Inc. magazine
offers a long, detailed story about the closing and rebirth of Kepler's
Books & Magazines in Menlo Park, Calif. Besides long
commentary from Clark Kepler, the piece has many insights from Daniel
Méndez, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur at the center of the group of
investors whose business and financial aid
were key in bringing the store back to life.
---
The Sony Reader--may an e-book device finally succeed--will be sold at some 30 Sony Style stores, Sony's Web site and about 200 Borders stores. At the Borders stores, demos will be available and customers can buy cards redeemable for e-texts online. The Sony Reader will cost $300-$400 and should launch this summer.
---
Nebraska Book Co., which, among other businesses, manages 137 college stores, is buying College Book Stores of America, which manages 104 bookstores at small- and medium-sized campuses and whose Founders Bookstore Services divisions specializes in Christian colleges and universities.
Nebraska also wholesales textbooks and installs bookstore management systems and e-commerce sites. The company had revenues of more than $410 million in the year ended December 31.
College Book Stores had sales of $80 million in the fiscal year ended June 30. It will continue to use the College Book Stores name and operate independently.
---
The North Texas Daily News has an amusing review of the seventh annual Edible Books Festival fundraiser held in the Rare Book Room of the Willis Library at the University of North Texas, Denton, Tex. Some 20 "books" were entered in the contest. One of our favorites: March of the Penguins, made of hard boiled eggs and black olives. (Don't miss the photo.)
The festival appeared to whet one student's appetite for books: wandering into the party with friends, she said, "I like how with a lot of them, you know what it is as soon as you see it. It kind of makes you want to go out and read the books."
---
The third purchase of Random House Films and Focus Features since they created their joint venture last November is The Husband by Dean Koontz, which Bantam Books will publish May 30. Development on a movie based on the book, "the story of an ordinary working man whose love for his wife is put to a harrowing series of tests over a sixty-hour period," begins immediately. The venture's previous purchases are The Attack by Yasmina Khadra (the pen name of Mohammed Moulessehoul, a former Algerian army officer) and Curveball by Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Drogin (Shelf Awareness, February 15).
---
A feature in today's New York Times about Craig Ferguson, host of CBS's Late Late Show, and his novel, Between the Bridge and the River, which appears next week, says that "unlike other television stars who have moonlighted as authors . . . Mr. Ferguson has written a work of literary fiction."
As a result, the first printing is "just" 30,000, which is low for a TV celebrity. Ferguson told the paper that he didn't mind the modest advance, "probably less than he would earn for a night of stand-up comedy," because Chronicle gave him latitude in telling his story.
Ferguson is planning two sequels and, in an unlikely but admirable departure considering his main gig, doesn't want to sell movie rights. "It's a book," he said. "It's mine. And it's done."
---
The Noblesville Daily Times covered Saturday's "parade of books," the last part of the move of the Wild, the children's bookstore in Noblesville, Ind., two blocks to its new location. The store is only six months old.
---
E-textbooks keep e-xpanding in popularity, especially when they are not e-xpensive.
College students are buying 23% of textbooks over the Internet--either through a college store's Web site or from another retailer--up from 16% in 2004, according to the latest in the Student Watch Campus Market Research series sponsored by the NACS Foundation.
About 61% of students said price was the determining factor in choosing to buy texts online while 21% said friends' recommendations were most important and 18% said professors' recommendations swayed them most of all.
The survey was taken at 21 campuses, and more than 16,000 students participated. For more information, go to the NACS Web site.
---
Built for the students of Wilkes University, King's College and the Luzerne County Community College, a college bookstore planned for downtown Wilkes-Barre, Pa., will also serve the general public and is intended to boost business and traffic, according to the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader.
Follett, which currently manages the Wilkes and King's bookstores, is in the running with Barnes & Noble College to manage the new store at the Innovation Center@Wilkes-Barre. The former Woolworth's building has been vacant since 1994.
The paper noted that the move four years ago of the Colgate Bookstore, Hamilton, N.Y., to much larger space downtown from a spot on campus has helped boost traffic. Now the store "is considered an anchor for Hamilton."
---
Serving the lonely?
Bertelsmann plans to transform its Direct Group of book, CD and DVD clubs into "an Internet networking scene for older people," Reuters reported. "People are getting older . . . and older people are getting lonelier and they will need communities where they can share their interests," CEO Gunter Thielen said. Direct Group runs book and music clubs in 22 countries.
---
Dave Caswell, who founded the Indiana Authors Bookstore in Indianapolis in December, plans to start a magazine that will publish new fiction by emerging Indiana authors, the Indianapolis Star reported. Almost all titles for sale in the store are by or about Indiana authors--they include Kurt Vonnegut, Lew Wallace, Booth Tarkington and Dan Wakefield. The store also sells coffee and offers free wi-fi.
Indiana Authors Bookstore is located at 36 E. Maryland St.; 317-633-4070.
---
The Cape Cod Times surveyed the state of independent bookstores on the Cape, emphasizing both bookselling's difficult economics and its many satisfactions. For example, Carol Chittenden, owner of Eight Cousins, the children's bookstore in Falmouth, told the paper she has not worked less than a 70-hour week in 19 years. ''I'm not sure if it's the best thing in the world for mental health, but it's a fun seventy hours a week."
---
The Sony Reader--may an e-book device finally succeed--will be sold at some 30 Sony Style stores, Sony's Web site and about 200 Borders stores. At the Borders stores, demos will be available and customers can buy cards redeemable for e-texts online. The Sony Reader will cost $300-$400 and should launch this summer.
---
Nebraska Book Co., which, among other businesses, manages 137 college stores, is buying College Book Stores of America, which manages 104 bookstores at small- and medium-sized campuses and whose Founders Bookstore Services divisions specializes in Christian colleges and universities.
Nebraska also wholesales textbooks and installs bookstore management systems and e-commerce sites. The company had revenues of more than $410 million in the year ended December 31.
College Book Stores had sales of $80 million in the fiscal year ended June 30. It will continue to use the College Book Stores name and operate independently.
---
The North Texas Daily News has an amusing review of the seventh annual Edible Books Festival fundraiser held in the Rare Book Room of the Willis Library at the University of North Texas, Denton, Tex. Some 20 "books" were entered in the contest. One of our favorites: March of the Penguins, made of hard boiled eggs and black olives. (Don't miss the photo.)
The festival appeared to whet one student's appetite for books: wandering into the party with friends, she said, "I like how with a lot of them, you know what it is as soon as you see it. It kind of makes you want to go out and read the books."
---
The third purchase of Random House Films and Focus Features since they created their joint venture last November is The Husband by Dean Koontz, which Bantam Books will publish May 30. Development on a movie based on the book, "the story of an ordinary working man whose love for his wife is put to a harrowing series of tests over a sixty-hour period," begins immediately. The venture's previous purchases are The Attack by Yasmina Khadra (the pen name of Mohammed Moulessehoul, a former Algerian army officer) and Curveball by Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Drogin (Shelf Awareness, February 15).
---
A feature in today's New York Times about Craig Ferguson, host of CBS's Late Late Show, and his novel, Between the Bridge and the River, which appears next week, says that "unlike other television stars who have moonlighted as authors . . . Mr. Ferguson has written a work of literary fiction."
As a result, the first printing is "just" 30,000, which is low for a TV celebrity. Ferguson told the paper that he didn't mind the modest advance, "probably less than he would earn for a night of stand-up comedy," because Chronicle gave him latitude in telling his story.
Ferguson is planning two sequels and, in an unlikely but admirable departure considering his main gig, doesn't want to sell movie rights. "It's a book," he said. "It's mine. And it's done."
---
The Noblesville Daily Times covered Saturday's "parade of books," the last part of the move of the Wild, the children's bookstore in Noblesville, Ind., two blocks to its new location. The store is only six months old.
---
E-textbooks keep e-xpanding in popularity, especially when they are not e-xpensive.
College students are buying 23% of textbooks over the Internet--either through a college store's Web site or from another retailer--up from 16% in 2004, according to the latest in the Student Watch Campus Market Research series sponsored by the NACS Foundation.
About 61% of students said price was the determining factor in choosing to buy texts online while 21% said friends' recommendations were most important and 18% said professors' recommendations swayed them most of all.
The survey was taken at 21 campuses, and more than 16,000 students participated. For more information, go to the NACS Web site.
---
Built for the students of Wilkes University, King's College and the Luzerne County Community College, a college bookstore planned for downtown Wilkes-Barre, Pa., will also serve the general public and is intended to boost business and traffic, according to the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader.
Follett, which currently manages the Wilkes and King's bookstores, is in the running with Barnes & Noble College to manage the new store at the Innovation Center@Wilkes-Barre. The former Woolworth's building has been vacant since 1994.
The paper noted that the move four years ago of the Colgate Bookstore, Hamilton, N.Y., to much larger space downtown from a spot on campus has helped boost traffic. Now the store "is considered an anchor for Hamilton."
---
Serving the lonely?
Bertelsmann plans to transform its Direct Group of book, CD and DVD clubs into "an Internet networking scene for older people," Reuters reported. "People are getting older . . . and older people are getting lonelier and they will need communities where they can share their interests," CEO Gunter Thielen said. Direct Group runs book and music clubs in 22 countries.
---
Dave Caswell, who founded the Indiana Authors Bookstore in Indianapolis in December, plans to start a magazine that will publish new fiction by emerging Indiana authors, the Indianapolis Star reported. Almost all titles for sale in the store are by or about Indiana authors--they include Kurt Vonnegut, Lew Wallace, Booth Tarkington and Dan Wakefield. The store also sells coffee and offers free wi-fi.
Indiana Authors Bookstore is located at 36 E. Maryland St.; 317-633-4070.
---
The Cape Cod Times surveyed the state of independent bookstores on the Cape, emphasizing both bookselling's difficult economics and its many satisfactions. For example, Carol Chittenden, owner of Eight Cousins, the children's bookstore in Falmouth, told the paper she has not worked less than a 70-hour week in 19 years. ''I'm not sure if it's the best thing in the world for mental health, but it's a fun seventy hours a week."