"Who was that bookseller who thought, 'Here is an almost-eight-year-old girl who loves Abraham Lincoln. What other book will she love? Oh, yes. This book about a cricket.'? There was nothing logical about that decision. It was a leap of faith. Those two books changed me. Together, they cemented an idea in my eight-year-old heart. That idea was this: It doesn’t matter how small, how lonely, how broken or sad or poor you are. There is a way to make yourself heard. There is a way to sing. A bookseller put those books into my mother’s hands, and my mother put them into mine. Sometimes we forget that this simple, physical gesture can change lives. I want to remind you that it does. I want to thank you because it did."

 

 

Mike Edwards, who had been serving as interim CEO of Borders since January, has been appointed president of Borders Group and president and CEO of Borders, Inc. Edwards joined the company in September 2009 as executive v-p and chief merchandising officer.

Edwards will report to Bennett LeBow, chairman of the Borders Group board of directors who will serve as CEO of Borders Group. LeBow, who recently made an equity investment of $25 million in Borders through an entity he controls, is chairman of the board of Vector Group, a company he's been affiliated with since 1986. 

What does this mean for Borders?

First of all, Wall Street hasn't been wowed by the LeBow change. Although the share price closed up 10 cents at $1.67 yesterday, Borders stock is closer to its low for the last year--85 cents--than its high of $4.48. The company's market capitalization is slightly under $100 million.

As for LeBow's background and approach to business, a recent Daily Finance piece calls the Vector Group chairman "a renowned corporate raider" whose history occasionally has involved hostile takeover attempts of competitors, something that should make Borders and B&N shareholders nervous.

Employees might also be wary. Daily Finance continued: "Turning the company around will almost certainly result in 'streamlining'--layoffs, store closings, massive asset selloffs," things the company has been doing already for some time.

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June is Audiobook Month, and to celebrate the Audio Publishers Association is bringing together more than 100 authors and narrators to discuss audiobooks during the month on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and at bookstores.

Every Tuesday in June, beginning two days ago, as part of AudiobookCommunity.com's Get Caught Listening group, APA publisher members are giving away audiobook segments that listeners can stream or download as MP3 files.

One example, as noted by Entertainment Weekly: David Sedaris's promos recorded for National Audiobook Month extol "the virtues of audiobooks, actor and narrator Dylan Baker, and Sam Lipsyte's trenchantly hilarious novel, The Ask."

In addition, author Jennifer Egan is being interviewed by more than 25 radio stations across the country about audiobooks. She will discuss, among other things, how audiobooks make the daily commute more entertaining and enriching.

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"Within five years there will be more digital content sold than physical content," Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading business division, told the Telegraph. "Three years ago, I said within ten years but I realised that was wrong--it's within five."

Haber observed that the same patterns Sony has experienced in the digitization of music and photography were now being repeated in the book market, the Telegraph wrote. "I have multiple meetings with publishers and tell them paradigm shifts happen," Haber added. "You can say fortunately or unfortunately you haven't had a paradigm shift in, what, hundreds of years. We in the consumer electronics area have a paradigm shift every year or two."

He also foresees reader flexibility: "You have your multifunction devices--like a tablet--that are available for reading and then you'll have devices that are immersive. People will choose different devices for different experiences."

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One sign the e-book trend is gaining serious steam: First-week sales for the e-book version of Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest accounted for nearly 30% of total sales, according to Publishers Marketplace (via Teleread.com), which reported that "Knopf Doubleday spokesman Paul Bogaards says their internal figures show an approximate first week sell-through of 425,000 units--which includes 125,000 e-book editions."

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Author Brunonia Barry (The Lace Reader) celebrated her favorite bookshop, the Spirit of ’76, Marblehead, Mass., in a post at the blog She Is Too Fond of Books. 

"This is the kind of store where the staff learns your tastes and often puts a book or two aside for you," she wrote. " They also know when to stretch your reading horizons, suggesting books you’ll love but might never have found on your own. The manager, Hilary Emerson Lay, is a treasure. A visual artist and writer who adores books, Hilary creates beautiful sock puppets which she occasionally sells at the store and of which we have purchased several over the years as gifts for just about everyone we know. One of them is sitting on my desk as I write this, a short red-headed geeky looking puppet that bears a disturbing resemblance to me."

Barry also praised the bookstore as a place with a real sense of community, and noted that it was through her connections there that she began utilizing book clubs as early readers of her work.

"I think the synergy between booksellers and book clubs is a strong one, and nowhere is it stronger than at The Spirit of ’76," Barry observed. "The fact that they are also supportive of local writers played a huge part in what was to become a great success and ultimately fulfill my dream of being a full time writer. And when my second book, The Map of True Places, came out this May, The Spirit of ’76 was right there to celebrate by hosting a great event."

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Barefoot Books, the independent children's publisher with offices in Cambridge, Mass. and Bath, England, has moved its flagship bookstore in Cambridge to a new location in Concord, the Boston Globe reported.

Nancy Traversy, Barefoot's co-founder and CEO, hopes the new bookshop, located at 89 Thoreau Street, "will become a destination for locals and visitors as a colorful and happy place for families and friends to spend time together having fun and sharing stories."

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Old Books, Wilmington, N.C., a used bookstore that was closed January 12 when city officials condemned its structure due to a shifting foundation, has found a new home. The Star reported that owner Gwenyfar Rohler's family purchased a storefront at 249 N. Front Street.

"We got a great deal on the building. We are estimating about three months of work, and hope to be open by Labor Day Weekend," Rohler said, adding, "We would not have sustained this battle if it were not for the amazing support of this community. Thank you for making Wilmington the best place on earth to live and own a small family operated bookstore."

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The Brooklyn Book Festival, scheduled for September 12, has released a preliminary list of authors who will appear at the annual free public celebration of literature.

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OnlineDegrees.org featured the Top 25 Librarian Blogs.

 

The first-ever Book Blogger Con kicked off at the Javits Center on Friday, May 28, with a lively keynote address by author Maureen Johnson, who called herself "the warm-up act." She talked about the all-girl Catholic high school she attended at a convent (inspiration for her YA novel Devilish), changing times in the publishing industry ("we're not sinking into the abyss") and, of course, the topic of the day.

"I turn to book blogs for reviews, for insight, for passion, for gossip, for buzz, for commentary and comparison. I think book bloggers are going to become more and more a part of the publishing world," said Johnson (at left, with Book Blogger Convention founder Trish Collins). Her novels include The Key to the Golden Firebird, Suite Scarlett and, most recently, Scarlett Fever.

More than 200 people turned out for the day-long convention, with book bloggers joined by publishing industry professionals and authors. "It was a nice mix with everyone giving their opinions on what we do and how we do it," said Sheila DeChantal, who blogs at Book Journey. For Alison Skapinetz of Alison's Book Marks, "It was about coming together to work toward common goals: putting out quality content, remaining strong advocates for the reading community, staying professional, building relationships around the publishing industry and with one another--and having fun."

Blogs are "the future of writing about books," said Ron Hogan, the founder of Beatrice.com, who headlined the first information session of the day and offered insights on "Professionalism and Ethics in Blogging." Four additional panels explored the topics "Writing and Building Content," "Marketing," "Blogging with Social Responsibility" and "The Impact of the Relationship Between Author and Blogger." "The content of the sessions was top notch, and the show itself was beautifully run and managed," commented Caitlin Hamilton Summie, marketing director at Unbridled Books.

A standout session for Marsha Toy Engstrom of Book Club Cheerleader was "Writing and Building Content." "I go to a conference for information, not to be entertained, and I got a lot of great ideas from that panel," she said. Suggestions included doing a week-long feature of titles on the same subject or a series of posts on a single, sizable book. "Every post is like a first date with a new reader," said panelist Christina Oppold, who blogs at Stacked and "finds inspiration in books." She takes bibliophiles beyond the page, offering suggestions for travel, activities and more and sharing stories from her own life (like having a bra fitting after reading Uplift: The Bra in America).

"Community is at the center of what we do," Ann Kingman, a blogger at Books on the Nightstand (and Random House sales rep by day), told the audience during the marketing panel. To reach readers, she and co-blogger Michael Kindness started a GoodReads.com group and a Facebook page--which has more than 1,350 fans--and use Twitter. "You have to meet people where they are," she said.

There was some debate in the marketing session about the importance of stats, with most panelists taking the view that there are other, important indicators of a blog's reach, such as activity in the comments section. "As long as people continue to engage with us and tell us they like what we're doing, that's what I care about," Kingman said. Added Yen Cheong of The Book Publicity Blog, "Publishing is a business, and we do look at the bottom line," like whether or not a blog has links to buy the featured books.

Some 50 publishing professionals attended the convention--marketing and publicity staffers from HarperCollins, DK, Hachette Book Group and other houses, along with people from independent publicity firms, online marketing companies and literary agencies. The presence of publishers at events such as this one "is imperative in order to foster closer relationships with bloggers," noted Paul Samuelson, a publicist at Sourcebooks. "As the book blogging community continues to thrive, self-select and organize, it will become an even more important resource for readers and publishers."

And for booksellers as well? Among the attendees was Margie White of the Bookstore in Glen Ellyn, Ill. "I was there to meet and connect with the other book bloggers I've become friends with on Twitter," she remarked. "As a bookstore blogger, I thought I could learn a lot from those who have a broader audience. And I did."

Being at the BBC was "a rare opportunity to sit down in one room with a hundred potential book reviewers," said Susan Gregg Gilmore, the author of Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen and The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove, coming from Shaye Areheart Books in August. (She brought along a treat for convention-goers: individually wrapped pound cakes, a confection that features in her new novel.) "I loved hearing their thoughts and ideas and learning about their process because in many ways it's not all that different from mine," said Gilmore. "In the end, whether you get a good review or not, we all clearly want the same thing--to keep people reading." --Shannon McKenna Schmidt

At a BEA cocktail party with booksellers last week, Little, Brown publisher Michael Pietsch celebrates Life with its author, the legendary Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. The book comes out October 26.

 

 

 

"Anything you do like this is an experiment and you have to adjust as you go," advised Chris Morrow of the Northshire Bookstore, Manchester Center, Vt. He joined Chuck Robinson of Village Books, Bellingham, Wash., and Carol Horne of the Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, Mass., at the Day of Education session "The New Reality: Alternative Bookstore Models," which was moderated by ABA's Len Vlahos.

Morrow spoke about his bookstore's decision to use 250 square feet of sales floor space for a Zutano children's clothing section. "The real key element of this is we sell everything on consignment," he said. "This is a model that I like." The Northshire also recently started a consignment/display partnership with publisher Chelsea Green (Shelf Awareness, April 23, 2010). Morrow suggested experimental options can work well for a retailer "as long as it's complementary." In making such decisions, Morrow considers five general principles:

1. Innovation
2. Partnering
3. Synergy
4. Local
5. Consignment

Horne talked about Harvard Book Store's green delivery service, which she called the "first of a three-pronged approach" to innovate that also includes their Espresso Book Machine and a planned revamping of the store's website.
 
Even though the initial response to green delivery "has been underwhelming," Horne said the option has generated a lot of interest, which she hopes to capitalize on with the new website. "It's not costing us a lot of money. We see it as an investment for a longer term." And with an Espresso machine in-house, "We'd eventually like to be able to get any book ever printed delivered green."

Robinson said his bookstore's newsletter, the Chuckanut Reader, is sent to 13,000 "of our best friends" and subsidizes the bookstore's marketing budget through advertising. "The fact is that we spend the normal amount of money marketing every year, and we have a negative number," he noted. "We made a philosophical decision that one-quarter of space would be ads. Now we have a list of people who want to advertise."

The three booksellers also discussed their experiences with and hopes for the Espresso Book Machine. "It's one of the few, if not only, digital options that can work to our advantage," Morrow suggested. Added Horne: "Not everybody can get into the Harvard Library, but everybody can go across the street and access this information at the Harvard Book Store." Robinson, who recently published his own book (Shelf Awareness, June 3, 2010), added, "I still hold out hope that as more and more books become available to print, this is going to be a long-term sort of thing."--Robert Gray

 

Today on Fresh Air: Ayelet Waldman, author of Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace (Anchor, $14.95, 9780767930697/076793069X), now out in paperback.

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Today on the View: Spike Mendelsohn, author of The Good Stuff Cookbook: Burgers, Fries, Shakes, Wedges, and More (Wiley, $24.95, 9780470527924/0470527927).

There has been a ratings change for Eat Pray Love, the film version of Elizabeth Gilbert's bestselling memoir. According to the Hollywood Reporter, "the new Julia Roberts feature that Sony will release August 13 has successfully appealed the R rating it was originally awarded by the Classification and Ratings Administration of the MPAA. After director Ryan Murphy and producer Dede Gardner argued their case on behalf of Columbia Pictures before the appeals board, the movie was given a less restrictive PG-13 rating for 'brief strong language, some sexual references and male rear nudity.' "

Not only can men be asses but theirs can get in the way...

 

The German Book Office pick of the month for June is One More Story: Thirteen Stories in the Time-Honored Mode by Ingo Schulze, translated by John E. Woods (Knopf, $25.95, 9780307271044/0307271048).

One More Story begins on New Year's Eve 1999 in Berlin, when Frank Reichert meets Julia, his long-lost love. Since they separated in the fall of 1989, when the wall fell, he has drifted--and now he wants a new beginning. The stories tell the tales of a range of characters from the old East Germany who have stayed put or moved around the world. The publisher wrote: "Mixed in with these tragicomic tales are some of the most beautiful love stories ever to feature cell phones."

Schulze was born in Dresden in 1962 and lives now in Berlin. His first book, 33 Moments of Happiness, won the Alfred Döblin Prize and the Ernst Willner Prize for Literature. Woods has translated the works of many German writers, including Thomas Mann and Günter Grass.

 

Born and raised in Echo Park, Calif., Brando Skyhorse is a graduate of Stanford University and the MFA Writers' Workshop program at UC Irvine. He worked for 10 years as a book editor in New York. The Madonnas of Echo Park (Free Press, June 1, 2010) is his debut novel. His next book, also forthcoming from Free Press, is a memoir about growing up with five stepfathers.

On your nightstand now:

If by "nightstand" you mean a place where unread books are stored in teetering stacks, my nightstands are scattered throughout my apartment. By this reckoning I have seven nightstands and in those various places you'll find: Joan Schenkar's The Talented Miss Highsmith, Ian McEwan's Atonement, Hermann Hesse's Demian, Dorothy Allison's Bastard out of Carolina, Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano, etc.
 
Favorite book when you were a child:

Peanuts strip collections. I can't remember their titles but any book that collected Peanuts strips were my favorites, along with the Charlie Brown 'Cyclopedia series, a 16-volume collection of slender hardcover books my grandmother bought every other week at the grocery store for $4 apiece.

Your top five authors:

I'm more a fan of books than authors. And I can't cite a top five because that list changes all the time. If you had to ask me what five books I'm in love with right now, I'd say Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn, Stoner by John Williams (introduced to me by a great writer, teacher and mentor, Nick Lyons), 2666 by Roberto Bolano, The Living End by Stanley Elkin and The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel.

Book you've faked reading:

The Bible. I know I'd be a better writer if I sat down and read it cover to cover. Adding it to the nightstand.

Book you're an evangelist for:

When I was an editor, I was a proselytizer for whatever current books were on my list. Several titles I worked on over the years come to mind, but at the risk of offending any of my former authors, I'll cite a book I discovered while working at Grove/Atlantic. My Traitor's Heart by Rian Malan (published by G/A) is an epic work of reportage spanning decades of South African history and may be the most honest memoir I've ever read of a man's search for his identity and his place in a radically evolving society. There's a cover quote from Michael Herr that says, "No one who reads it could ever forget it." I read Heart six years ago and still find myself recommending it more than any other book, so Herr must be right.
 
Book you've bought for the cover:

Perfume by Patrick Suskind. But I also bought it because it was on Borders's "3-for-2" books table. Either way, great novel.
 
Book that changed your life:

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner. I took a general survey of 20th-century American literature class where we had to read a novel a week. It was a popular class so the professor assigned Absalom during week two to weed out anyone who wasn't serious about the course. It worked. I remember the lecture hall, which the previous week had students sitting in the aisles, sounding cavernous as our professor's voice echoed against all those now-empty seats. I'm glad I stayed. Imagine someone burning down all your established rules and frameworks for reading fiction then watching them build gorgeous and intricate new visions with that fire. Everything that the novel is capable of is in Absalom.

Favorite line from a book:

Right now it's the last line of the story "Brokeback Mountain." I won't spoil it here if you haven't read it, but if you haven't read it, stop reading this and get a copy of Annie Proulx's Close Range right now. Seeing the movie doesn't count.

That line is everything I'm trying to do when I sit down to write and 10 times out of 10 fail at. I keep trying because one day I might--might--get a line almost as good as that one. But I doubt it.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

I'll go with another Grove book (it was a great perk to have free access to such a phenomenal backlist): A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Humor is difficult to execute on the page, yet over the course of 400 pages Toole gets the belly laughs by displaying an enormous amount of empathy for every one of his characters. None of the laughs come at any character's expense and it's one of the reasons why the book is hysterical. It also reminds me how many books could be improved with a healthy dose of humor.

"If I am honest, what first got me interested in art was the thrill of seizing on things others might have missed or undervalued," Philip Mould admits. That drive and the possibility that there was money to be made propelled Mould into a successful career as he examined paintings closely, developed his talent for hunches and refined his eye for telling details used by master painters. It is one thing to find a dusty framed oil in Granny's attic (it could be worth something, we all wish), but is quite another to discover a Rembrandt, a Thomas Gainsborough or a rare early landscape by John Constable, as Mould has done.

Touching on a few of his inspired hunches through the years, Mould recounts the high points with an enthusiasm that will make his fans from BBC's Antiques Roadshow look more carefully at the next unattributed artwork that falls into their hands. Hang on to your hats: it could be, we learn from Mould's own experience, a very valuable Winslow Homer watercolor. So how can we tell if we have something important? Mould is generous with knowledge he has acquired, but from the tales he tells, it is clear that only experts can make the definitive call.

Whether Mould is discussing landscapes by John Constable or disputed portraits of British royalty, he offers tantalizing tidbits of what catches his eye. "Drapery can be as illuminating as handwriting in expressing the traits of individual artists," he confides. Details, like jewelry, in a painting can also be revealing enough to define a portrait as being of Catherine Parr, Henry VIII's sixth and last wife, not Lady Jane Grey, as previously believed.

Attribution usually takes more than one quick glance, as demonstrated in the case of an odd, small portrait of Rembrandt. The portrait exhibited a few characteristic Rembrandt touches, but areas of sloppy execution raised questions about whether this was the real thing. Using up-to-date analytical tools (dendrochonology can date wood panels used in paintings, for example), experts were able to determine that the self-portrait had been painted over with additional detail. You may ask why some lunatic would mess with a Rembrandt. The surprising answer is the people in Rembrandt's studio often "updated" self-portraits done by the master if the works did not sell quickly enough. Mould describes the painstaking restoration process that revealed the newly "discovered" Rembrandt with a connoisseur's delight; the conclusion will send treasure hunters everywhere up to the attic for another look-see--at auction, the self-portrait brought £7 million (about US$10.5 million).--John McFarland

Shelf Talker: A lively survey of great paintings found in obscure places and the money that could be made if the trove in the attic is, in fact, golden.

 

Even though BookExpo America is, logically, all about the books, some of my lasting impressions of the trade show are not. I remember walking on the sands of Miami Beach during my first ABA convention in 1993, wearing a suit--pants legs rolled up, carrying my shoes and socks--and wondering if I could possibly look less cool and more bookish if I tried.

For BEA 2010, however, the impression that will stay with me is about the books, or more precisely the booksellers. It happened Thursday on the exhibition floor when I saw Jessica Stockton Bagnulo and Rebecca Fitting of Greenlight Bookstore, Brooklyn, N.Y., and realized this was the first time either of them had attended the show as bookshop owners.

It was a special moment. I've known them for several years and have watched as they carefully built Greenlight from a great idea into a great indie bookstore. At BEA, we chatted briefly and then went back to work because, well, we were working.

Jessica later shared her thoughts about being at the Javits Center this time: "It was so interesting to talk to folks like Chris Morrow and Carol Horne and Rick Simonson and Steve Bercu and others this year at BEA as a peer, rather than just an aspirational frontliner. Our stores and our challenges and triumphs are so distinctly different, but there are so many common threads. It's like we're all the captains of different ships. Paul Yamazaki and Rick came into the store the other day and I was kind of star-struck--it will take me a little while to feel really like an equal to people like that, but I'm honored to be among them."

There were many other moments at BEA that made an impression on me: observations, comments, statistics, even the unique scent of eau de Manhattan that hung in the 85-degree air Wednesday afternoon as I elbowed my way back to my hotel near Broadway amid the matinee throngs.

I don't know if this qualifies me as a word impressionist, but I did fill (product placement alert!) a Moleskin notebook with verbal sketches from the show, and I'll share a few of those here.

"There is some cannibalization going on," said Kelly Gallagher, Bowker's v-p of publishing services, while offering an early look at BISG's third fielding of "Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading." That word "cannibalization" came up a lot during education sessions in reference to whether e-books are displacing print books, especially hardcovers. May I suggest another word as a possible solution? "Exophagy," which is cannibalism outside a tribe or family.

Gallagher also said that in Japan mobile e-books, which are read by 86% of high school girls, are "re-growing the print market," and noted that 10 of the bestselling Japanese print novels in 2007 were based on cell phone novels, with each selling around 400,00 copies while "growing new readers in Japan."

At an education session called "Community Social Networking: A Guide for Retailers and Librarians," business book authors Charlene Li (Open Leadership) and David Meerman Scott (The New Rules of Marketing and PR) spoke about the now accepted fact in business that "it's all about relationships and sharing."

When considering where best to focus efforts among the cacophony of online options available, Li advised, "You have to start from your place of strength and build up."

"What I see is all of us are trying to generate attention," added Scott, who explained that before the Web, the three primary ways to do this were buying (advertising, etc.), begging (press releases, media relations) and hiring salespeople. With the increasing role of the Internet, however, a fourth way has emerged--earning attention. "I think that every single organization in the world, every person, is now a publisher of information."

He also advised booksellers and librarians to take advantage of free author-generated content for their websites. Writers "create lots of free content--blogs, free e-books, videos--and we are thrilled when somebody wants to syndicate our content. It's interesting how few people ask us for that kind of content."

Todd Stocke, v-p, editorial director at Sourcebooks, mentioned something to me that has also become one of my lasting impressions of this BEA, and perhaps signals where we're headed as well. He said that a few years ago, Sourcebooks altered its approach to booth design for the show. "We made the choice to have a less elaborate booth and room for more people," Stocke observed, emphasizing the importance of conversations, both scheduled and unexpected, on the exhibition floor. "You never know when just the right person is going to come by."--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now) 

 

The following were the 10 bestselling books on AbeBooks.com during May:

1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
2. The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
3. The Unconquerable World by Jonathan Schell
4. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest by Stieg Larsson
5. Mouse Tales by Arnold Lobel
6. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
7. Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth
8. Night by Elie Wiesel
9. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
10. Lost Time by Susan Maupin Schmid

The following were the 10 bestselling signed books on AbeBooks.com during May:

1. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell
2. Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
3. Solar by Ian McEwan
4. Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco
5. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
6. The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
7. The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley
8. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman
9. The Book of Counted Sorrows by Dean Koontz
10. The Whispers by John Connolly

[Many thanks to AbeBooks.com!]