Lonely Planet Books Lonely Planet is functionin

Lonely Planet is functioning at this time like a Jellyfish. It is a large group of independently minded people working on personal projects that tend toward a common goal. Such organizations can get rather large, but they do have a maximum size. Furthermore, like jellyfish in water, such an organization needs a buoyant market environment to keep them afloat. If they company gets to large, or if the industry becomes less favorable, companies without a management structure will collapse in upon themselves like a jellyfish that washes up onto the beach.

The first order of business for Lonely Planet, then, is to develop some type of support structure to serve the creative talents that produce and manage their products. This need not mean that the present creative minds should change their way of working. Rather new people should be brought in to serve these masters of chaos since they work so well in this environment.

Many publishing operations are recognized as "commercial"; many are considered "noncommercial." Some firms seek to "maximize profit" as a primary goal; many feel fortunate to achieve what could be called reasonable profits; and some exist not primarily (or at all) to make a profit but to meet some defined need (social, scholarly, or religious, for example) on a break-even or subsidized basis. But whether they are "in business" or not, all publishers, if they are to carry out their chosen purposes, have to be businesslike. (Grannis 12)

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g the company to a larger publisher would swiftly provide the management support system that Lonely Planet needs. At the same time, a smart buyer would leave the company alone to produce books as it always has. Merging the company with a larger publishing house is probably the simplest and lowest risk method of solving its management difficulties. Splitting the Company In the hiring of the white-board boy, the founders have acknowledged the need for a new way of looking at things. That new perspective however is not generally necessary in the research of the products. The large number of authors in the field should continue to do their jobs the way that has made Lonely Planet successful in the past. What the company back home is struggling with is what to do with that information. Lonely Planet might be well served by spinning off a subsidiary company to handle distribution of the information that Lonely Planet researches. This subsidiary could handle information rights, sales, distribution, and other business aspects of marketing the products Lonely Planet turns out. This organization could improve the distributive side of the business and have a highly organized structure without detriment to the way the crea

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