Marshall Smith, co-owner with Brad Jonas of
the Chicago International Remainder and Overstock Book Exposition, was
"very positive" about the 2007 edition of CIROBE, held October 26-28.
"There were about 6% less tables this year," Smith told Bargain Book News.
"There are fewer and fewer bookstores, too. But we picked up lot of
international and non-traditional book buyers, which is good. . . . We
were down total number of bodies, about 60 to 70, this year. But we had
the largest walk-up crowd (on-site registrations) in four or five
years. We can't explain that."
The most significant change for
2007 was an earlier opening time of 9 a.m. on Friday. "I think it
changed some things," said Smith, "It accomplished what we wanted it
to, maximize the number of hours on peak day, which is Friday. I was
concerned that it seemed slower on Saturday, but I talked to a lot of
people and even though it didn't look busy it was steady and I heard
from a lot of people that it was the best show ever."
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Bookselling This Week
reports that, thanks to the efforts of the ABA and a number of
independent booksellers, websites for National Public Radio and the New York Times have added Booksense.com as an online book purchasing option.
"We are pleased that BookSense.com is now offered as an option on both the New York Times
and National Public Radio websites," said BookSense.com director Len
Vlahos. "There is no question that many serious readers who frequent
independent bookstores often turn to NPR or the Times 'Books'
sections to help them find the next great read. It's only fitting then
to provide these consumers with the choice of shopping at a local
bookstore by including a link to BookSense.com."
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Black Friday is just around the corner, and BTW
features a list of helpful reminders regarding deadlines, supply
resources, and marketing suggestions for booksellers as they prepare
for the impending holiday shopping season.
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Is Miami a "bookstore desert?" On the eve of the Miami Book Fair International, when the city momentarily becomes "the nation's largest bookstore," the Miami Herald lamented that "if you're looking for a comprehensive, general-interest bookstore within city boundaries any other time of the year, buena suerte. There is none."
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A new Rowling book.
The Guardian reported that in "the first book she has completed since the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling has re-entered his world, writing a collection of five wizarding fairy stories entitled The Tales of Beedle the Bard."
Rowling
wrote and illustrated the book by hand, and only seven copies will be
printed. While six will be gifts "to people closely connected with the
Harry Potter books over the years of their gestation," the seventh,
"bound in brown morocco leather and mounted with silver and
semiprecious stones, will be auctioned at Sotheby's on December 13 with
a starting price of £30,000 ($62,455). Proceeds will benefit Rowling's
charity, the Children's Voice."
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And a non-Rowling book.
J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. filed suit against RDR Books, a small Michigan publisher that plans to publish the Harry Potter Lexicon, a book version of a popular website. According to the AP, the suit "claims that RDR Books will infringe on Rowling's intellectual property rights" if it publishes the book.
Rowling
contends in the lawsuit that the book would interfere with her plans to
write a definitive HP encyclopedia. "I cannot, therefore, approve of
'companion books' or 'encyclopedias' that seek to preempt my definitive
Potter reference book for their authors' own personal gain," Rowling
said in a news release issued by Warner Bros.
Roger Rapoport,
RDR Books publisher, was "dismayed" by the suit, "but vowed that he
wouldn't allow it to block plans to release the Lexicon next month."
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That
long tradition of dismissing Los Angeles as "a cultural wasteland where
nobody reads" has been upstaged by a lit scene that "continues to grow
and thrive, powered by a battalion of independent bookstores, small
presses, writing programs and blogs," according to a Los Angeles Times
profile of "a literary scene entirely unique to L.A., where the more
homely book clubs of the '90s and glaring lights of bookstore events
have morphed into a new twist on the literary salon--club-like and
often celeb-studded affairs."