Notes: Popoff Back on at Borders; Booksmith Livestreaming

Borders Group has re-hired Kathryn Popoff as v-p, merchandising, in charge of promotion and merchandising of adult trade and bargain books. She had joined Borders originally in 2002 as director of multimedia; became director of merchandising, adult trade books, in 2004; and was promoted to v-p, merchandising, a position she held until she left in November 2009.

At the same time, as part of what the company called an investment in a "talented merchant team," Larry Norton has been promoted to senior v-p, business development and publisher relations, where he will focus on "strategies to strengthen the book sector, including partnering with publishers and e-book provider Kobo to develop digital content with the overall goal of aggressively growing the company's e-book business. He will also work with publishers on initiatives directly related to lowering costs and increasing efficiencies within the supply chain network." A 25-year veteran of Simon & Schuster and William Morrow, Norton joined the company August 2009.

Children's merchandising director Renee Rockwood will now oversee gifts and stationery, children's toys and games and Borders's expansion of adult games and puzzles. She continues to manage children's merchandising and promotion.

Joanna Goldstein has been promoted to v-p, non-book merchandising, and will oversee digital devices and accessories as well as calendar, newsstand and multimedia.

In a related move, announced last month, Mike Ferrari has joined the company as merchandising director, trade books, after serving at Barnes & Noble, most recently as director, digital content, for B&N.com.

CEO Mike Edwards commented: "We recognize that traditional bookselling is a core part of our business and one in which we will continue to invest both talent and resources. At the same time we see strong growth potential with key non-book categories like digital, gifts and stationery and toys and games--products that complement our book offerings."

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Barnes & Noble has officially joined the self-publishing ranks: yesterday it launched PubIt!, which allows publishers and authors to distribute e-titles through B&N.com and B&N's eBookstore. Already, according to B&N, "tens of thousands" of titles are available on the service from "thousands" of publishers and authors who registered for the service since it was announced in May.

The payment structure rewards titles priced between $2.99 and $9.99: the royalty for them is 65% of the list price. For titles priced below and above that, the royalty rate is 40%.

PubIt! titles will be promoted in various ways, including a PubIt! bestseller list and via selections appearing in e-mails, newsletters and throughout B&N.com.

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The Booksmith, San Francisco, Calif., is partnering with beNOWtv to livestream its author events. Seven events are being livestreamed this month, starting last night with Tao Lin.

Christin Evans, co-owner of the Booksmith, commented: "Our partnership with beNOWtv is helping us further realize our goal of becoming a bookstore for the 21st century. Livestreaming high-quality video of our author events over the Internet to viewers in San Francisco, nationally and globally allows us to enhance and extend our community of authors and readers."

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One way to track how fast Apple is manufacturing iPads is to watch where they are being sold, according to Fortune, which noted that since the device's April launch "in a couple hundred U.S.-based Apple Stores and, in very short supply, at some Best Buy outlets," it has sold so well that it "wasn't until late August that supplies caught up to demand. By then Apple was selling the iPad in 19 countries and was set to expand sales to five South American countries and China, where it would be sold at Apple's four stores on the mainland and selected China Unicom outlets. Then on Sunday the iPad arrived at Target's 1,743 U.S. outlets, roughly doubling its retail presence overnight."

Fortune suggested that "there are still 82 shopping days until Christmas, plenty of time to expand some more."

MacRumors.com reported that in addition to the new Target placement, "several readers have also reported to us that Amazon has begun offering the iPad directly through its own store. Availability is limited to the 32 GB and 64 GB Wi-Fi-only models for the time being."

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The first of Algonquin Books' new series, Booksellers Rock!, focuses on Stephanie Anderson, general manager of WORD, Brooklyn, N.Y., who is an occasional contributor to Shelf Awareness, too. Our favorite of the q&a's:

If I weren't selling books, I'd be:

A happy middle-school English teacher, a dissatisfied East Asian Studies scholar, or a miserable lawyer.

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Here is another entry in the Secretariat field--that is, for the movie opening on Friday: Secretariat by Raymond Woolfe, Jr. (Taylor Trade/Derrydale Press, distributed by NBN, $24.95, 9781586671174/1586671170), which was published in paperback this summer. It's a biography and chronology of the Triple Crown winner that features Woolfe's pictures of the horse, its trainers and owner Penny Chenery. The hardcover edition, first published in 2001, sold more than 60,000 copies in eight months.

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Book trailer of the day: Trail of Blood: A Novel of Suspense by Lisa Black (Morrow), which stars forensics scientist Theresa MacLean and is based on the Torso Murders in Cleveland in the 1930s.

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New York Comic Con will be held at the Javits Center in New York City this weekend, October 8-10, and publishers and book industry professionals qualify for professional badges. These allow holders to attend trade programming and to get into the show during professional hours, Friday 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

Programming includes Marketing Your Graphic Novels; The Other Side of the Table: Lessons from Creators; and Why Graphic Novels Should Be in Your Library.

Advance tickets are available until 1 p.m., Wednesday, via nycomiccon.com: weekend pass, $50; Friday pass, $30; Saturday pass, $40; Sunday pass, $30. Tickets bought onsite: weekend pass, $65; Friday pass, $40; Saturday pass, $45; Sunday pass, $40.

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Bellevue, Tenn., hopes to get "a much-needed economic boost" sometime next year from the proposed addition of a restaurant and a bookstore--McKay Used Books--on Old Hickory Boulevard, the Tennessean reported.

"We haven't had a bookstore in Bellevue in years," said Denise Full, Chamber of Commerce president-elect. "Residents have constantly asked for more sit-down restaurants, so this is a boost for our community. Things were stalemate for a while."

Real estate broker Richard Jones added that the bookshop's owner, Ann Jacobson, who will move from her White Bridge Road location to Bellevue if the Metro Council approves rezoning the land in November, "wanted interstate identity, so the Bellevue location would give her that." Construction on the bookstore is expected to begin in early 2011.

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"Does The Independent Bookstore Have A Future?" asked Treehugger.com's Lloyd Alter, who explored the Bookery on Signal Hill, St. John's, Newfoundland, to show "how important the small independent retailer is to a viable main street and a walkable community."

Owner Russell Floren told Alter that he thinks the key point for the future of indies is "curation, the shop has to be special, different, and a reflection of the curator. The audience is attracted by the choices, the idiosyncrasies of the owner; Russell says he probably couldn't give away a John Grisham book to his user base. He sells a lot of poetry, saying. 'that's not something you want to read on a Kindle, you want to feel it.' "

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Second Story Books, Louisville, Ky., "has the look and feel of a cozy, disheveled, bohemian living room," according to the Courier-Journal, which noted that this is appropriate because the used bookshop "is also Jon Ashley's new home. He lives in the apartment upstairs. His living space is off-limits to customers, but they're welcome to plop down on a chair in the shop and read.... He wants patrons to feel at home--just as he did when he discovered the now-closed Twice Told Books on Bardstown Road, where Ashley once worked."

"When I first started wandering into Twice Told Books, I didn't have a lot of other places to go," he recalled. "C.S. Lewis said, 'We read to know we're not alone,' and I feel there's a lot of truth to that."

 

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