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The rights to the unpublished O.J. Simpson book, If I Did It,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.