCollins said that it was “cooperating fully with the investigation.”

Lagardère, based in Paris, declined to comment on the announcement, according to Bloomberg News.

Simon Schuster, in a statement, said it was “cooperating with the investigation.” Holtzbrinck did not immediately respond to an e-mail query, according to Bloomberg News.

Similar concerns in the United States have already led to litigation.

In August, Hagens Berman, a law firm, filed a class-action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, contending that the publishers and Apple increased prices for popular e-book titles to improve profits and force an e-book rival, Amazon, to abandon “pro-consumer discount pricing.”

According to Hagens Berman, the “publishers believed that Amazon’s wildly popular Kindle e-reader device and the company’s discounted pricing for e-books would increase the adoption of e-books, and feared Amazon’s discounted pricing structure would permanently set consumer expectations for lower prices.”

Until recently, a variety of retailers including large bookstore chains had the power to set the price of books.

But that system began to change when the publishers, possibly with the help of Apple, whose popular iPad also serves as an e-book reader, took greater control over setting prices, according to European officials.

Those changes may have kept the prices of e-books higher than they might otherwise have been in a fully competitive market, the officials said.

The decision to open the case came after surprise inspections by European authorities at the offices of companies in the sector in March, and the commission said it would treat the case “as a matter of priority.”

The decision also follows “a significant number of complaints” to the Office of Fair Trading in Britain.

That office closed a similar investigation on Tuesday, saying in a statement that, “the European Commission is currently well placed to arrive at a comprehensive resolution of this matter.”

European officials are now expected to investigate further to determine whether the five publishers, helped by Apple, deliberately set out to influence prices, and whether consumers have been paying too much for e-books.

The European Commission can fine companies who violate the bloc’s competition rules up to 10 percent of their global annual sales, and it can require them to change business practices.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/technology/eu-investigates-possible-cartel-in-e-book-market.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

E.U. Investigating Possible Cartel in E-Book Market

December 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment

BRUSSELS — The European antitrust authority said Tuesday that it was investigating possible collusion between Apple and five major publishing houses in the growing market for electronic books.

The European Commission said Apple might have helped imprints like Penguin, owned by Pearson of Britain, and HarperCollins, owned by News Corp. of the United States, to engage in “anti-competitive practices affecting the sale of e-books.”

In particular, the commission said it was “examining the character and terms of the agency agreements entered into” by the publishers and retailers of e-books, like Apple.

The three other imprints named by the commission were Hachette Livre, owned by Lagardère of France; Simon Schuster, a division of CBS of the United States; and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck of Germany.

Apple declined to comment.

In a statement, Pearson said it did “not believe it has breached any laws, and will continue to fully and openly cooperate with the commission.” HarperCollins said that it was “cooperating fully with the investigation.”

Lagardère, based in Paris, declined to comment on the announcement, according to Bloomberg News.

CBS and its Simon Schuster unit did not immediately respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment, while Holtzbrinck did not immediately respond to an e-mail query, according to Bloomberg.

Similar concerns in the United States have already led to litigation.

In August, Hagens Berman, a law firm, filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of consumers contending that the publishers and Apple increased prices for popular e-book titles to improve profit and force e-book rival Amazon to abandon “pro-consumer discount pricing.”

According to Hagens Berman, the “publishers believed that Amazon’s wildly popular Kindle e-reader device and the company’s discounted pricing for e-books would increase the adoption of e-books, and feared Amazon’s discounted pricing structure would permanently set consumer expectations for lower prices.”

Until recently, a variety of retailers, including major bookshop chains, had the power to set the price of books.

But that system began to change when the publishers, possibly with the help of Apple, whose iPad tablet also serves as an e-book reader, took greater control over the power to set prices, according to European officials.

Those changes may have kept the prices of e-books higher than they might otherwise have been in a fully competitive market, the officials said.

The decision to open the case followed surprise inspections at the offices of companies in the sector in March, and the commission said it would treat the case “as a matter of priority.”

The decision also follows “a significant number of complaints” to the Office of Fair Trading in Britain.

The O.F.T. closed a similar investigation Tuesday, saying in a statement that, “the European Commission is currently well placed to arrive at a comprehensive resolution of this matter.”

European officials are now expected to investigate further to determine whether the five publishers, helped by Apple, deliberately set out to influence prices, and whether consumers have been paying too much for e-books.

The European Commission can fine companies found to have breached the bloc’s competition rules up to 10 percent of their global annual sales, and it can require them to change their business practices.

Dutch raid mobile firms

The Dutch Competition Authority raided the offices of the mobile operators KPN, Vodafone, and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile on Tuesday as part of a price-fixing investigation, Reuters reported from Amsterdam.

The authority said it was investigating whether mobile telecommunications operators in the Netherlands engaged in cartel practices including price-fixing and the sharing of market information.

It did not name any of the companies under investigation. But KPN, Vodafone, and T-Mobile issued separate statements after the announcement saying that the authority officials had been to their offices and that they were cooperating.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=5386435cd41804b176dde2bc851008dc

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,