Discovery Communications is closing its 103 Discovery Channel
stores, some of which are in malls and some free-standing, according to
various news reports. The company is firing more than 1,000 employees,
about 25% of its workforce, and will focus on selling books, toys,
games and DVDs online as well as on its TV and cable programs and on licensing. Discovery
Communications recently fired about 200 corporate employees. Some
analysts speculated that the company is preparing to go public.
The Discovery Channel stores include Nature Company outlets that were
converted to Discovery stores after Discovery bought Nature Company.
Like many nontraditional book retailers, Discovery carried only a few
hundred book titles but often sold many copies of them.
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The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers
Association is holding its third annual summer trunk show in upstate
New York. The event will take place Wednesday, June 20, at the Holiday
Inn Carrier Center in Syracuse, starting with breakfast at 8:30 and
lasting the day. Some 22 publishers are expected. To RSVP (and reserve
sessions and receive ARCs), contact NAIBA's Eileen Dengler at info@naiba.com or 516-333-0681. Much of the organizing is being done by Rob Stahl, general book manager at the Colgate Bookstore.
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"I've never been daunted by a bookstore before," wrote Samanth Subramanian in the Hindu of her recent encounter with the legendary Strand bookstore in New York. "But every towering shelf on every floor involves identical processes of contemplation--of squatting uncomfortably to examine the lowest row, of straightening slowly, of craning the neck for the row just out of eyeshot, of dragging over stepladders to reach up to the highest level, of scratching the head in sheer astonishment at the number of writers you've never heard of, and of morosely re-surveying the contents of your wallet, before moving onto the next shelf."
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Scoop and counter-scoop: In Thursday's edition of Shelf Awareness, we highlighted an LA Weekly article that focused on local indie booksellers and the "bookish set." Friday's LAist featured its "Summer Guide to Bookish LA," along with the story of "behind-the-scenes" editorial planning for the piece. They conceded that "LA Weekly scooped us. Big time. They also used the word "bookish" which is, kind of, our word. Whatever."
The good news for indie bookstores is that those mentioned in the LA Weekly piece received a second nod in LAist, which then expanded the guide to include Acres of Books, Book Alley, Hennessey + Ingalls, Samuel French, Earth 2, Portrait of a Bookstore, Traveler's Bookcase, Every Picture Tells a Story and Bodhi Tree Bookstore.
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"There's an old joke about how to be a millionaire book seller," John Henricks, owner of Recollected Books in Jacksonville, Ala., told the Montgomery Advertiser. "Start with two million." The Advertiser profiled the used book dealer and his strategy for dealing with potential summer doldrums "when students are gone and professors wander away."
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What's better than having a handful of editors throw stuff against the
wall and seeing what sticks? At least one publisher wants to open the
process to the public, according to today's New York Times. Touchstone is teaming up with Media Predict,
a kind of online trading market that will post book ideas that
participants with "fantasy cash" will bet on for their potential
success. Touchstone will select some 50 semi-finalists and by September
five finalists, which it may or may not publish.
It's the second recent effort by Touchstone "to gauge popular tastes,"
as the Times put it. The S&S imprint and Gather.com are running "an American Idol-style contest" in which participants pick a manuscript for Touchstone to publish.
Call us crazy but we'd bet our fantasy cash on the concept that
a lot of good ideas and judges can be found in bookstores and libraries
around the country, where the industry has its greatest contact with
readers.