Continuing a recent trend of reversing policy decisions, New York
Governor Eliot Spitzer has backed down on an effort to
begin having Amazon.com and other e-tailers collect sales tax on
purchases from New York, according to the New York Sun.
The governor's budget director said in a statement that the move, which
was scheduled to go into effect on December 7 (Shelf Awareness,
November 14, 2007), will be postponed until at least after the
holidays.
The paper said that state Republicans were preparing to attack the
policy as "evidence that the governor had reneged on his pledges not to
raise taxes."
The postponed policy would have considered Amazon's affiliates as
sufficient nexus to require the company to collect sales tax from
customers in New York.
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Amazon.com will unveil its e-book reader on Monday in New York, according to the AP
and CNET Networks. The Kindle, as the device is said to be called,
apparently includes a headphone jack for listening to audiobooks and
can download publications such as the New York Times.
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Bookselling This Week
profiles Brad Smith and the Paulina Springs Books, Sisters, Ore., which
he bought in 2003. On December 1, he celebrates by opening a second
bookstore in nearby Redmond. "I just felt there was a really good
opportunity there," Smith told BTW. "The new store will be very
similar in character and displays, but I have to get in there to find
out what my customers' interests are to know what to stock.
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Thirteen booksellers opened stores in October and became members of the American Booksellers Association. See them here.
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The Escapes section of the New York Times escapes to the Pioneer Valley
in central Massachusetts, checking out bookstores in Northampton,
Amherst and nearby towns. An accompanying story,
with a very nice photo of the Odyssey Bookshop, S. Hadley, highlights
the many author events that take place at stores in the area.
Similarly, the Student Life, the student paper of Pomona College, Claremont, Calif., offers an armchair tour of bookstores in Los Angeles County.
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Larry Portzline, founder of bookstore tourism
and the National Council on Bookstore Tourism, is creating Friends of
Indie Bookstores USA, a membership organization similar to the Friends
of Libraries USA that aims to "promote and support independent
bookstores by actively engaging indie 'fans' in a variety of ways,
including news, events, advocacy, information sharing, bookstore
tourism, social networking, and marketing programs."
He hopes funding will come from multi-level memberships, grants,
corporate sponsors and products and service. The organization will also
seek programming and marketing partnerships with the bookselling
industry, publishers, libraries, educators, literacy organizations and
others. Portzline also imagines that Friends of Indie Bookstores
chapters will form in cities and towns around the country and
work with local indies.
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Bill Pronzini will receive the title of Grand Master
from the Mystery Writers of America next May 1 in New York City
during the Edgar Awards banquet. MWA executive v-p Daniel J. Hale said
that Pronzini "is not only a passionate author and reader of crime
fiction--he is also one of the most ardent proponents of the genre. For
40 years, he has distinguished himself with consistently high-quality
writing and editing in all areas of the field, including creating one
of the longest-lasting detective series ever."
Pronzini has written more than 70 books, including 32 novels in the
Nameless Detective series and three written with his wife, Marcia
Muller, who was the MWA's Grand Master in 2005.
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Another charge against O.J.: Amir Pourtemour is suing O.J. Simpson, charging that If I Did It borrowed from his 1995 book, The Perfect Alibi: O.J. Simpson's Strategy for Murder, the New York Times reported.
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Are aging Boomers bookstore bound? The Hartford Courant suggested that when "leading-edge Boomers" begin hitting the age of 62 in January, they will enter a frontier "with a myriad of new challenges, including retirement decisions, health problems, care-giving responsibilities and financial issues."
Where will they go for advice?
"Boomers
are getting into their 60s and they're starting to panic as they see
those unmistakable signs of aging," said Sarah Bedell, owner of the
Bookworm bookstore, West Hartford, Conn. "They've controlled every part
of their lives up to now and they want to be able to control, or even
avoid, old age as well. So they're seeking out as much information as
they can find to try to hold off the inevitable."
The Courant
reported that "publishers are responding to this perceived need by
filling store shelves with new guides on healthy aging, avoiding memory
loss, retirement, downsizing and other aging-related topics."
"I
expect that this is a trend that's going to continue for a long time,"
said Bedell. "There's a receptive audience and millions more coming.
We're going to see increasing numbers of these books as boomers head on
throughout every stage of their lives."
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Nancy Frater, owner of BookLore, Orangeville, Ontario, told the Orangeville Citizen
that she "remains undaunted and determined to soldier on" despite the
recent announcements by Canadian chain stores, including Wal-Mart, that
they will be selling books at U.S. listed prices. "The stock at
Wal-Mart is different than at BookLore," she said. "I don't look at
Wal-Mart as competitors. I look at them more as colleagues."
Frater
has decided, however, to re-price books at U.S. price plus 10%
and sell children's books at par. "Three weeks ago, we started to
re-price," she said. "You have to make the decision that you still
have to keep your customers." She continues to believe that she holds the
advantage in her commitment to the community: "The independent book
store always supports the community. We have a mandate to support local
authors and illustrators."
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Iceland is experiencing a reading and publishing boom, according to Iceland Review,
which expressed amazement at "how much is published in this country
of a mere 300,000 souls who seem to spend their evenings and weekends
writing poems, novels, cook books and biographies. Very few get rich
from their penmanship. Why? Because a bestselling book in this country
will sell perhaps 8,000 to 12,000 copies."
The Association of Publishers' most recent Journal of Books
lists 800 titles published this year, compared to 392 in 1997. Iceland
Review noted that "publishers have in recent years found a way to
reverse the reading habits of the nation. They have increasingly
started to publish popular books in paperback versions, which are
popular among the younger generation. . . . The ever-expanding tourist
market is also lucrative and has opened a new market for photographic
books about Iceland and souvenirs in the form of translated books."
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At his blog,
Picador U.K. publisher Andrew Kidd offers more details on recently
announced plans to publish some books next spring in simultaneous
paperback and hardcover editions.
Since the announcement,
"most authors, and their agents, have been very positive. Booksellers,
in the main, have given the idea the thumbs up. The press has been
generally (sometimes even wildly) enthusiastic, with a few unsurprising
exceptions, and it's reassuring to discover that people remain open to
change."
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"Main street bookstores at risk" was the headline in the Kyiv Post
for an article on the declining number of bookshops in Ukraine's
capital city. Recently, civic activists pressured the city
council to preserve the Znannya bookstore, the last surviving bookshop on Khreshchatyk, Kyiv's main street.
In
1991, there were 140 bookstores in the city, but Oleksandr Afonin, president of the
Ukrainian Association of Publishers and Booksellers, said that only 36
bookshops are open now, including "several book supermarkets." He
called the situation countrywide "almost
disastrous"--the number of bookstores in
Ukraine
has declined from 3,000 in 1991 to about 500.
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More on signed book clubs: Richard Davies of AbeBooks.com confirms the observation yesterday by Mary Benham at Book Passage that members of that store's First Editions Club who bought signed first editions of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini when it appeared in 2003 were prescient. This year on AbeBooks.com a signed first edition of The Kite Runner sold for $1,500.