BookExpo America will remain in New York City for the foreseeable future, according to BEA show director Steve Rosato, who wrote on the BEAN blog that although Chicago has been explored as an alternative, "with the possible exception of 2016, it appears we will be able to lock up dates at Javits [Center] either the week prior to or the week after Memorial Day through 2017, which has historically worked for BEA. All of our key strategy points and measurable performance indexes make New York the ideal location for BEA. That includes proximity for buying groups, ease for international participation and media."
BEA will remain a mid-week--Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday--event. One change: next year all Book & Author events will be breakfasts. "We opted not to add back an author lunch, feeling that the condensed schedule last year elevated the already lofty quality of the Book & Author events. Also, occupying booksellers' time for lunch is taking opportunities away from publishers; which we want to avoid," Rosato noted.
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Early next year, bestselling author and entrepreneur Seth Godin will launch the Domino Project with an initial list of six titles, using Amazon's "Powered by Amazon" publishing program. Godin will serve as the lead writer, creative director and instigator for a series of "Idea Manifestos" under his new imprint, which will include books by other authors, entrepreneurs and thought leaders.
On his blog, Godin observed: "The notion of the paper book as merely a package for information is slowly becoming obsolete. There must be other reasons on offer, or smart people will go digital, or read something free. The book is still an ideal tool for the hand-to-hand spreading of important ideas, though. The point of the book is to be spread, to act as a manifesto, to get in sync with others, to give and to get and to hand around. Our goal is to offer ideas that people need and want to spread, to enjoy and to hold and to own, and to change conversations."
He also noted that the Domino Project "is designed to (at least by way of example) remap" many of the traditional foundations of publishing due to several factors:
The reader is tightly connected with the publisher and the author.
Pricing can vary based on volume, on timing, on format.
Digital goods and manifestos in book form make it easier to spread complex ideas.
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Jeff Bezos was profiled by Marketwatch as one of this year's finalists for CEO of the Year: "For 15 years, the founder and chief executive of Amazon.com has made a surprisingly lucrative career of bewildering employees, investors and customers. And despite occasional griping, those constituencies have chosen to reward Bezos with a high degree of loyalty that has transformed a company once derided as Amazon-dot-bomb into what many consider one of the best-run companies in America.... The secret--at least the one that Bezos has outlined on several occasions--lies in a willingness to make big bets and stick to them, even when conventional wisdom fails to foresee a payoff. Of course, it helps greatly when they are the right bets."Apparently he also works well with some governmental authorities (see following item).
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Amazon plans to build a distribution center in Cayce, S.C., that will have 1,250 full-time employees, WIS-TV reported, noting that "county officials and some of the state's top governmental leaders met in Lexington Tuesday evening to approve incentives that included tax breaks and donating 90 acres of land near Interstates 77 and 26.""There was a combination of factors [behind Amazon's decision]," said Amazon executive Frederick Kiga. "One is the proximity to markets, the other is the availability of workforce, and thirdly is a cooperation of state and local officials to get things done.... We hope to wrap this up and be in construction by early next year, if not this year." The warehouse is expected to open before Christmas 2011.
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation updated its E-Book Buyer's Guide to E-Book Privacy--"which summarizes and comments on the privacy-related policies of several e-readers"--by adding the iPad as well as "the software used by many libraries and devices for e-book access, made by Adobe called Adobe Content Server." ---
"If the e-reader is the digital equivalent of the brown-paper wrapper, the romance reader is a little like the Asian carp: insatiable and unstoppable. Together, it turns out, they are a perfect couple," the New York Times wrote in its exploration of "the fastest-growing segment of the e-reading market."Sarah Wendell, blogger and co-author (with Candy Tan) of Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels, is a dedicated reader of romance e-books, which disguise "the mullets and the man chests" of the covers. "They are not always something that you are comfortable holding in your hand in public," she said.
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Yesterday morning,
Jason Ashlock, founder of Movable Type Literary Group, invited readers
of his blog "to share why
you read. Log on to Twitter, toss down the hash tag #whyIread, and share what
continues to draw you to books. We all have our reasons, and we'd love to hear
yours.
I'll start. Here’s #whyIread:
#WhyIread Novels open up a space for characters to transform; by witnessing that transformation, I am able to change, too."
By mid-afternoon, the hashtag had clearly struck a chord with book-loving Twitterers. The meme become a national trending topic on Twitter, with more than 16,000 responses.
---Czech writer and translator Heda Margolius Kovaly, whose memoir Under a Cruel Star "became a classic account of life under totalitarianism," died last Sunday, the New York Times reported. She was 91.
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Salt Lake City Police said that Sherry Black, the co-owner of B&W Collector Books who was fatally stabbed in her shop last week (Shelf Awareness, December 3, 2010), "unknowingly purchased 14 rare stolen LDS books from a gang member, who had a history of making violent threats. In February of 2009, 20-year-old Lorin Nielsen was arrested and charged with stealing books from his father, a polygamous church president," according to KSL-TV.
The Deseret News reported that Nielsen, who had pleaded guilty to the theft in April 2009 and was sentenced to 90 days in jail, "was booked into Salt Lake County Jail on Monday for a violation of his probation in the theft case. Detectives, however, would not say whether he is being investigated in connection with the homicide."
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UNC-TV profiled Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe, Asheville, N.C., where as manager Linda Barrett Knopp said, "coffee is almost as important as the book selection." Knopp also easily passed a pop quiz on categories in which certain titles are shelved.
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On Black Friday, the aptly named Book Store opened in downtown Loganville, Ga., the Tribune reported. "One of the main reasons we opened in Loganville is because the owner herself is a Loganville resident and wanted a location closer to home," said Seth Duckett, the bookshop's manager. He is the grandson of owner Pam DeHetre, who also manages a sister bookstore in Snellville and wanted "to be able to capitalize on some of the events that are held in Loganville and to make sure the residents had a bookstore in the area."---
The generation gap: books and music category. From Seattle Times writer Moira Macdonald: "Overheard at the bookstore... and passed on to me, so I thought I'd pass it on to you because it's both movie-related and funny: Yesterday, at my neighborhood bookstore, two college-age young men paused before a display of Life, Keith Richards' new autobiography. 'Dude!' said one to the other. 'It's that guy who was Johnny Depp's dad in Pirates of the Caribbean!' "---
Anne Holt, a mystery author who "began her career in the Oslo police department before founding her own law firm," selected her top 10 fictional female detectives for the Guardian.
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Dave Eggers, Laura Lippman, Tao Lin and 15 other authors chose their favorite books of 2010 for Salon.
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Richard Harvell featured Three Books to Rekindle Your Sense of Wonder for NPR. His choices were The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind and Candide, Or Optimism by Francois Voltaire.
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Bookcase of the day: Singapore furniture retailer Munkii's The Vintage offers the look of "a classic bookcase in a beautiful white box," Decodir.com reported.
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Flavorwire showcased 5 Forgotten Literary Vampires, noting that "there have actually been vampire lit cults for years--and, yes, we mean farther back than Interview with the Vampire. Long before Bram Stoker created his iconic Count Dracula, this supernatural creature had transitioned from rural folklore to the printed page with great success in 19th-century pop culture."
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Kristine Macrides has been promoted to director of marketing and sales development in the Avon/Morrow division at HarperCollins, a new and expanded role. She has worked at the company for nine years.