Chapter 11, the Atlanta, Ga., book retailer that as recently as 2004 had 16 stores, is closing two of its last three stores next month "to focus on its business-to-business service and Internet sales," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

"Those seem to be the areas that are growing," manager Patricia Marr told the paper. "Businesses don't want to have to walk into a bookstore. They want to place a call and have the books delivered."

Chapter 11's Sandy Springs and Ansley Mall stores will close May 12. The Emory Commons store will remain.

Last year Chapter 11 sales were $3 million. Two years ago, the company filed for bankruptcy and was sold to Booklovers, a group of secured lenders that includes the chain's previous owner, Perry Tanner. 

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Cool idea of the day: Books & Books, Coral Gables, Fla., is holding a book club mixer on Saturday, April 21. The agenda, as the store describes it: "Meet potential, new book-club buddies. Or find the right books for your current club. Swap stories with other book lovers. Share the secret to a great book club meeting. Chat with other folks, find common book interests, exchange e-mail addresses, start a new club."

Books & Books will offer refreshments, dessert and staff recommendations. It also has a South Florida Book Club Registry on its website.

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Effective July 1, Follett will take over management again of the University of Kentucky bookstore, which it had operated from 1984 to 1996, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. For the past seven years, the Kennedy Book Store managed the university store.

The 10-year contract with a five-year extension option calls for Follett to add 10,000 square feet to the store's 16,000 square feet of space. Follett will also keep the store open longer hours, allow students the option of reserving or buying textbooks online and offer "more user-friendly Web access for buying textbooks."

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More on Kinokuniya Bookstore's flagship U.S. store in New York City, which this fall is moving to Sixth Avenue and Byrant Park from its longtime spot in Rockefeller Center.

The new, 24,000-sq.-ft. store will continue to offer the kinds of books and magazines that attract Japanese customers but will expand its offerings for people who don't speak or read Japanese. Among new and expanded book and magazine categories: graphic novels in both Japanese and English; Japanese fashion magazines as well as a new fashion section in English; and a full design art and architecture section in English.

Nonbook products include tattoos; T-shirts; comic and anime figures, toys, posters and more; electronic dictionaries; and stationery.

The store's address is 1073 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10018.

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Sign of the future: Japanese teenagers are devouring more and more comics on their cell phones, Business Week reported. More than 300 websites offer some 10,000 stories for cell phone downloads, and last year Japanese consumers spent $20 million to view manga on handsets.

The cell phone option is especially attractive to women and girls "who might have been coy about walking into a shop," as one publisher put it. However, another publisher said, "Many are still loyal comic book readers who use downloads as a way to try something they might not normally buy."

Already some people in the business want to establish similar services in South Korea and the U.S.

 

Here's a deal that marks several milestones: Bertelsmann is buying Time Inc.'s interest in Bookspan, the book club joint venture that includes the Book-of-the-Month. With the sale, Bertelsmann will be the only major book club company in the U.S., and Time will have no interests in the book business. (Time sold Warner Books, which includes Little, Brown, to Hachette Book Group last year.) Today's Wall Street Journal said the price was about $150 million.

Bertselmann will fold Bookspan into its BMG Columbia House operation, and Bookspan CEO Markus Wilhelm is leaving the company.

The Journal said that more than 20 million people in the U.S.--"typically women in their 40s"--continue to subscribe to book and music clubs, and that Bookspan's 40 book clubs, which have about eight million members, had sales of $700 million last year.

The digital content world is now in "a fluid phase of innovation" that is highlighted by "lots of different business models and products," NACS digital content strategist Mark Nelson said during an overview of digital content issues at the CAMEX show in Orlando, Fla., last month. This phase will end with the development of standards and "gravitation to some particular models and products." Once that occurs--and "we're starting to see signs of this"--"change happens very quickly," he emphasized.

Another indication of imminent change is the interest of "a big player" in the area. One example of this was the comment recently by Microsoft's Bill Gates that in five years students will not use texts.

Although many college booksellers fear being bypassed by publishers selling digital texts to students, in some ways "publishers are the group most at risk," Nelson said. In the digital world, there is no certainty about who will own content or who will handle distribution, he continued. For example, faculty may self-publish, he said.

The current leaders in providing content may not survive. The ones that do survive will "open up their horizons and be as broad as possible," Nelson went on. There will be "more competitors from more sources," he continued. For example, Wal-Mart is distributing some digital content and "could be a competitor of ours someday."

Once an effective e-reader is invented and interface problems are solved, "e-readers will take off as fast as iPods did," Nelson said, adding that the iPod model is "very relevant. In three years, iPod penetration of college freshmen has gone from 0% to 50%." [Incidentally Apple announced yesterday that it has sold 100 million iPods since the product's introduction in November 2001.] In a related change, audiobook sales to people aged 18-24 is "increasing rapidly," likely because of podcast popularity.

In the same vein, Nelson noted that a majority of the "students coming up" are avid video game players and are used to learning from a gaming model. Thus they are open to "self-paced" learning and collaborations between professor, student and parents. Schools have the potential to become the equivalents of "massive multiplayer educational gaming environments."

In the wider digital content world, "content chunking"--or marketing information "in pieces rather than the whole thing"--has become the norm. Nelson quoted Wired as observing that "we like a snack approach to our information." Textbooks are one of the last sectors to follow this model. "Students will want this way like any other product." Nelson pointed out that such an approach will likely appeal to publishers, who will have "the opportunity to sell parts of books throughout a semester."

Among opportunities for stores, on-campus licensing agreements for content could include music and film as well as text content. NACS is working on a kiosk product that will allow stores to sell downloads and digital content. And the Magazine Publishers Association wants to work with NACS on digital delivery of magazine material to students "to drive them to stores to buy the printed magazine."

Nelson predicted that college stores have five to six years to "prepare for change" in the area of digital content. In those same five years, new K-12 students will enter school having used computers regularly already. "We are all somewhat digital immigrants," Nelson commented. "These will be digital natives."--John Mutter

This morning on the Early Show: chef Chris Kimball on Cook's Illustrated's new cookbook, The Best Make-Ahead Recipe (America's Test Kitchen, $35, 9781933615141/1933615141).

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Today the Fox Morning Show lineup features Cal Ripken, Jr., whose new book is Get in the Game: 8 Elements of Perseverance That Make the Difference (Gotham, $26, 9781592402649/159240264X).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: David Ignatius, Washington Post columnist and author of Body of Lies: A Novel (Norton, $24.95, 9780393065039/0393065030).

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Tonight on the Charlie Rose Show: Michael Oren, author of Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present (Norton, $35, 9780393058260/0393058263).

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Tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Walter Isaacson, former Time and CNN man and author of Einstein: His Life and Universe (S&S, $32, 9780743264730/0743264738), whose pub date is today.

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Tonight on the Colbert Report: Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle: A Memoir (Scribner, $14, 9780743247542/074324754X).
 

Don Waters has won the 2007 Iowa Short Fiction Award for his collection Desert Gothic, and Lee Montgomery has won the 2007 John Simmons Short Fiction Award for Whose World Is This?

Montgomery is the author of The Things between Us: A Memoir, editorial director of Tin House Books and executive editor of Tin House magazine.

The winners will be published by the University of Iowa Press this fall.

The awards are administered through the Iowa Writers' Workshop. The final judge was Amy Hempel, author of The Collected Stories.

 

This is the second in a series featuring Penguin paperback titles that have benefited from booksellers' passion.

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The team at Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops in Milwaukee, Wis., has an impressive goal: to sell 2,000 copies of Astrid & Veronika before it hosts the novel's author, Linda Olsson, on April 27.

The enthusiasm at Schwartz began building last fall when many staff members--of all ages and at all five Schwartz stores--began reading and raving about early copies of Astrid & Veronika, a trade paperback original released in February. "It showed us there was a broad market for it," marketing director Nancy Quinn said. Quinn and others then decided to make the book the focus of a company-wide marketing effort.

Each store has ample stock of Astrid & Veronika, and the book appears in staff recommendation sections--several booksellers at each store have made it their featured pick. A flyer displayed with copies of the book includes praise from 10 Schwartz employees. The company is so confident about the novel's appeal that it offers customers a money-back guarantee--in writing.

In addition to in-store efforts, Schwartz reached customers through viral marketing. The book was featured in an electronic newsletter sent on February 9, touted as a Valentine's Day gift selection, and copies pre-wrapped in red paper were displayed on store counters. The book also appeared on the front page of the March edition of Schwartz's printed newsletter. And 100 readers received a copy of the book gratis, which Schwartz mailed to customers who had participated in a store-sponsored weekend retreat last year. "These are avid readers who like to talk about books," Quinn said, "and we knew if we got Astrid & Veronika in their hands, they would tell their friends."

To further get the word out about Astrid & Veronika, Quinn did something she has never before done for a book. She sent an e-mail to 100 of her own friends and acquaintances and included a custom-made graphic featuring bookseller quotations and the novel's cover, one of the elements Quinn cited as being part of "a perfect package."

Book clubs are gravitating toward the novel, too, Quinn noted, and the flyers give members something tangible to share with their groups. Trade paperback originals have an unusual selling advantage for book clubs, Quinn said: "You can go to reading groups with something new and interesting that they didn't find out about in hardcover."

The novel's Swedish setting is a draw for readers, as is the storyline about an intergenerational friendship between two women. "How we're presenting this book is that it's very sensual in that it uses all your senses," said Quinn. "We're communicating to customers that you really feel like you're in Sweden. The food, the winters, the meadows--all of that is beautifully portrayed, as is the friendship."

The kind of support the book received from Schwartz and other stores led to the publisher's decision to bring the New Zealand author to the U.S. for a 14-city tour that begins on April 18. Quinn expects a sizeable turnout for Olsson's appearance at Schwartz's Mequon store on the 27th. "You can feel the enthusiasm in the company for this book," said Quinn, "and we expect sales to continue to grow because we've laid this foundation." With nearly 1,200 copies sold to date, Schwartz is closing on its goal--and might have to its sights even higher.--Shannon McKenna

Selected titles with a pub date of next Tuesday, April 17:

The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin, $26, 9780618894642/0618894640). The first Tolkien saga in three decades is a stand-alone story that reunites Lord of the Rings fans with elves and men, dragons and dwarves, eagles and orcs.

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon, $21.95, 9780375422737/0375422730). A new adventure in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

The Woods by Harlan Coben (Dutton, $26.95, 9780525950127/0525950125). In Coben's latest, a New Jersey county prosecutor looks to solve a case that has haunted him for 20 years.

Where Have All the Leaders Gone? by Lee Iacocca (Scribner, $25, 9781416532477/1416532471). The former Chrysler executive issues a call to summon Americans back to traditions of hard work, common sense, integrity, generosity and optimism.

The Blue Zone by Andrew Gross (Morrow, $25.95, 9780061143403/0061143405). James Patterson's frequent co-author goes out on his own.

The Marriage Game by Fern Michaels (Pocket, $25, 9780743477451/0743477456). Samantha Rainford--newly wed to Douglas Cosmo Rainford III--returns home from her honeymoon to find divorce papers waiting. At first, she's shocked and heartbroken; then it's time for revenge.

The Duke Diet: The World-Renowned Program for Healthy and Lasting Weight Loss by Howard J. Eisenson, M.D. (Ballantine, $25.95, 9780345499035/0345499034). The program director of the Duke Diet & Fitness Center serves up 35 years of diet wisdom.

Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right: How One Side Lost Its Mind and the Other Lost Its Nerve by Bernard Goldberg (HarperCollins, $25.95, 9780061252570/0061252573). The former CBS News reporter finds idiots everywhere but at home.