Travel guide book publisher Lonely Planet has blamed the high Australian dollar for its decision to axe 60 to 70 staff and move its online division from its Melbourne headquarters to London.

Lonely Planet’s chief executive, Matt Goldberg, told staff yesterday that the redundancies – a shedding of about 15 per cent of staff – were a painful but necessary step for the company to ”return to profitability”.

”Lonely Planet is facing a series of financial challenges from external forces beyond our control – a sluggish global economy, the troubled retail sector, a declining print market and, significantly, the effects of the strong Australian dollar.”

The dollar’s strength has bled the company of $13 million in revenue this financial year, because 70 per cent of its costs are incurred in Australia, while 80 per cent of its revenue is raised overseas.

Lonely Planet is expected to post a loss this year, and it announced plans yesterday to slash its costs by 18 per cent.

A spokeswoman for Lonely Planet, Kim Lovely, said some staff whose jobs had been axed would be given the chance to apply for new positions in London.

Ironically, the latest edition of the publisher’s guide to Britain is scathing in some of its opinions of Old Blighty.

”Public transport, admission fees, restaurants and hotel rooms all tend to be expensive compared with their equivalents in many other European countries,” the guide says.

Visitors should be prepared to ”fork out £30 in a restaurant for a ”modern European” concoction that tastes like it came from a can”.

Lonely Planet was founded at the kitchen table of the Australian couple Tony and Maureen Wheeler in the 1970s, and grew into the world’s largest guide book publisher. It is now a wholly owned subsidiary of BBC Worldwide, the BBC’s commercial arm.

Employees in the online book publishing division greeted the news with dismay, although senior management had foreshadowed changes last month.

One employee made redundant yesterday said: ”The relocation is a surprise, but it was fairly clear there were going to be some fairly savage cuts. I’ve had the feeling that the BBC has been wanting to move the online publishing side of things to London anyway, and maybe they were just waiting for an excuse.”

Mr Goldberg told staff that the book publishing company was committed to remaining in its Melbourne headquarters, which has about 350 staff.

As a broadcaster, Melvyn Bragg has discussed more topics with more specialists and more energetically than most of us could ever hope to do. The 400th anniversary of the King James Bible provides him with the perfect opportunity to write something with christian book publishers which reflects that breadth of encounter.

The Book of Books has three parts. The first takes us “from Hampton Court to New England”. It’s a broadly chronological account, putting the KJB in historical context and paying proper attention to earlier translations, with Tyndale (published in 1526) justly recognised as pre-eminent. The book explains how the KJB was commissioned, planned and executed. Then the camera angle widens and we are taken on the first of the KJB’s many journeys: across the Atlantic on the Mayflower; to the English civil war, where it provided ammunition for both sides; to the Restoration era in Britain; and to the Great Awakening in America.

In part two, “The Impact on Culture”, the journey extends to science, language, literature and political thought. The writer shows how the KJB was hugely influential among those who formed the Royal Society. Its language forms an important strand in present-day idiom. It can be seen as great literature in its own right, and has hugely influenced British and American writers. Bragg gives us a whistle-stop tour from Shakespeare to Toni Morrison, with way stations including Milton, Bunyan, Defoe, Blake, Melville, Faulkner, Eliot and Golding. “After all the pounding it has taken”, Bragg writes, this Bible “is still a source for such great imaginative writers today”.

The writer shows how the KJB survived attacks by philosophers such as David Hume and Thomas Hobbes during the Enlightenment. This leads him to make a strong case for how it will survive the so-called New Enlightenment of Richard Dawkins and others. Bragg does a grand demolition job of Dawkins’s limited vision – his failure to recognise the positive dimension to belief and to appreciate the critical importance of the historical backdrop. He ends this section of the book with an account of the KJB’s influence on the actions of individuals, presenting Mary Wollstonecraft and William Wilberforce as cases in point.

Part three is “The Impact on Society”. Here the KJB’s journeys take us first into slavery, and then the American civil war and its political consequences. A global perspective emerges. The Book is seen as “the prime educating force in the English-speaking world”, and Protestant missionaries as especially important in this process. The text has played an important role in developing social attitudes to sex and the place of women, and in the rise of socialism. Above all, it helped form our modern notion of democracy. This, Bragg argues, could be the KJB’s “greatest achievement” of all – Bragg’s book publishers agree.

The book’s strengths are its judicious selectivity and its breadth, yet both carry risks.

All readers will want to cite other examples: I would add the Virgin Mary to his discussion of biblical women, and one could easily double the length of the chapter on global spread by showing how the KJB has influenced literature across the Commonwealth. Nor do I doubt that specialists will dispute specific points. The linguist in me worries when I read that there are “literally thousands” of present-day idiomatic expressions in the KJB (my estimate is roughly 250) – but I’m happy to turn a blind eye to the occasional linguistic infelicity in the interests of seeing the wider picture.

Which is what we get. Bragg’s strengths as a novelist yield an account that is personal and imaginative, full of

Leaders in digital book publishing are in New York at the InterQuest2011 Digital Book Printing Forum to discuss the latest trends and opportunities in an industry beset with change during the past few years. At the event, Kodak’s Eric Owen is speaking about the role Kodak is playing with its customers by providing effective counsel and comprehensive solutions.

“The publishing industry is in a dynamic period and Kodak is helping customers profit from developing trends like short-runs, automation and self publishing,” said Eric Owen, Vice President, Sales and Business Development, Kodak Digital Printing Solutions group.  “Kodak is well positioned to help guide printers and book publishers with a blend of offset and digital technologies and comprehensive workflow offerings.”

Kodak is a leader in digital book publishing, bringing many innovative solutions to market in recent years. Book publishers constantly seek more efficient and economical ways to produce short-run book titles and streamline processes. By printing digitally with the KODAK PROSPER Press Platform, the need for inventory is reduced, waste can be minimized, and the number of available titles increased. The KOKAK PROSPER Platform integrates with a wide-range of leading finishing equipment offerings to ensure that customers can produce books in a manner that best fits their businesses.

Kodak is fully committed to helping its customers capitalize on industry changes and recently assembled a panel of independent experts for an expansive roundtable discussion about the future of book publishing companies. Held at the New York Public Library, the roundtable brought together executives from book publishing, manufacturing, retailing and distribution companies, as well as an author. Topics and insights from the events discussion included:

- High-speed inkjet printing will have a significant impact on book manufacturing-”the biggest development in publishing in the past 50 years,” according to one panelist.

- Inkjet printing will allow for more and shorter production runs, saving on inventory, waste and obsolescence costs, and providing a means for niche books to be printed that otherwise wouldn’t get produced.

To view video highlights from the roundtable, go to: www.kodak.com/go/changepublishing

The 2011 Digital Book Printing Forum will be held Tuesday, April 5, 2011 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Marriott Marquis New York in midtown Manhattan during the annual Publishing Business Conference Expo organized by Book Business magazine.

Just when do books wear out?

That the big question, especially after Book Publishers announced this month that libraries will only be able to circulate its e-book titles 26 times before they’ll have to buy a new copy.

It set 26 as the cap, arguing with an average two-week borrowing period, it works out to a year — the length of time when printed books wear out and popularity wanes.

Technically, e-books will never fall apart. And librarians argue many printed books circulate far more than 26 times, and are still in good shape after more than 100 checkouts.

The new rule, which went into effect on March 7 for new titles, has upset librarians, sparking some in the United States to call for a boycott of HarperCollins books.

While Canadian librarians aren’t making such threats, the Toronto Public Library is holding off on any new HarperCollins purchases until the new restrictions are clarified.

“This announcement was discouraging,” said city librarian Jane Pyper. “We respect the publishing industry. We want a viable and vibrant Canadian publishing industry, in particular. We want Canadian content.

“We also want something that’s fair to public libraries and viable and sustainable for the library sector.”

While e-books represent less than 1 per cent of the 32 million items that the Toronto library circulates each year, they are growing in popularity. The library currently carries about 11,000 e-book titles, and they are checked out about 17,000 times each month.

On Christmas Day and Boxing Day, after people had ripped off the wrapping paper on new and self publishing reading devices like Kobos and Sony readers, the library had an unbelievable surge in hits on its website for patrons wanting to download e-books, Pyper said.

With each e-title, the Toronto library can only circulate that single copy to one borrower at a time. Patrons can borrow 10 books for up to 21 days. After the due date, the book disappears from the individual reader and the item can circulate again.

The New York Times says nine million devices are in use in the United States, according to Forrester Research. Market research firms here estimate 500,000 Canadians had readers by the end of last year.

“It’s important for the future to understand that the public libraries will be in e-collection market,” said Pyper. “We want to own books, we want to preserve them, and we want the public to have permanent access to them.”

E-books range in price from $20 to $30 and there are no library discounts — unlike print versions, she said. And given the library’s financial woes, pricing or the need to repurchase books has an impact on the budget.

When asked for comment, a spokesman with HarperCollinsCanada said no one was available.

In an open letter to librarians, Josh Marwell, president of sales at HarperCollinsPublishers in the United States, explained that the company’s previous e-book policy was almost 10 years old, developed when there were few such readers.

“We have serious concerns that our previous e-book policy, selling e-books to libraries in perpetuity, if left unchanged, would undermine the emerging e-book ecosystem, hurt the growing e-book channel, place additional pressure on physical bookstores, and in the end lead to a decrease in book sales and royalties paid to authors,” Marwell wrote.

He added the 26 checkout cap can provide a year of availability for titles with the highest demand and much longer for other titles. “If a library decides to repurchase an e-book later in the book’s life, the price will be significantly lower as it will be pegged to a paperback price point.”

The ease with which consumers can borrow e-books makes book publishe

Just two months shy of his fourth birthday, Colton Burpo, the son of an evangelical pastor in Imperial, Neb., was rushed into emergency surgery with a burst appendix.

He woke up with an astonishing story: He had died and gone to heaven, where he met his great-grandfather; the biblical figure Samson; John the Baptist; and Jesus, who had eyes that “were just sort of a sea-blue and they seemed to sparkle,” Colton, now 11 years old, recalled.

Colton’s father, Todd, has turned the boy’s experience into a 163-page book, “Heaven Is for Real,” which has become a sleeper paperback hit of the winter, dominating best-seller lists and selling hundreds of thousands of copies.

Thomas Nelson, the christian book publishers, said it had broken company sales records. The publisher, based in Nashville, began with an initial print run of 40,000 copies. Since the book came out in November, it has gone back to press 22 times, with more than 1.5 million copies in print. On the New York Times best-seller list for paperback nonfiction last Sunday, “Heaven Is for Real” was No. 1. The book remains in the top spot this coming Sunday.

Much of the book’s success has been fueled by word of mouth, since it did not begin with the usual best-seller channels: there has been no elaborate book tour, big-name book publishers or brand-name author. But it has gained traction with a few well-placed appearances on the morning show “Fox & Friends,” “The 700 Club” and CNN.

The book has sold just as strongly in national chain bookstores like Barnes & Noble as it has in Christian specialty shops, said Matt Baugher, the vice president and book publisher of Thomas Nelson. Mass merchants like Wal-Mart have pushed the book heavily in their stores, and large orders from churches and ministry groups are growing steadily.

“We all are perhaps desperate to know what is on the other side of the veil after we die,” Mr. Baugher said, adding that his initial skepticism about the Burpo family’s story was short-lived. “This was a very down-to-earth, conservative, quote-unquote normal Midwestern family. We became fully convinced that this story was valid. And also that it was a great story that would just take off.”

The book was an instant hit in Barnes & Noble outlets and was near the top of the best-seller list on its bn.com. The chain’s religion buyer was an early advocate for the book, ordering copies for every store, said Patricia Bostelman, the vice president for marketing at Barnes & Noble.

“When you buy the religion subject, you are presented with many stories about heaven, personal experiences about near-death and the afterlife,” Ms. Bostelman said, noting that several other books with “heaven” in the title have sold well recently. “But what was unusual about this book was that it was the story of a little boy. It deactivated some of the cynicism that can go along with adults capitalizing on their experiences.”

Todd Burpo wrote the book with Lynn Vincent, who collaborated with Sarah Palin on “Going Rogue.” Mr. Burpo, the pastor of Crossroads Wesleyan Church in Imperial, a farming community in southwest Nebraska, said in an interview that he had shouldered some criticism over it.

“People say we just did this to make money, and it’s not the truth,” Mr. Burpo said, referring to anonymous online comments about the book. “We were expecting nothing. We were just hoping the publisher would break even.” (He said he planned to give away much of the royalty income and spend some of it on home improvements.)

At first, he and his wife, Sonja, were not sure if they could believe their son’s story, which came out slowly, months and years after his sudden illness and operation in

Bargain hunters were out in force this weekend as liquidation sales began at 200 Borders locations slated to close as part of the company’s bankruptcy filing.

The affected stores — about one-third of the bookseller’s locations — are expected to close by the end of April. Twenty-one underperforming stores in Southern California will be shut, including stores in Sherman Oaks, Century City, Long Beach and Orange.

Huge “store closing” and “everything must go” posters covered the windows at Borders in Pasadena and Glendale, which were bustling with customers Sunday. Many sections were already picked over, including from christian book publishers, with shelves left bare and items such as notebooks, journals and photo albums strewn about.

Most items were discounted 20% to 40%, with markdowns expected to increase in coming weeks.

“As long as there’s a deal, I’m going to take advantage of it,” said Jordan Francke, 27, who was checking out the games section at the Glendale store.

“It’s just the changing landscape of literature these days. It’s all electronic,” Francke, a children’s book publishers and television schedule coordinator, said of the chain’s bankruptcy. “I can only imagine it’s a struggle for a place like Borders to stay relevant.”

That’s a harsh reality for regular customers such as Kathleen O’Reilly, 52, who was at the Pasadena Borders carrying a shopping basket laden with discounted stationery and magazines.

The Pasadena resident said she was “old school” and enjoyed seeing and touching books before making a purchase. She said she would miss visiting the store with her teenage daughter.

“I spend several days a week here,” said O’Reilly, a self-publishing counselor at a high school. “I actually debated whether I even wanted to come because I was worried I’d be too upset to see the store torn apart.”

Business is expected to continue as usual on the company’s website and at stores that aren’t closing.

After a slew of competitive blunders and missteps in the last decade, Borders Group Inc. found itself in trouble and had to cut staff, shut stores and shake up its top management.

Critics said the company botched its move into the book publisher digital age, causing sales and earnings to plummet. At the same time, mass merchants including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. became major players in the book-selling market, often offering lower prices than Borders and rival Barnes & Noble Inc.

But Borders maintains it isn’t done for good. In a letter e-mailed to customers and posted on the company’s website last week, Borders President Mike Edwards said the company hoped to emerge from Chapter 11 as “the destination of choice.”

About 6,000 of the chain’s roughly 19,000 workers will be laid off as part of the closures. Among them is Rich Kilbury, a christian book publisher, who was pushing a cart stacked high with books at the Pasadena location Sunday.

“It’s depressing, but we kind of saw it coming,” he said. “Business had dropped off.”

The promise of discounts attracted Victoria Rose to the Pasadena store, where she was browsing mystery and thriller books. The 60-year-old high school English teacher said she was never a regular customer because she could find a better s

Blogger starts a blog. Blogger solicits photos or texts or emails. Blogger gets a book deal. That formula has been wildly successful for the last few years, but is showing signs of market saturation.

There were roughly 100 book deals involving blogs or Internet memes last year according to Book Publisher’s Marketplace.

Christopher Weingarten, 31, was one of them. A year ago, he decided to start a blog about dogs, dressed as hipsters. He gets readers to submit photos and attaches a witty caption.

Over three million hits and thousands of submissions later, he just recently landed a book deal, with the book hitting bookstores in July. While the freelance music writer discloses that his book deal was not six-figures, it was “certainly more than the $3,000 advance I got for doing a book about music.”

Blog-to-book deals have also changed the humor genre in general. “Now if you’re funny, you start a blog or a Twitter feed, and cultivate an audience that way and a publisher finds you,” says Patrick Mulligan, Senior Editor at Gotham Books, an imprint of Penguin, which specializes in blog-to-book deals.

One of Gotham’s blog-to-books is “Texts From Last Night”, which features random and funny texts sent from submitters, who are typically in a drunken stupor when texting. The blog on which it is based gets around four million page views a day. The book is in its sixth printing. The blog co-founders say the website brought in about one million dollars in revenue last year, and it’s now being converted into a TV show.

They bristle at the notion that they’re taking other peoples’ contributions and running away with the money from an ebook publishing book deal.

Usually publishers require bloggers to put in at least 70 percent new content into the books and often try to market them to a new audience.

“You can’t just sort of repackage the greatest hits on a website,” says Megan Thompson, Senior Literary Agent with LJK Literary Management which represents a number of blog-to-book authors, including the people behind “Geek Dad”, and “Black Heels to Tractor Wheels.” “Why would someone buy the cow if they can get the milk for free?” she says.

Penguin’s Gotham Books was able to find a new audience with the popular LOLcat series. “It’s 50 year old women from the midwest who have ten cats who are buying it,” says Mulligan. “When you make something a book and take it off the Internet, people who never stumble upon this website find it in book form.”

Some overnight authors are commanding lucrative deals, even if it isn’t as frequent as it once was. “When people were going crazy for this stuff, we got into really competitive auctions where people were spending into the mid six-figures for some of these books,” says Mulligan. “That just becomes tough for book publishers to make money.”

Still, the publishing industry is mindful that the genre has some staying power.

“It’s what happens in publishing,” Mulligan says. “Something becomes hot, it becomes over-published, and then it wanes, and then there will be this awesome new blog in 2012, and we’ll go crazy again for it.”