The New York City Emerging Leaders group is inviting New York-area booksellers to meet this coming Sunday, March 18, at 7 p.m., at Three Lives & Company bookstore in New York City. The ELNO-BO: Emerging Leaders Night Out, Booksellers Only is the first bookseller-exclusive event the organization is hosting and is intended to be an informal gathering for booksellers to share creative ideas about the future of bookselling. Refreshments include beer and pizza. All booksellers are welcome and should RSVP to emergingleadersnyc@gmail.com.

The group has revamped its Web site, emergingleadersnyc.org.

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Yet another book is rallying because of 300, the new movie based on the Frank Miller graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae. Thermopylae: The Battle for the West by Ernle Bradford (Da Capo, $17.95, 9780306813603/0306813602), a 2004 paperback, is ranking in the 200s on Amazon.com.

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The Oregonian surveys publishing in the Northwest with a lead that contrasts Beyond Words's current exalted state--its The Secret will soon have 3.75 million copies in print--"a far cry from the days when the owners . . .  traveled the West Coast, selling their titles out of the back of their car."

Other publishers mentioned: Dark Horse Comics; Hawthorne Books and Literary Arts; Ooligan Press, Portland State University's teaching press; and six imprints recently begun by PSU graduates.

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Dale Mechalas, owner of the Archive, which has two used bookstores, has bought a building in Lansdale, Pa., "to have everything under one roof," he told the Lansdale Reporter. He closed on the deal earlier this month and hopes to open in May.

The building has nearly 15,000 square feet of space that Mechalas will divide into five rooms and will include an Internet sales area, where the store will take items from people and sell them on eBay.

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The ever-innovative New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association is creating "event models," step-by-step instructions for members about hosting events in their stores and communities based on successful events. The association will also update seasonally a section on suggested local author contacts. The material will be appearing soon on NAIBA's Web site.

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Rick Starke has been named children's national accounts rep at HarperCollins. He joined the company in 1986 and since then has been a Chicago-based field representative, calling on such accounts as Follett Library, Hertzberg, Bound to Stay Bound and Booksource. He has also sold adult crossover titles for the adult Collins, Harper and Morrow divisions at these accounts. He will continue to live in the Chicago area.

 

This morning on the Today Show: Chris Hansen, author of To Catch a Predator: Protecting Your Kids from Online Enemies Already in Your Home (Dutton, $24.95, 9780525950097/0525950095).

Also on Today: Jose Cancela, author of The Power of Business en Espanol: 7 Fundamental Keys to Unlocking the Potential of the Spanish-Language Hispanic Market (Rayo, $19.95, 9780061234996/0061234990).

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Today the Rachael Ray Show hears from Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance, co-authors of Friends: A Love Story (Harlequin, $24.95, 9780373830589/0373830580).

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Today the Martha Stewart Show keeps it all in the family by promoting Everyday Food: Great Food Fast from Martha Stewart Living Magazine (Clarkson Potter, $24.95, 9780307354167/0307354164). 

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Today on WAMU's Diane Rehm Show, Jimmy Carter's national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski powers up to talk about Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower (Basic Books, $26.95, 9780465002528/0465002528).


Also on the Diane Rehm Show: Joshua Key shares The Deserter's Tale: The Story of an Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq (Atlantic Monthly Press, $23, 9780871139542/0871139545).

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Today the Oprah Winfrey Show re-airs a segment with Lysa TerKeurst, author of What Happens When Women Walk in Faith: Trusting God Takes You to Amazing Places (Harvest House, $11.99, 9780736915717/0736915710).

Also on Oprah: Holly Robinson Peete, author of Get Your Own Damn Beer, I'm Watching the Game!: A Woman's Guide to Loving Pro Football (Rodale Books, $15.95, 9781594861635/1594861633).

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Tonight on the Colbert Report: Michael Eric Dyson, whose new book is Debating Race (Basic Books, $26, 9780465002061/0465002064).

 

Selected titles with a pub date of next Tuesday, March 20:

For a Few Demons More by Kim Harrison (Eos, $21.95, 9780060788384/0060788380). The fifth saga starring Rachel Morgan, vampire and bounty hunter.

The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle (Scribner, $25, 9781416533245/1416533249). In this debut novel set on a horse ranch in Colorado, a young girl is left to bear the brunt of her family's troubles after her older sister runs away to marry a rodeo cowboy.

Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier (Dutton, $24.95, 9780525949787/052594978X). The author of Girl with a Pearl Earring weaves a tale set in 18th-century London featuring radical painter/poet William Blake.

Dropping the Ball: Baseball's Troubles and How We Can and Must Solve Them by Dave Winfield (Scribner, $25, 9781416534488/1416534482). The Baseball Hall of Famer presents a plan of action for saving the country's national pastime from self-destruction.

Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott (Riverhead, $24.95, 9781594489426/ 1594489424). The follow-up collection to Lamott's Plan B is a personal exploration of the faith and grace all around us.

How to Overcome Fear: and Live Your Life to the Fullest by Marcos Witt (Atria, $23, 9780743290807/0743290801). How to live a life without fear by following the word of God.

No Retreat, No Surrender: One American's Fight by Tom "The Hammer" DeLay (Sentinel, $25.95, 9781595230348/1595230343). A memoir from the former majority leader of the House of Representatives.


On Sale March 19:

How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman, M.D. (Houghton Mifflin, $26, 9780618610037/0618610030). A New Yorker staff writer and Harvard physician unravels the ultimate medical mystery: how doctors figure out the best treatments (or fail to do so) and what patients can do to ensure better care.


On sale in paperback March 20:

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (Vintage, $14.95, 9781400077427/1400077427).

Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark (Pocket, $7.99, 9780743497299/0743497295).

A Wicked Gentleman by Jane Feather (Pocket Star, $7.99, 9781416525516/1416525513).

I am essentially a truthful person. But there is one place I consistently lie: at checkout counters when I am asked for my zip code. "10001," I will reel off, as if my favorite numeric palindrome is my own postal code. A New Yorker shopping on Cape Cod hardly merits a second glance. Except on the coldest March day ever, when I am bundled in bright red goose down and looking decidedly un-chic. No matter, I am all rung-up, and my alleged zip code is making its wired way to some center of demographic research, where I am hopeful it will be cast out or perhaps rerouted to its proper domain some 250 miles away.

My refusal to cooperate at the checkout may shed some light on my own issue with the first step in ordering through BookSense.com. Len Vlahos explained the process earlier this month in Shelf Awareness: "Click on the 'Order Now' button, and you'll be greeted with a message about shopping locally, and asked for your zip code. From there you go directly to the product page for the book in question at your local bookstore." It sounds simple enough. I'd even go so far to say it is simple--and it works. But it seems--judging from the authors and author-advocate types who have checked in with me on this topic--that this simple step irritates many potential users.

"The BookSense site is still not as reader-friendly as it could be," writes M.J. Rose, in response to the articles that appeared here two weeks ago. M.J., an author, works with many other authors through her business, Author Buzz. "First," she writes, "I love the indies. Most authors do." She reports she has a BookSense.com link and an Amazon.com link on her site. "But readers complain that when they try to use the BookSense.com link, they type in their zip codes and are told there are no bookstores nearby. Many of them simply want a 'one click' approach."

One click. Versus six keystrokes. It seems a small matter. Except that in the online world, we all have ADD. There's so much to do. We want to move quickly. It may be even accurate to say, we have to move quickly. We want to gather loads of information and give out as little as we can. When we're ready to order that book, we want to get it done. Now.

Though M.J. was the only author willing to be identified in this piece, a handful of others weighed in. And every conversation seemed a variation on a theme: "It just feels like a hassle to shop on that BookSense.com. There are too many steps before you get to the book." Listening to this repeated refrain, I realized it mirrored my own perception. I stopped to consider the facts: it's only one extra step. But could that single step be one step too many?

I understand why BookSense.com wants to move the shopper into a specific bookstore. After all, promoting that store is at least half the point of the national site. But does the shopper have to know which wizard is behind the magic curtain? Is there a way around the zip code query?

What if I clicked on that Order Now link and I was brought directly to the product page? These days, the BookSense.com product pages look pretty good, even better when the title is a Book Sense Pick, and features bookseller quotations on the page. It's true there isn't as much information here as you'll find on an Amazon page, which has become, in the words of M.J. Rose, "a mini microsite for the book." Still, there is enough meat to entice the reader and perhaps seal the deal.  

Let's say that, based on what I see, I decide to order the book. As I enter my information, my zip code entry invisibly links me to a particular store. A message would inform me of the store name, saying, "Your order will be filled by That Great Bookstore." Then, I would be offered a quick checkout or the option to browse the shop.  If I chose to check out immediately, I might be greeted with another friendly message at the close of the transaction. That Great Bookstore could offer me another chance to browse the online shop, to see what the staff if reading, to have a look at the current Book Sense Picks or to view upcoming events listings. No time to browse right now? Invite me to bookmark the store location and come back for a future visit. Maybe even give me an incentive to do exactly that.

It's my experience that most BookSense.com stores have excellent and well-maintained Web sites. If the customers who shop with them already enter through the electronic front door of the store's URL, the customers who arrive as referrals are coming through a side door. Why not fling it open wide, and make the entrance more inviting? Make their online shopping trip easy and pleasant, and they will experience That Great Bookstore as--a great bookstore. They may want to visit again. Next time, they could come through the front door. And no one needs to lie about their zip code.

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Kate Whouley is a bookstore consultant and the author of Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved. Her commentary on this subject will continue in future issues of Shelf Awareness.