Books

Decline In Textbook Use

By Jim Pickerell | 430 Words | Posted 1/23/2017 | Comments
Pearson has reported that in 2016 the North American higher education courseware market was much weaker than expected and that their net revenues fell 30% in the final quarter resulting in an unprecedented 18% decline for the year.

Book Reading: Print or Digital Devices

By Jim Pickerell | 349 Words | Posted 10/12/2016 | Comments
According to the Pew Research Center in the last year 39% of Americans read only print books. Another 26% didn’t read any books at all, but read other things. The question is where do the other 35% of book readers get their information. Remember, that not so long ago the 74% who wanted to read a book turned to one that was printed.

Pearson’s Share Price Falls 17%

By Jim Pickerell | 416 Words | Posted 10/22/2015 | Comments
Pearson has cut its full-year guidance to investors in a dire warning about the continuing "cyclical and policy-related factors which have been hurting our markets for some years."  Its share price fell almost 17% to a value of $14.54 in New York. The company’s ADRs are now down 30.7% over the past six months.

Novel Expressions Looks To Fill Void

By Jim Pickerell | 168 Words | Posted 3/24/2015 | Comments
Royalty free stock image agency Novel Expression and Jenn LeBlanc of Illustrated Romance are launching the Exclusive Jenn LeBlanc for Novel Expression collection. The initial collection will feature images of male and female same sex couples in both contemporary and historical costumes.

What’s A Book Cover Worth?

By Jim Pickerell | 86 Words | Posted 12/3/2014 | Comments
You'll never guess what attendees at the annual Self-Publishing in the Digital Age conference in London were told to pay for a photo that would attract readers and help sell their book. You'll be surprised. Check out this story.

BookStats Announces 2013 Publishing Figures

By Jim Pickerell | 412 Words | Posted 7/11/2014 | Comments
BookStats has reported that the U.S. book and journal publishing industry sold 2.59 billion units and generated $27.01 billion in net revenue in 2013. The trade sector - covering general consumer fiction and non-fiction – generated $14.66 billion in net revenue leaving about $12.35 billion for educational publishing. There were 2.32 billion trade book units sold and approximately 270 million educational books.

Tough 2013 For Pearson Education

By Jim Pickerell | 203 Words | Posted 2/14/2014 | Comments
In January Pearson provided a regular trading update and on February 28, 2014 it will announce preliminary results for 2013. While overall the company expects an operating profit of approximately £865m they had “lower underlying margins in North American Higher Education, particularly in the important fourth quarter.”

PACA And Cengage Develop New Licensing Strategy For Educational Use

By Jim Pickerell | 1356 Words | Posted 9/30/2013 | Comments
Given the changing and growing demands publishers are facing when developing an educational program, PACA’s Editorial Relations Committee and Cengage Learning have worked together to create a new “Preferred Provider” Insert License Agreement that helps meet the publisher’s needs while providing image vendors of a better understanding of how their images are being used.

Decline In Creativity: Is It About Budgets?

By Jim Pickerell | 982 Words | Posted 9/26/2013 | Comments
Art Directors and Graphic Designers lament the decline in creativity. They say this results from a lack of Time and a lack of Funding which leads to a lack of Inspiration. 75% say they have too many competing priorities to leave time for reflection.

Educational Publishing: From Print To Digital

By Jim Pickerell | 661 Words | Posted 7/29/2013 | Comments
How fast is the education market moving from print to digital delivery? In its Q2 2013 earnings conference call with investors last week, Pearson, PLC, the world leading provider of educational materials and services provided some interesting data.

Precedents For Electronic Rights Use

By Jim Pickerell | 639 Words | Posted 6/3/2013 | Comments
Given the prices publishers are charging for their digital products, they are establishing a precedent that images – in fact, all the content – is essentially worthless. See what publishers are charging and what that makes a single photo worth.

Customer Reselling Of Copyrighted Material Legal

By Jim Pickerell | 238 Words | Posted 4/5/2013 | Comments
Last month the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-to-3 decision in the case of Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons found that Supap Kirtsaeng had the right to resell, in the United States, textbooks that his friends and relatives purchased in Thailand. The Thai math student at Cornell University generated roughly $900,000 in revenue by reselling books that can be purchased at a much lower price in Thailand than in the U.S.

Education Shifts From Books To Digital – FAST

By Jim Pickerell | 836 Words | Posted 2/28/2013 | Comments
A major shift is coming in the education market, and more rapidly than many expect. In Pearson’s recent Q4 2012 earnings call John Fallon, CEO and Chief Executive of International Education business discussed many of the “fundamental structural change” that are taking place in Pearson’s education business.

Future Image Demand In Education

By Jim Pickerell | 728 Words | Posted 12/11/2012 | Comments
At the PACA International Conference in October, Christie Silver of McGraw Hill School Education Group provided details on where her team found images for a major reading program they have been working on this year. She also provided insights as to how educational publishers will be sourcing images in the future and pointed out that the main focus of all educational efforts these days is digital.

Textbook Rates Go Down

By Jim Pickerell | 309 Words | Posted 12/5/2012 | Comments
If you think there is still a decent market for textbook usage of stock photos – think again. The following is a summary of a conversation yesterday between a picture researcher for a major U.S. textbook company and renown travel photographer Wolfgang Kaehler.

Is There A Future In Creating Images For Educational Use?

By Jim Pickerell | 1619 Words | Posted 11/1/2012 | Comments
At the PACA International Conference in Chicago in October the keynote speakers was Ken Carson, EVP and General Counsel of Cengage Learning. He outlined many of the challenges educational publishers face today and provided insights as to where content licensing for educational use is headed.

Publishers Settle With Google Over Library Project

By Jim Pickerell | 364 Words | Posted 10/17/2012 | Comments
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) and Google have announced a settlement agreement that will provide the Google Library Project with access to books and journals that are still protected by copyright. Now, Google may digitize new books as well as make the contents of books already scanned available online.

Collecting Societies and Photocopy Licensing

By Jim Pickerell | 1633 Words | Posted 10/15/2012 | Comments
For more than 30 years “Collecting Societies” in many countries have had systems to compensate photographers when their images in books and periodicals are photocopied. U.S. photographers are not so fortunate.

Alamy Explains Low Price For Image Use

By Jim Pickerell | 735 Words | Posted 9/12/2012 | Comments
Alan Capel, Head of Content at Alamy explains that the price for printing 3 million copies of a textbook was much higher than we reported earlier this week.

$1.00 Per Year For Textbook Use Of RM Images

By Jim Pickerell | 526 Words | Posted 9/10/2012 | Comments
Photographer Jacques Jangoux reports that Alamy has licensed two of his images - A3N0PR (2 boys in a canoe in the Amazon region) and A3AB62 (waterfall of Jari River, tributary of the Amazon) – for just $25.00 each for textbook use. Of course the photographer will only receive 60% of these figures.

Should You Pursue Educational Publisher When They Infringe?

By Jim Pickerell | 663 Words | Posted 9/7/2012 | Comments
When you discover that a large educational publisher has made extensive use one of your images beyond the rights they licensed is it wise to try to collect for the unauthorized use? In a recent discussion on the Stockphoto@yahoogroups.com forum it was pointed out that publishers often “blacklist” suppliers who try to collect for unauthorized use. Thus, it was argued that it may be better to accept a loss on one sale in hopes that in the years ahead you’ll make it up through additional sales to that same publisher.

Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You

By Jim Pickerell | 319 Words | Posted 9/5/2012 | Comments
Education Companies have recently settled copyright and trademark claims against several textbook distributors. However, these same companies have no remorse about knowingly, intentionally and systematically infringing the copyrights of image creators who have supplied images for use in many of the books they publish.

Open Education Resources – The Next Disruptor

By Jim Pickerell | 621 Words | Posted 8/28/2012 | Comments
For some time professional image suppliers and many educational publishers have been at odds over unlicensed use of images. Image creators and suppliers claim they have not been properly compensated for the use of some images while publishers either try to hide the unauthorized uses or argue that what they have done is not copyright infringement. Now publishers and image creators are on the same side against alleged infringer Boundless Learning.

Stock Photography: Future Growth Potential

By Jim Pickerell | 4084 Words | Posted 7/30/2012 | Comments
In the future, will it be possible for more photographers to earn a better living than they are currently earning producing stock images? More and more photographers are jumping into the stock photo business every day and many hope to make it a career. Here’s a dozen reasons why future revenue growth for this industry seems unlikely. I’ve discussed all these issues before, but it seems useful to briefly itemize them all in one place.

Tom Bean Wins Copyright Infringement Case Against John Wiley & Sons

By Jim Pickerell | 279 Words | Posted 7/12/2012 | Comments
In late March In the case of Tom Bean vs. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona Judge Frederick J. Martone GRANTED partial summary judgment to the plaintiff on the issue of defendant's liability for copyright infringement of 26 images used in seven titles.