Shelf Awareness for Wednesday, March 14, 2007


Quarry Books: Yes, Boys Can!: Inspiring Stories of Men Who Changed the World - He Can H.E.A.L. by Richard V Reeves and Jonathan Juravich, illustrated by Chris King

Simon & Schuster: Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers: Nightweaver by RM Gray

G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers: The Meadowbrook Murders by Jessica Goodman

Overlook Press: Hotel Lucky Seven (Assassins) by Kotaro Isaka, translated by Brian Bergstrom

News

Notes: Bookstore Sales, Moves; More Emerging Leaders

Bookstore sales in January were $2.122 million, down 1% from sales in January 2006, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. By comparison, total retail sales rose 4.2% to $301,746 billion. 

Before anyone thinks the sky is falling, remember that under Census Bureau definitions, bookstore sales are of new books and do not include "electronic home shopping, mail-order, or direct sale" or used book sales.

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Today's Wall Street Journal notes that some publicly held retailers that have "nearly tapped out their potential in the U.S.," such as Sears, Home Depot and AutoZone, are "ratcheting back on the number of new stores they open each year and are diverting more of their spending to repurchasing shares and increasing dividends," moves encouraged by Wall Street.

"The rapid growth period for these retailers is over--with the exception of a lot of niche players--and now they are generating a lot of free cash flow," analyst Colin McGranahan told the paper. "How they allocate that cash flow is an investment concern."

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At the Center of the Storm, the delayed memoir by former CIA director George Tenet, is approaching landfall: according to the AP, HarperCollins is releasing the book Aprli 30. Tenet was appointed to head the CIA by President Clinton in 1997 and resigned in 2004. In 2002 he told President Bush that the case for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was a "slam dunk."

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The rights to the unpublished O.J. Simpson book, If I Did It, are being auctioned publicly so that the family of Ronald L. Goldman will receive all future proceeds from their sale, a judge in Los Angeles has ruled, according to the New York Times.

Rights were set to revert to a shell corporation in May, at which point they could have been sold again. If no publishers bid for the book, the Goldman family apparently "will buy it and lock it up," a family lawyer told the paper.

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The Boston chapter of the Emerging Leaders Project is planning its first meeting, which will take place on Monday, March 26, at the Middlesex Lounge in Central Square in Cambridge. Tim Huggins, who recently sold Newtonville Books, will talk about the store and take questions from 8-9 p.m. Afterwards attendees will mingle and, as the organization puts it, "try to come up with a name that doesn't sound like it originated from an MBA program." The New England Independent Booksellers Association is providing food.

People in the book business, including booksellers and publishers, "hopefully under the age of 40," are invited. RSVP to Megan Sullivan at msullivan@harvard.com. The group has a community board online at community.livejournal.com/neibahoods/

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Barnes & Noble plans another simultaneous opening and closing of a store. In March 2008, it will open a new store in the Chesterfield Towne Center at 11500 Midlothian Turnpike in Richmond, Va. The day before that store appears, B&N will close the existing store at 1200 Huguenot Road in Midlothian. 

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Broad Street Books, Norfolk, Va., is closing at the end of March, the Virginian-Pilot reported. Owner Susan Weaver told the paper that rent and the size of the space had become too costly to sustain. She opened the store in 2002.

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Pranga Bookstore has opened in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn, N.Y., according to New York magazine. The store, which emphasizes overstock, discount and used books, CDs and DVDs, is located at 354 Court Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11231.

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The Nebraska Book Co., which manages 250 college stores, is a textbook wholesaler and offers inventory and e-commerce systems, is seeking to increase its revolving credit facility by $20 million, which would bring the total to $85 million. The company said it wants to increase the maximum "to provide the means to pursue additional opportunities to expand its contract managed and private college bookstore business" and for general working capital flexibility.

In a statement, Mark Oppegard, Nebraska Book Co.'s president and CEO said, "This time of year is especially busy in terms of responding to requests for proposals for contract managed stores and we want to be prepared in case we're successful in obtaining a number of those bookstore operations over the next few years."

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Next Tuesday, March 20, Laura Dawson is launching The Big Picture, a newsletter covering technology in publishing, bookselling and libraries. The Big Picture is geared to publishers and distributors planning digital strategies, booksellers with online presences, collections development librarians or service providers to these sectors of the book and information industries. The newsletter will cover company news, product launches, service enhancements and personnel changes, aiming to provide what readers need to strategize, make expenditure decisions and target services more directly.

To subscribe, click here. Dawson has a daily blog on issues in technology, publishing, copyright and libraries.

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Do consumers read all the books they purchase? More than 1,200 respondents weighed in when www.BookBrowse.com posed the question in a recent poll. 56% acknowledged reading at least two-thirds of the page-turners they bought in the past year, while 12% reported reading less than half. Click here to see the full results of the BookBrowse.com survey.
  


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Media and Movies

Media Heat: A Doctor's Iraq War Story

Today on the Early Show: Laura Lippman, author of What the Dead Know (Morrow, $24.95, 9780061128851/0061128856).

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This morning the Today Show features Everyday Food: Great Food Fast from Martha Stewart Living Magazine (Clarkson Potter, $24.95, 9780307354167/0307354164).

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This morning's Book Report, the weekly AM radio book-related show organized by Windows a bookshop, Monroe, La., has the theme "forty shades of green" and features interviews with two authors:

  • Alice McDermott, author of After This (FSG, $24, 9780374168094/0374168091)
  • Ian Middleton, co-author of Mysterious World: Ireland (Mysterious World Press, $29.95, 9780976082736/097608273X)

The show airs at 8 a.m. Central Time and can be heard live at thebookreport.net; the archived edition will be posted this afternoon.

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Today on the Martha Stewart Show, Sara Foster offers up Sara Foster's Casual Cooking: More Fresh Simple Recipes from Foster's Market (Clarkson Potter, $35, 9780307339997/0307339998).

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Today on WAMU's Diane Rehm Show, Earl Black and Merle Black join forces to discuss their book Divided America: The Ferocious Power Struggle in American Politics (S&S, $26, 9780743262064/0743262069).

Also on the Diane Rehm Show: Commander Richard Jadick, author of On Call in Hell: A Doctor's Iraq War Story (NAL, $24.95, 9780451220530/0451220536).

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Today NPR's All Things Considered considers several major political figures with Susan Estrich, author of most recently The Case for Hillary Clinton (Regan Books, $15.95, 9780060859831/0060859830) and Soulless: Ann Coulter and the Right-Wing Church of Hate (Regan Books, $24.95, 9780061246494/0061246492).

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Tonight Larry King Live talks with Chris Hansen, author of To Catch a Predator: Protecting Your Kids from Online Enemies Already in Your Home (Dutton, $24.95, 9780525950097/0525950095).

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Tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Jimmy Carter's national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski whose new book is Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower (Basic Books, $26.95, 9780465002528/0465002528).

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Tonight on the Colbert Report: Ed Viesturs, mountain climber and author with David Roberts of No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks (Broadway Books, $23.95, 0767924703).
 


GLOW: Berkley Books: The Seven O'Clock Club by Amelia Ireland


Books & Authors

Awards: More Commonwealth Writers'; Lulu Blooker Finalists

The Commonwealth Writers' Prize has announced more of its regional winners. In the Europe and South Asia category they are:

  • Best Book: The Perfect Man by Naeem Murr (Heinemann, U.K.)
  • Best First Book: In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar (Viking, U.K.)

Random House is publishing The Perfect Man on May 1 as a trade paperback original. The book was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and is Murr's third novel. Murr has been a Stegner Fellow at Stanford and a Lannan Fellow at Marfa. Born in London, he lived most of his life in Missouri and now resides in Chicago.

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Fifteen books--six fiction, six nonfiction and three comics titles--have made the shortlist for this year's Lulu Blooker Prize, which is given to blooks--books based on blogs or other Web sites, including webcomics.

Nominated titles include:

  • Crashing the Gate by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas (Chelsea Green)
  • Small Is the New Big: And 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas by Seth Godin (Portfolio/Penguin)
  • Words in a French Life: Lessons in Love and Language From the South of France by Kristin Espinasse (Touchstone/S&S)
  • BreakupBabe: A Novel by Rebecca Agiewich (Ballantine)
  • Mom's Cancer by Brian Fies (Abrams Image)

There is a $10,000 first prize and two $2,500 category prizes. Winners will be announced May 14. The prize is sponsored by Lulu, the provider of POD books, including many blooks.



Deeper Understanding

Robert Gray: RainyDayBooks.com, Genesis and Evolution

Where do bookstore Web sites come from and where are they going? In last week's column, we explored a Rainy Day Books online innovation regarding staff e-mail addresses. This time we'll trace the roots of the Fairway, Kan., store's Web site, take a closer look at current online strategy and peek into the future.   

In the beginning, however, there was Rainy Day Books.com: the domain name.

According to Roger Doeren, "Geoffrey Jennings, Vivien's son, was the genius behind the genesis of the Rainy Day Books Web site. He was our original webmaster and his insight was responsible for initially registering the domain name back in 1994. He anticipated the demand to do business on the Internet and he got the jump on other booksellers in the marketplace by creating, building and maintaining RainyDayBooks.com early on."  

At BookExpo America 1996, Vivien and Roger met Dick Harte of BookSite and learned they could enhance their online presence with shopping cart and title search options. "Dick and I hit it off well," Roger says. "We stayed as loyal members of BookSite.com for eight years until we outgrew its capabilities. We parted on friendly terms."

In 2004, again at BookExpo, they took the next step when Len Vlahos, director of BookSense.com, offered a trial subscription to the service. "I leapt at the opportunity," Roger says, "and after fully testing and evaluating BookSense.com for two weeks, I opted to accept a full subscription." He was soon invited to join the BookSense.com Users Council, and hasn't stopped testing and evaluating since then.

The learning curve is sharp and never-ending, but Roger describes the Rainy Day Books Web site as a creative expression of the bookstore's spirit: "Building and maintaining RainyDayBooks.com is similar to a Lego building block process. Given the same building blocks, other people will build something else. RainyDayBooks.com is frequently empirically evaluated and the feedback is utilized to calibrate and target changes and improvements for the best. Change for the sake of change is stabbing in the dark; hit and miss, mostly miss. I like to turn on the lights and see what is in the dark as I build and maintain my surroundings." Although that word change has become a siren song for most of us online, Roger tries to balance awareness and adaptability with foresight.

For example, he has an online wish list for BookSense.com: "I communicate directly with Len Vlahos about needed improvements that all subscribers will enjoy. I would like to increase the HTML character limit per text field from 4,000 characters to about 10,000 characters. I would like to add a gift registry. I would like simpler and more direct click-through purchasing power. I would like to add more Bookstream Bookwrap author videos."

Currently on Roger's drawing board are several new features: "I have recently completed a hyperlink from RainyDayBooks.com Author Events Photo Albums to SONY ImageStation. Many attendees to our author events know that I take a lot of photos and have often asked to see my photos. Now they will have that opportunity, as I upload more of my photo albums over time."

He is also working on a plan to offer live streaming audio and video of author events. Given Rainy Day Books's ambitious events schedule, this could be both a coup and a logistical nightmare. Roger, however, sees it as an incentive, "the next best thing to being there, live and in person. It will drive more attendance to our events and online author-autographed book orders. Live radio, television and webcasts drive attendance to other entertainment events."

Even as we communicated for this series, Roger was conducting an experiment. He embedded a Windows Media hyperlink throughout the Web site wherever an upcoming Robert Crais event was listed.

Roger believes that what he calls the "one-two combination" of the bookstore's Web site and weekly e-mail newsletters delivers an effective punch. The site attracts approximately 60% local, 25% regional, 10% national and 5% international hits; online book sales are "constantly increasing. The cost of time and money to build and maintain RainyDayBooks.com delivers a great Return on Investment (ROI). It is our 24-hour-per-day, 365-days-per-year extension of our full service, friendly and knowledgeable community bookstore."

Next week, we'll conclude the Fairway, Kan., leg of our bookstore Web siteseeing tour with some thoughts from Vivien Jennings, who promises to weigh in "on the right brain side, as Roger (who actually is a genius on both sides) has addressed the technology."--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)
 


The Bestsellers

Abebooks.com Bestsellers: Soldier Dead Appears

In February, the 10th-bestselling title at Abebooks.com was Soldier Dead: How We Recover, Identify, Bury, and Honor our Military Fallen by Michael Sledge, which was published in May 2005 by Columbia University Press. Abebooks noted that sales appeared to be driven by word-of-mouth among relatives of deceased military personnel; otherwise there has been no recent media coverage and few blog mentions.

The following were the bestselling titles at AbeBooks.com during February:

1. China Lake by Meg Gardiner
2. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
3. The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
4. The People of Sparks by Jeanne Duprau
5. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
6. Jericho Point by Meg Gardiner
7. The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav
8. The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren
9. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
10. Soldier Dead: How We Recover, Identify, Bury, and Honor our Military Fallen by Michael Sledge


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