Crains New York - April 15, 2013 - (Page 6)

THE Book marketing’s next chapter INSIDER BY MATTHEW FLAMM Book publishing has been famously slow to embrace technology,but some industry executives are hoping it’s never too late to change. Taking a page from the tech community,an independent publisher and a top talent agency will announce Monday that they have joined forces to host the first-ever publishing “hackathon.” The aim will be to inspire programmers, designers and entrepreneurs to develop an app, widget or website that solves the riddle of how to expose potential book buyers to titles they didn’t know they wanted. The issue has become a critical one for publishers as they face the decline of brick-and-mortar bookstores, whose displays have long been the single most important way to discover a book. Popularity contest The 36-hour Publishing Hackathon—launching May 18 at coworking space The Alley NYC—will also borrow from American Idol. A team of judges will choose three to five finalists for a presentation later in LISTEN to a discussion at CrainsNewYork.com/podcasts the month at BookExpo at the Javits “There is a lot of concern over Center, where the panel will include how to solve the digital discovery Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, head of the problem,” said Mr. Steinberger. literary department at William Mor- “The key question is whether [the ris Endeavor, which is helping the solution] is going to come from inPerseus Books Group organize the side or outside the industry.” hackathon.Stephen Evans,a director at the prominent Silicon Valley New sites A number of sites aimed at the private-equity firm Silver Lake—a part-owner of WME—will also pre- discovery problem have launched recently, including side, as will Perseus Bookish, which is Chief Executive David backed by several maSteinberger. jor publishing houses. The winner will reMeanwhile, Amazon ceive $10,000 and the just bought the No. 1 chance to pitch the sobook-community site lution over breakfast Goodreads, raising with superagent Ari suspicions that the Emanuel, co-CEO of giant e-tailer and fastWME. growing publisher “There’s a need for wants to dominate the book publishing to book discovery field. have a little more conBut the hackathon’s nective tissue to great organizers say the minds and technoloevent is not just about gy,” said Jay Mandel, a replacing what’s being partner at WME. lost.They want to seize “This is a really effiopportunities publishcient, smart, fun, cool ers never had before to way to go about it.” connect books and Surveys by indusconsumers through try researcher Codex smartphones and other Group have shown —David Steinberger devices. that a hefty percent“What a hackathon age of consumers tries to do is promote browse through excitement around a bookstores even problem,advertise that when they’re using e-readers or buying print books on- there is unclaimed land and get digiline. Digital retailers, on the other tal settlers excited about it,” said Rick hand, tend to attract buyers who Joyce, chief marketing officer at Perseus. “This is valuable space.” Ⅲ know what they want. Will the solution ‘come from inside or outside the industry?’ by Chris Bragg crain composite image: istockphoto Industry sponsors ‘hackathon’ to find best way to expose customers to books This time, mayor defers to council T wo recent initiatives from Mayor Michael Bloomberg—banning stores from using plastic-foam food containers and displaying cigarettes—are notable not just as new branches of the mayor’s major public-health policies, but also because Mr. Bloomberg is subjecting them to City Council approval rather than ramming them through administratively. During Mr. Bloomberg’s dozen years in office, the billionaire executive has preferred to advance his agenda through his agencies rather than get the blessing of a sometimes prickly legislature.The mayor’s detractors, however, attribute the different tack on the new measures to his recent setbacks in court, and say that his most lasting accomplishments, like the smoking ban, have come by passing bills. “It’s pretty clear that you really should go through the City Council in basically all these situations,” said Robert Bookman, an attorney well known for representing small businesses before city agencies. In early March, a state-court judge upended Mr. Bloomberg’s attempt to restrict the size of sugary drinks, ruling that doing so without council approval would “eviscerate” the idea of separation of powers between branches of city government. The administration has appealed the decision. The plastic-foam and tobacco bans could well face lawsuits if they pass, but observers say Mr. Bloomberg’s track record shows that council-approved proposals hold up better in court than those done unilaterally—a notion that the administration disputes. A 2002 ban on smoking in restaurants and bars went through the council and survived in court. By contrast, the soda ban and a livery-cab street-hail measure were stymied by judges. Mr. Bloomberg had pushed his livery-cab bill through the state Legislature after resistance to it surfaced in the council. A judge ruled it was a city matter requiring council sign-off. “Anybody who finds a lack of success in their initiatives by going around the City Council is going to be more likely to go to the council in the future,” said Michael Woloz, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Taxi Cab Board of Trade, which fought the livery-cab bill in court. A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg dismissed as “quite faulty” the idea that laws sanctioned by the council fared better. Rules requiring restaurants to post calorie counts and letter grades and to avoid using trans fats were put in place administratively. “All these measures had heavy opposition from industry,” the spokesman said. “If they thought they could block it in court, they would have tried. In fact, not being sued shows they did not think they had even the slightest legal ground to stand on.” The restaurant industry did sue over calorie counts, forcing a slight change in the requirement. Council approval does not make policy changes bulletproof. Some legislation it passed, including a 2004 equal-rights law, has been overturned, the Bloomberg spokesman noted. In January, a federal judge upheld a Bloomberg regulation issued through the Department of Health requiring parental consent before a mohel can orally draw away blood from an infant during circumcision—an Orthodox Jewish tradition that risks infection for the infant. In court, opponents of the regulation argued that it violated their First Amendment right to express their religious beliefs. Now, in the wake of the ruling overturning Mr. Bloomberg’s soda restriction, opponents of the circumcision regulation are preparing an appeal with a different argument: that the mayor is overstepping his authority by not taking the measure through the council. Ⅲ Crain’s Insider, our award-winning politics newsletter, is now a blog. Read it every day at www.crainsnewyork.com/insider 6 | Crain’s New York Business | April 15, 2013 http://www.CrainsNewYork.com/podcasts http://www.CrainsNewYork.com/podcasts http://www.CrainsNewYork.com/podcasts http://www.crainsnewyork.com/insider

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - April 15, 2013

IN THE BOROUGHS
IN THE MARKETS
THE INSIDER
BUSINESS PEOPLE
CORPORATE LADDER
OPINION
STEVE HINDY
GREG DAVID
REAL ESTATE DEALS
REPORT: SMALL BUSINESS
THE LISTS
CLASSIFIEDS
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
SOURCE LUNCH
OUT AND ABOUT
SNAPS

Crains New York - April 15, 2013