Oprah Winfrey's Book Club will live on in some form on her new cable network, OWN. USA Today
reported that "America's most popular reader" said she is "going to try
to develop a show for books and authors" even though the book club
shows seldom garnered big ratings. "Some things you do because it is
necessary. We've done okay with them. We found the more I could connect
the author and the book to the audience, the better the numbers would
be."USA Today called the book club's sales numbers "beyond compare," citing Fordham University marketing professor Al Greco's estimate that sales of the 70 Oprah editions since 1996 totaled about 55 million copies.
"She made book discussions interesting, educational and entertaining," Greco said. "Literature professors can be interesting and educational, but are they entertaining?"
Little, Brown publisher Michael Pietsch observed that Winfrey "didn't originate the idea of book clubs, but more than anyone, she has spread the idea of reading a book as a shared community.... She's a woman reader, and it's mostly women readers who responded to her selections. But she's open to all kinds of reading pleasures, from Toni Morrison to Jonathan Franzen."
---
More on Barnes & Noble, Liberty Media and e-readers.
A major attraction of B&N for Liberty Media chairman John Malone and CEO Greg Maffei, who spoke at a special shareholders meeting yesterday, is "the potential for the Nook platform to become the e-book application of choice for consumers on all tablet devices built on Google Inc.'s Android operating system," the Wall Street Journal said.
B&N should be helped, Malone continued, because of Borders's "financial woes" as well as "the publishing industry's interest in not allowing one retailer [i.e., Amazon] to become too powerful."Malone expressed support for B&N's stores, at least in some iteration, saying, "I've been a Barnes & Noble customer myself for many, many years. The stores will shift around, but there will be a physical presence for a long, long time to come, and it will be a profitable presence."
Today B&N is expected to launch a new version of the Nook, a day after Kobo, which is sold in the U.S. by Borders, launched its new $129.99 eReader Touch Edition--an e-reader with a touch screen.
Also yesterday dissident shareholder Ron Burkle's Yucaipa Cos. bought another 603,000 shares of B&N, bringing his holdings to 19.7% of the company. B&N closed at $18.59 a share yesterday, a 9.4% premium over Liberty Media's offer last week of $17 a share.
---
Are women readers writing the Nook Color's success story? The New York Times reported that B&N's device "has surprised publishers of women's magazines like O, The Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan and Women's Health
by igniting strong sales that rival--and in some cases surpass--sales
on the iPad.... On the surface, the reason for the strong performance of
female-oriented publications on the Nook is relatively straightforward.
Generically speaking, the iPad and other tablets are men's toys, while
the Nook Color and other e-readers are more popular with women."According to Forrester Research, 56% of tablet owners are male, 55% of e-reader owners are female, and "women also buy more books than men do--by a ratio of about 3 to 1, according to a survey last year by Bowker, a research firm for publishers--and are therefore more likely to buy devices that are made primarily for reading books," the Times wrote.
Salon's Drew Grant asked, "Why do women hate technology so much? This is the question never posed by the New York Times article today on the upswing in sales from the new Barnes & Noble Nook Color.... I'd be offended if the subtext wasn't that women actually just want to read, dammit, without checking Twitter or Facebook every five minutes."
---
Congratulations to Copperfield's Books, which started 30 years ago as 750-sq.-ft. store in Sebastopol and now has eight stores in Napa and Sonoma counties, north of San Francisco. Copperfield's is celebrating with a party on Saturday, June 4, at its Napa store. There will be author events; coffee, cake and snacks; music; and a 30% discount on most items, according to the Napa Valley Register.
---
In honor of Zombie Appreciation Month, the book trailer of the day: Zombie High Yearbook '64 by Jeff Busch (Sterling).
---In choosing Peter Pan's literary mixtape,
Flavorwire noted that "behind his devil-may-care attitude is a certain
sadness. After all, he must constantly forget what he learns about the
world in order to stay child-like, so he exists in a relatively static
state, neither growing nor changing.... Here’s what we think Peter would
fight pirates, think lovely wonderful thoughts, and never grow up to."
---
LeeEric Fesko is joining Thomas Nelson as the trade marketing director for Max Lucado titles. He was formerly director of web development at Big Idea Entertainment.
---
Effective June 20, graphic novel publisher Archaia Entertainment will be distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Publishers Group West. Archaia's backlist includes Mouse Guard, Return of the Dapper Men and The Killer. In the second half of this year, it's publishing 40 titles, including the illustrated prose edition of The Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes in July and an original graphic novel anthology to Relativity Media's Immortals in September.