Half Price Books, which buys and sells new
and used books, magazines, comics, records, CDs, DVDs and collectible
items, is opening two more stores today, in Palatine and Bloomingdale,
Ill., its second and third stores in the Chicago area and its 87th and
88th stores nationwide.
The 9,600-sq.-ft. Palatine store is in Park Place Shopping Center; the
12,700-sq.-ft. Bloomingdale store is in Bloomingdale Court Shopping
Center.
"Our stores are unique in that we offer a different inventory than
other major retail bookstores," president and CEO Sharon Anderson
Wright said in a statement. "There will be something different every
time you come in, and since consumers can sell their books directly to
us, many items aren't available in other bookstores."
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A fake genetics company called Nextgencode, featured in videos on YouTube and other Web sites, aims to promote Michael Crichton's next book, Next (HarperCollins, $27.95, 0060872985), which appears November 28, according to today's Wall Street Journal. Viewers who "follow the videos' directions and go to the Nextgencode Web site" and then click on "new book reveals trade secrets" discover a picture of Next.
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Sandra Dear has been promoted to v-p of group company, custom
and proprietary sales at Penguin. She was formerly v-p of
merchandising, warehouse clubs. Before joining Penguin a year ago, Dear
worked at AMS for 10 years and was a buyer at Penney.
Barbara O'Shea, president of non trade sales at Penguin Group, said
that since arriving at Penguin, Dear "has increased our business in
just about every account where we sell custom product and she has
already brought new customers to the table." She will continue to use
the backlist of Penguin Group and its U.K. and Australian sister
companies "to produce unique product in a wide variety of new formats."