Business Plan

Blackbird Editing

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OWNERS
Student A James Shearman, Irma Birkoff and Cedric Schmitz

Blackbird Editing
21 Cherry avenue, Bukit Timah rd.
Singapore, 587924
Tel: +49 8467 3422
Fax: 75589023
Email: Blackbird.ECT@googlemail.com

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 I. Table of Contents

I. Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... 3

II. Executive Summary................................................................................................................................. 4

III. Products and Services ............................................................................................................................. 5

IV. Marketing Plan ......................................................................................................................................... 8

V. Strategy and Implementation ...............................................................................................................13

VI. Management and Organization ........................................................................................................ 155

VII. Financial Plan .............................................................................................................................................17

VIII. Works Cited ......................................................................................................................................... 170

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 II. Executive Summary

We are Blackbird Editing, a hybrid of an editing, a consultancy and a mediatory business. We offer
5 different types of editing at prices affordable to our target market. We do publishing consultancy
sessions as well as more intense contract drafting, including a free session for new clients. Most
services come with a referral or a letter of recommendation from us to an affiliated publishing
company. Finally, we host a platform and service where we connect free-lance translators to
established authors in need of translating.

We were founded by Student A, James Shearman, Irma Birkoff and Cedric Schmitz in 2017. It was
their mission to bring back the quality in self-published and hybrid published books, which has been
diminishing over the years. Equal in importance is our goal to ensure our client safety in the writing
industry as young and inexperienced authors are increasingly getting ripped off by hybrid publishers
and often dont even know what rights to their own work they still have.

Our target market is young authors above the age of 14, who have never published before.
Accordingly, our prices are set low enough to be affordable for our target consumer. To give them an
idea of the industry and as an incentive to sign up with us, we provide a free consultation of the types
of publishing, their expectations and the risks associated with each choice.

Currently, we work with 8 members of staff aside from our founders, who are heads of their
respective section. We offer first work experiences to new editors (people who studied language and
literature but need a job or experience) or hire them as part time employees or trainees. We have
several experienced editors and 'veterans' of the business employed who will guide them and our
clients.

Our main distribution channel will be an online platform as well as our connections with other
businesses. We hold contracts with big publishers such as Puffin and Penguin Random House, giving
us an advantage over competitors and an edge in the industry. We currently occupy a niche in the
market in the form of contract drafting, specifically for publishing books as well as the fact that we
are the only company who offer such a variety of services under one roof and at such affordable
prices.

We are based in Singapore and are still a relatively small company, but with use of marketing, such as
an event we are holding in summer 2017, we will garner attention and draw in more customers. We
hope to expand slowly to encompass as many English-speaking countries as we can. Based on our
projections, our company will be profitable, if not immediately then over the course of a few years.
Once we are well established, our connections will guarantee us a secure position in the industry.

To help us with our funding, we are asking for a $400,000 loan, to be repaid over the course of 10
years, from investors. This amount would cover all or expenses for the start-up and the first year,
letting us focus all our effort into making our business a profitable one.

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 III. Products and Services

The writing industry has changed dramatically over the past decade. What used to be limited to small
publishing companies associated with big brands, have evolved into a flood of businesses, headed by
market leaders like Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and Penguin Random House, of which the latter
was recently formed by merging publishing giants Random house and Penguin books. In addition,
with the advances in technologies, more and more authors have turned to self-publishing and hybrid
companies. There is a boom of new material the likes of which has not been seen before in the
industry. However, with all these new options, the quality of written work has been dropping and
scam hybrid publishers present a new danger to aspiring authors. This is where we come in. We offer
editing, referral and consultancy services catered especially to young, first time authors, who are new
to the business.

Blackbird editing offers are variety of services, ranging from different types of editing, to publishing
consultancy and contract drafting to mediation translation transactions.
Our primary source of revenue is out editing branch, which is what our company started out with. The
types of edits we offer are:

Substantive edit The most intense form of editing. it will involve rewrites, as the editors checks for
things like structure, organization, coherence and form.

line edit / proof read The least invasive form of editing. Editors will correct grammar and syntax,
but will not interfere with plot storyline or organization.

copy edit Editors will go into more depth correcting grammar, sentence structure, word choice, etc.

Beta read Editors will look at how relatable the characters are, how suspenseful the plot is and what
could be changed in these regards.

These services will be offered at the following prices:

Pricing:

Service Price Popularity (from survey results

and experience)

Substantive Edit 0.02 cents per word (1000 per Rated 2nd
50,000-word novel)
30.77%

Copy Edit 0.013 cents per word (650 per Rated 1st
50,000-word novel)
46.15%

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 Proof read/Line edit 0.009 cents per word (450 per Rated 4th
50,000-word novel)
7.69%

Beta read 0.009 cents per word (450 per Rated 3rd
50,000-word novel)
15.38%

Developmental Editing*
Price depends on amount of time
spent working with the author as
well as the word count. From
0.045 cents per word (2250 per
50,000-word novel)
NA (not enough data as this is a
very personal edit, done over a
long time, therefore quite rare and
costly)

*Terms and conditions apply

As an incentive for authors to use our services, we provide a free letter of recognition complete with a
success rating and a vouching for quality of the work to every author who has undergone either a
developmental or a substantive edit + beta read or something equivalent to it with us.

Aside from our main branch, we also offer publishing consultancy sessions for young or experienced
authors, as well as contract drafting for before they sign up with a publishing company.

For first time client, a 1 hour consultancy session is free, as an incentive to come to us. This session is
all about introducing them to the industry and letting them know what they are getting into in the
writing business. We explain the types of publishing options that are available, as well as the ones we
recommend and what we can further provide them with if they decide they need it.

For a second, or more extensive consultancy session, including a referral to a publisher that we think
would suit the author and their book and who we know might have vacancies in this area. In this
session, we go into detail about what the publishers expect, what loopholes not to fall into and what
an authors general rights to his/her book are once they have signed with a publishing company. An
example of this, would be copyright periods. This session comes at $120 and an additional 3%
royalties from the author after their first year of sales, if they get taken in by the publishing company
that we refer them to.

The final stage of our consultancy section is Contract drafting. Here, we sit down with both the author
and the company they want to sign with and go through all the rights either party will lose or gain to
the authors work by signing this contract. We will argue terms that not so much favour as protect the
author and make sure that each party has an equal share and that it is a fair agreement. This service
comes at a cost of $300 and 5% royalties from the author after their first year of publication/sales.

Finally, our last section is translation mediation. Basically, we play the middle man to bring together
freelance translators in need of work and established, but self-publishing authors who want their work
translated. We have an online platform as well as a letter box and email address where both parties

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can sign up and we match needs with supply. The parties tell us what language they will translate or
want their work translated to respectively and they can either work out a price separately or we help to
mediate this by request. For private pricing, we request to look at the agreement to make sure that
neither party is being ripped off. In return for this, we request a cut of 10% of both the translator and
the author from the transaction.

We operate locally from Singapore, though since we are very much an online business, we hope to
attract the attention of a global customer base very soon after our opening. The editing and
consultancy branches will be our primary source of revenue in the first few years until we have built
up a good reputation with which to lure in more customers.

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 IV. Marketing Plan

Blackbird Editing has a varied customer base as our services appeal to several different
demographics of consumer. However, clients are also widely interchangeable and we often have
customers who progress from one service to another over several years. Our primary target market is
young, first time authors and writers who would like to have their work edited and be referred to a
publisher, as these are linked to our main operation of business: Editing. Hand in hand with this goes
our consultancy and recommendation service, as the customer groups for both often overlap. Finally,
we cater to both freelance translators in search of work and authors looking for their work to be
translated without having to go through a contract with a traditional publisher.
We have an age minimum of 14 years for any of our customers and any client is below 18 years of
age, they have to have parental consent (using a signed form). We do this to ensure both the clients
safety and comfort and to protect our own company from possible difficulties.

At the moment, the interest in editing is high, as seen in the graph below:

In this figure, it is shown that the editing demand has stayed steady over the years, meaning that one
can assume it will stay that way for a while. Demand for editing stays steady over time, which gives
me a steady and stable market to base my product in.
More evidence of an existing and thriving market is the recent increase in book sales: There was a
3.3% increase in print book sales, which hit 674 million in 2016 from 2015. This means that book
sales are once again on the rise, indicating a greater need for both publishing and editing companies,
such as ours.
A survey was sent out to our main target market with questions concerning where they would look to
find an editing option, what kind of edit they would choose to do, what pricing they would find
acceptable, whether they would like a consultancy option and what they would be willing to pay for it.
The following are the results of this survey.

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 70% of our customer base has
said that the first place where
they would look for an editing
option is online. For us this
means that we definitely need a
website and might as well make
our primary distribution channel
an online platform.

The other 30% said that they

would look in a local book shop.
This means that marketing and
advertisements would be very
effective in these areas.

As can be seen form the figure on

the right, the most popular form of
editing was the copy edit at
46.15%, which is useful not only
to authors but to students as well,
when checking things like final
essays or doctorates.

In second place is the substantive

edit, which is one of the most
useful and intense forms of editing
at 30.77%.
Next is the beta reading at 15%,
which might signify that most
authors are more concerned with
their grammar being checked than
their stor

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 The majority of our potential
customers said that they would be
willing to pay 0.02 cents a word,
meaning $1000 for a 50,000-word
novel. This prompted us to price our
substantive edit at this mark, as it
will ensure that the customers will be
willing and able to pay for our
services.

The vast majority of our potential

customer base (over 90%), said that
they would definitely want a
consultancy session on publishing
before venturing into the business,
creating a need for such a service to be
available to them.

70% of our potential customers

said that they would be willing to
pay $100 for a consultancy
session, while the other 30% said
they would be willing to pay up to
4125. Therefore, we have priced
our consultancy sessions at $120
each, in hopes that this will be an
acceptable price as it is well
within the range that our primary
research survey presented us with.

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We are a relatively small business; however, this means we have the potential to grow beyond what
we are now. The fact that we have so many branches of service, means that we have more
opportunities than most to make the best out of what we are dealt.
The fact that we are a small business means that we are also very personally involved with our work
and our customers. One of our company ideals is that we want to keep young, new authors safe from
having the rights to their work taking away without their full understanding and to protect them from
scams and rip offs that have become so very common with hybrid publishing companies. When we
work very closely with our customers, we tend to form good customer relations and this will help
them feel secure with us as a company. We need trust to go both ways so that we can ensure that our
customers and employees are happy with our work and what we do.
Another factor we have to consider is that we rely very much on our reputation for our customer base
and for one half of our business (recommendations and referrals) we need good ties to multiple
publishing companies. At the moment we are affiliated with several small indie publishers as well as a
few hybrids, such as page between worlds. We also have partnerships and affiliations with Puffin
books and Penguin Random House, two of the big giants in the publishing industry. These will
definitely give us the exposure we require to be a profitable company. The contracts with all of these
contain agreements of customer exchange. They will refer any clients that they do not have the
capacity to take or who are in need of editing to us, and in return, we refer our own clients to them,
with the guarantee that their work is suitably edited, which saves them time and money. It is profitable
for both parties.

Even though we are the only editing company based in Singapore right now, there are other global
competitors to consider. Examples of these would be: Adian Editing and Jera Publishing.
Table 1: Competitive Analysis

Rated from 1 3, 1 being the most important, three being the least important

Jera *Importance
FACTOR Me Strength Weakness Adian editing
Publishing to Customer

Less staff on
Book cover,
Large variety each branch of
book design,
of services: Has broader the business, Editing,
self-publishing
editing, customer base, can lead to publishing
Products consultancy, 2 2
consultancy, bound to attract confusion or consultancy via
types of
translation more people too much/too blog
editing, book
mediation little work for
marketing
employees
Catering to my More Very high, line
Around $1000
target market affordable/cheaper, edit and proof
Less profit per for 50k copy
at $750 for a therefore more read is 0.045
Price sale made on edit, therefore 1
50k word customers and cents, twice as
our part more
novel, copy appeals to high as my
expensive
edit customers substantive
High quality
High quality but only one Professional,
Better customer Takes more
Quality products editor so takes and established 1
satisfaction time
guaranteed a very long so good
time
Only has
Wide selection Appeals to a wider Can create
editing (but 6 Many different
3 branches: audience and confusion and
types) and branches, but
Selection editing 5 garners more confusion and 2
online not as many
Consultation - attention, different stress for the
consultancy a editing as me
2 types of customers staff
bit

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 Jera *Importance
FACTOR Me Strength Weakness Adian editing
Publishing to Customer

Good
Dont have to turn 1 person Very
customer More wages
people down or company, is impersonal as
Service relations, and salaries to 1
have too long not taking it is all online
enough pay
waiting periods clients now with forms
employees
Might have
Online
too many Very
Is trusted by many company with
customers for professional
Reliability/ Affiliated with people, meaning it no office, 1
the employees and
Company several big will draw I person only, 1
to support, established,
Reputation publishers customers and let but known
very high but not that
them stay author with
expectations to well known
connections
meet
Already
Something novel established for Established
New startup, Not that sure
Stability that people might years, with stable 3
not yet tested in the industry
want to try surefooted customer base
with customers
Experienced High quality
Higher pay for Experienced Hires
Expertise editors and products, no 2
some staff author professionals
consultants disappointments
Has two methods
Online and in of payment, Can get
Sales Method person at the although online is confusing with Purely online Purely online 2
office preferred and more cash flow
often used
Through
Online, in Might get lost
Widely spread net, connections,
bookshops, in the other
Advertising may catch more because online 2
through adverts out
peoples attention already
publishers there
established

In summary, we are the only company that offer all three of our services and none of blackbirds
competitors offer translation mediation or personalized contract drafting. Therefore, we have a bit of a
niche market, where we can offer services that cannot be provided by others.

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 V. Strategy and Implementation

Marketing Plan
Since Blackbird Editing is a start-up, we will spend a lot of our efforts on marketing in the first
year. This si especially important for a company like us, which relies very much on connections and
reputation to make sales and those only come with lots of customers, some of which will have to
become successful authors for us to be well known. We have set aside a budget of $100,000 for this
purpose, with the following marketing strategy in the first year. We will be advertising online on
affiliated publishers websites. We will not have to pay too much for this, due to the contracts signed
with them, which were elaborated on in an earlier section. We will also be putting up posters in big
bookstores like kinokunya, times and popular around Singapore, as well as leaflets which we will
distribute in the stores. The main part of our marketing budget for this campaign, however, will go
into a young writers and book enthusiast event, here in Singapore in July 2017. In this event, we will
be hosting several well-known authors as well as conducting writing and editing workshops. This will
be a mostly free event, with some workshops being ticketed so that we dont have to completely rely
on our loan for this particular event. We hope that this event will give us enough exposure to ensure a
steady flow of customers for a few months.

Sales Plan

We are mostly an online based company, as our product/service is sent to us by email or over an
uploaded form in a certain format and then downloaded by us, edited and returned by a set date. This
date depends upon the length of the piece, the type of edit requested etc. Usually it is around 30 days.
Payment is done upon the return of the work (like an exchange, you have to pay to view your edited
work). We have no credit to customers yet, as we are still small and cannot afford to have lagging
cash flow like that. We have 1 office in Singapore right now in Bukit Timah, but we hope to move to
a more popular area by 2020. This will give us better access to customers and allow them easier
access to us. We offer hard copied versions of manuscripts as well, which the client can come and
pick up if they live in Singapore. If not, this is the address we send them from. The office is also the
place where personal consultations take place and meetings with affiliated companies are held.

Location and equipment

We are physically located in cherry avenue on Bukit Timah road in Singapore, as this is an easily
accessible location and the rent is not too high. Here, we are accessible to our customers and also to
our employees. Our office requires a rent of $1050 a month, with the addition of a deposit. It is a 120
foot space with a front desk accessible to customers and stations for employees at the back, as well as
a consultation room which is separated from the rest. In terms of facilities, we also run a website,
whose domain costs $10 a month. This is our most prominent technological feature and also very
important as most of our revenue is collected through this channel. The website includes links to all
branches of our company, one containing forms for editing and a transaction system, another
providing a consultancy schedule or a forum to do the consultancy online and lastly the is a platform
for the translation mediation to take place. All of these features have to stay well maintained in order
for our business to function as it should.

Challenges:
One of the main challenges we will be facing is organisation between the online and in-person
agreements and transactions. It will be especially difficult to keep count of the revenue from each of
these. One major problem online is also the translation mediation forum, as this requires some

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programmes and systems which we have not yet acquired and which have to be installed by a
professional. The upkeep of this is also very difficult, so we might have to employ a technical
consultant at least part time to manage these issues. Another issue is credit: We are hesitant to allow
credit at the moment as we are only starting and cannot afford that kind of lag in cash flow, however,
this might limit our customer base or provide lees of an appealing service. We hope to overcome this
hurdle by gaining a good enough reputation to overshadow minor flaws lie this.

Finally, organizing waiting lists an priorities for clients referred by other companies will be difficult
with the amount of staff we have at the moment, so we might actually have to limit the number of
customers we take on.

Milestones

Some of the key milestones that we want to achieve in the next few years are the following:
Employ an accountant and a juristic consultant (for more security with contract drafting) by
2018, at least part time.
Employ 1 more translator, with a qualification in mediation by March 2019
Move 2 of the part time editors to full time employments by August 2019
Move to an office in Orchard or business district in 2020
Sign contract with Egmont publishing by July 2020
Sign contract with Bloomsbury publishing by 2021
Expand to the UK, open an office in 2025
Pay back loan by 2027

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 VI. Management and Organization

As stated beforehand, Blackbird Editing is split into three different branches of services: Editing,
translation mediation and consultancy. These are headed by three different executives, who supervise
the members of our team wo work in each branch respectively.
We are working with a staff consisting of 4 department heads, 5 editors (2 full time , 3 part time), 1
translator, 2 consultants and 1 accountant. We hope to increase these numbers by 2019.

Our company was co-founded by 4 founders, who now hold key positions in the management of this
company:

Mara Perras CEO and Editorial Director

Mara studied language and literature in the United Kingdom for 4 years. She worked at a newspaper
and magazine for 2 years, before being employed by random house as a fiction editor. She stayed at
the company for 5 years gaining experience with many different types of writing and editing as well
as becoming head of an editorial team at one of the branch offices. When she left the company, she
was a freelance editor and writer, before she decided to join some of her old colleagues in starting up
a business of their own.

James Shearman Head of the consultancy department

James started off studying law, though he broke it off and turned to business consultancy instead. He
worked for a smaller company doing consultations for banks, before he turned to his passion: Books.
He was offered a job at a big publishing company to work as a publishing consultant and jumped at
the opportunity. After several years, he decided to start a business of his own, after realising that there
was a lot to be improved on the industry, especially regarding safety and security for new authors. So
he gathered childhood friends and colleagues and became a co-founder of Blackbird.
Irma Birkoff - Head of the translation mediation department
Irma grew up bilingual, though she never intended to put that talent to use. She was studying
mathematics in Sweden when she got a part time job as an English-Swedish translator. Her talent in
this area was quickly spotted and she ended her studies to work full time as a translator with the small
business that she had started with. She had acquired two more translating languages before news
reached her that her old friends were starting a business in the publishing industry and she offered to
add her talent to the mix.

Cedric Schmitz Financial Director and head of Admin.

Cedric Schmitz studied finance and management in the US, fully intending to become a banker or
bank manager, so it came as un unexpected surprise when he was called up to help kick start a
business. As he was still gathering experience to apply for a job at a big corporation, he agreed to help
and has since then become part of the team. His is a one man job, along with the other member of
admin and he is n invaluable addition to our company.

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Below is a table concerning the payroll of all employees for the first three years of business.

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 VII. Financial Plan

Blackbird Editing has requested a loan of $400,000 from investors, in order to help us get on our
feet. This amount would cover all our upfront expenses, including salaries for the first two years and
the marketing budget. In addition, our founders have put forward $40,000 from their own pockets to
aid with the start-up.
We have created several tables and projections to highlight our cashflow, expenses and revenue over
the next few years.
However, the following projections only incorporate the editing and consultancy branches of our
business and therefore, the revenue shown only accounts for part of our profit. Developmental editing
and transactions concerning translations and recommendations are not shown as we A) Expect these
to pick up more during later stages of business and B) cannot calculate them as they are hard to
predict and rely completely on the individual firms and authors that choose to use these services.

First, we calculated our start-up expenses, which can be seen in the figure below.

As sown, we have a substantial amount left over as back-up, so that, if something goes wrong in
certain months, we will not have to indebt ourselves too much and therefore risk the business.
The following are the sales prices and costs for each service and the total margin for each individual
unit.

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In accordance with this, we have calculated the total sales for the first year, including the profit of all
the units or product/service lines mentioned above.

The above table shows that we will have an income of $160,000 from our editing and consultancy
services alone, within the first 12 months.
Further projections have been made for the next two years as well. Below is a projection of the total
margin from our units until 2021 (starting 2018).
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Total Units Sold 532 585 644

Total Sales $ $ 337,612 $ 371,373

306,920
Total Cost of Goods $ $ 161,336 $ 177,469
Sold 146,669
$ $ 176,276 $ 193,904
Total Margin
160,251

Our cashflow is also an important part of our projections as this is where we can see whether our
business will be stable and profitable. In the first year, we have an overall profit of $136,034.

The same projections have been extended to cover the first 3 years of business as well, seeing a we
need to plan for the future and ensure that this company has potential to grow and thrive.
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
$
Total Cash Outflows $ 393,240 $ 487,385
612,382
Net Cash Flows $ (136,034) $ (154,744) $
Operating Cash Balance (246,477)

Line of Credit Drawdown $ 136,034 $ 154,744

$
246,477

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The above calculations were made with the assumptions that at least 0.001% of our potential customer
base buys our services in the first year, followed by 0.0013% and 0.0016% in the next 2 years.
Since our company relies heavily on reputations and connections we will not be making great profits
in the first few ears and most, if not all, of our revenue will come from our editing and consultancy
sections, we have been described in detail above. Our other services will be quite back-heavy in the
beginning and we estimate that these will only be profitable starting around year 8 after opening the
company.
The loan we are asking for will be paid back over the course of 10 years. To do this, we will be taking
out a cut of our profit every month to gradually pay back our debt. We will pay back $3300 each
month for 10 years.

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 Works Cited

Self-distributed survey of 5 questions to target age demographic.

Blood, Jen. Adian Editing. http://www.adianediting.com/. 2016. Web. 27/3/2017.

GoogleTrends. Book Editing. https://trends.google.com.sg/trends/explore?q=book%20editing. NA.

Web. 25/3/2017.

Jera Publishing. Self-Publishing Packages. http://www.self-pub.net/. WordPress. NA. Web.

27/3/2017.

Osnos, Peter. How Book Publishing Has Changed Since 1984.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/04/how-book-publishing-has-changed-since-
1984/237184/. The Atlantic. 12/4/2011. Web. 23/3/2107.

Wikipedia. Books published per country per year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_published_per_country_per_year. 10/2/2017. Web. 21/3/2017.

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