Notes: NEIBA Grants; Bookstore Stories; Pimping Bookcarts
The New England Independent Booksellers Association has awarded the
first of its grants to "developing or established local independent
business alliances" in which member stores are involved. The
association's strategic plan has called for NEIBA to "assist
booksellers' efforts in their own communities to shift consumer culture
toward supporting locally-owned businesses."
The involved stores
will report on the programs' progress during the next year, including
at the September trade show. NEIBA will award another round of such
grants in the fall; applications will be available in the summer.
The grants are going to:
- Seacoast Buy Local, Portsmouth, N.H. The grant of $2,500 will be used to develop and implement the group's interactive Buy Local website. Members of Seacoast Buy Local include Gulliver's and RiverRun bookstores.
- Cambridge Local First, Cambridge, Mass. The grant of $2,500 will help fund the printing of a 250-300 member resource directory. Members of the group include Curious George Store, Globe Corner, Harvard Bookstore, Henry Bear's Park and Porter Square Books bookstores.
- Local First Vermont, Burlington, Vt. The $2,500 grant will help support the salary of the group's part-time executive director, which is a requirement of BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) to move into Stage Three of its detailed network stages. Local First Vermont members include Bear Pond Books, Briggs Carriage Bookstore, the Flying Pig Bookstore, Galaxy Bookshop, Northshire Bookstore, Norwich Bookstore, Seasoned Books & Bakery, Shiretown Books and the Vermont Book Shop.
- Titcomb's Bookshop, East Sandwich, Mass. The $750 grant will be used in conjunction with Sandwich Chamber of Commerce to help fund a study by the University of Massachusetts Center for Research to measure interest in expanding the previous two year's holiday "shop local" program to a year-round campaign.
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Bare fact: The surprise hit movie Knocked Up is pushing up the potential of a September book, Mr. Skin's Skintastic Video Guide: The 501 Greatest Movies for Sex & Nudity on DVD, published by SK Books and distributed by Independent Publishers Group. Mr. Skin and his popular website, mrskin.com, are featured in the movie, which has grossed more than $90 million in the past three weeks.
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Several readers pointed out that yesterday we mixed up the order of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians titles. For the record, The Lightning Thief is the first in the series, The Sea of Monsters is the second and The Titan's Curse is the third.
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Boston Now profiled Calamus Bookstore and owner John Mitzel, whose mission from the beginning was "to create the kind of bookstore that he didn't have growing up: independent, with books that spoke to his own unique experience."
According to Boston Now, Mitzel "began his career at the Glad Day Bookshop in the Back Bay, the first gay and lesbian bookstore in New England. They lost the lease in 2000, and things looked a bit grim. Developers wanted coffee shops and restaurants, not a bookstore--and certainly not a GLBT one. But, eventually, they found a space for the new store in the leather district, and with their core of loyal patrons from the old store--and some neighborhood converts--they've thrived for seven years."
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"I used to sell stories," Larry Abramoff told the Worcester Telegram, which profiled him--and his wife, Gloria--more than a year after the closure of their bookstore, Tatnuck Bookseller & Sons.
The Abramoffs still live in Worcester, Mass., where they grew up, but Gloria said the transition out of the bookselling life has been difficult: "It was awful. I actually stopped doing my grocery shopping locally because it was a traveling funeral. People would stop me in the produce section. One person said, 'You ruined my Christmas.' They were sad, but a lot of them expressed it as anger."
Although they considered buying another bookstore recently (Gloria even suggested they call it Full Circle Bookstore), Larry said "It doesn't make sense, not today. . . . The finances don't work. It's a service to the community."
A second location, now called Tatnuck Bookseller, is still in business in the Westboro Shopping Center. Its assets were acquired by Westboro businessman Eugene S. Colangelo, who had originally leased the space to the Abramoffs.
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Don't miss the second annual
Pimp My Bookcart contest, sponsored by Unshelved and Highsmith.
First-prize is a Smith System Book Truck with Dividers, valued at over
$300, as well as a $250 gift certificate to the Unshelved Store. Second
place winners and runners-up will receive prizes--and all entrants will
win a 15% coupon good for Highsmith, Upstart and Upstart books.
"Our
last contest brought out the creative streak in so many librarians,
teachers, and students," Unshelved cartoonist Bill Barnes said. "Now
with Highsmith's generous help we are able to raise the stakes for
contest participants."
Last year's winner--"Pink Cadillac" by
Katie George and the teens of the Miller Branch Library of Howard
County Library in Ellicot City, Md.--will be on display at the
Highsmith booth at the ALA annual conference in Washington D.C., June
23-26.
For more information about , go to unshelved.com/pimpmybookcart/.
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Angel Gate Press,
an imprint of Left Field Ink, is now being distributed by National Book
Network. Angel Gate, with headquarters in Los Angeles, publishes young
adult, graphic novels and children's books, including a series of
children's books written by Jane Seymour and her husband, James Keach.
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