Russo’s Books will close their downtown Bakersfield bookstore after 12 years, continuing to operate their two other larger mall-based locations. Owner Michael Russo tells the local paper, “The economy is slow and there just wasn’t enough business to continue operating all three, especially when two of them were just three and a half miles apart.”Bakersfield Californian
Archives for July 2008
Former Editors of Los Angeles Times Book Review Protest Paper's Decision to End Weekly Section
Steve Wasserman e-mailed this letter, also signed by Sonja Bolle, Digby Diehl, and Jack Miles: As former editors of the Los Angeles Times Book Review (1975 through 2005), we are dismayed and troubled at the decision by Sam Zell and his managers to cease publishing the paper’s Sunday Book Review. This step signals the end of an era begun 33 years ago when Otis Chandler, then the paper’s publisher and owner, announced the debut of the weekly section. Since then, the growth of the Los Angeles metropolitan region and the avidity of its numerous readers and writers has been palpable. […]
Shorts: No Clifford for Your Party; Ulin on Review Errors
* So it has come to this. The owners of branded children’s characters are delighted to sell plates, napkins, decorations, favors and more for birthday parties, but don’t think you can have someone dressed up as that character attend the party. The WSJ reports: “In recent years, corporations that own the rights to some of the more popular characters, companies that include Marvel, Scholastic and HIT Entertainment, have sent cease-and-desist letters, threatened lawsuits and in some cases received settlements from companies that market unauthorized character impersonators. The threats rattle the costume industry.” At least Scholastic does provide costume rentals for […]
Another Book Review Editor Gone
As part of the combination of buyouts and layoffs cutting deeply at the Tribune Company’s Hartford Courant (where they intend to eliminate 25 percent of editorial pages), books editor since 2002 Carole Goldberg is leaving the paper.
Today's Book Deal Highlights: Ron Paul, Tori Spelling, and More
The new reports on the PublishersMarketplace deals page include: Ron Paul’s memoir of his thirty-year career in politics; Tori Spelling’s MOMMYWOOD; screenwriter Dianne Dixon’s debut novel, LIMA STREET; and Andrea Mays’ THE MAN WHO SAVED SHAKESPEARE.New Deals page
At CBA Show, Zondervan Introduces Download-by-Card
The Tamba Bay newspaper covers the CBA’s International Christian Retail Show in Orlando, with approximately 7,000 attendees (and no exhibit from Thomas Nelson). Non-book merchandise captures the paper’s attention more than books, including everything from “a Christian version of the wildly popular Guitar Hero video game to ‘witness wear’ clothing and skateboard art that proclaim faith in bold cultural statements.” With Nelson’s absence, the show appears to be in serious decline, with numbers well below the approximately 9,250 attendees recorded the two previous years. (Even that number is well below the show’s high-water-mark of almost 15,000 attendees from 1999.) Publisher […]