In the UK, the shortlists were announced for the Costa Awards in four categories. Women claimed all the nominations for best novel, while men took most of the first novel slots: Novel Life After Life, Kate Atkinson Unexpected Lessons in Love, Bernardine Bishop Instructions for a Heatwave, Maggie O’Farrell All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld First Novel Idiopathy, Sam Byers Meeting the English, Kate Clanchy The Shock of the Fall, Nathan Filer Marriage Material, Sathnam Sanghera In Canada, trade magazine Quill & Quire named their top six works of fiction of the year: The Orenda, Joseph Boyden The Luminaries, Elizabeth […]
Archives for November 2013
Yet Another Weak Quarter for Books-A-Million
Hours after Barnes & Noble reported their second quarter financial results, Books-A-Million did the same Tuesday afternoon for its third quarter following the close of the market. Sales for the quarter ending November 2 fell 3.5 percent to $100.5 million. Same-store sales declined further, down 9.2 percent — and they had another big net loss of $7.1 million, or 47 cents per share (compared to a loss of $2.7 million a year ago). CEO Terrance Finley said in the release: “Our third quarter results are an improvement over the very difficult comparisons in the first half of the year. Comparable […]
People, Etc.
Publishers Weekly named American Booksellers Association ceo Oren Teicher and the ABA’s board of directors as their “person of the year” for 2013, “for their role in leading the resurgence of independent bookselling.” Former DC entertainment vp of publicity (and before that publicist at Vintage and Anchor) David Hyde has launched Superfan Promotions in Los Angeles. The company will create publicity and marketing campaigns, events, and social media engagement for authors, artists, conventions, festivals, stores, entertainment companies and publishers. Managing director of Penguin Digital in the UK Anna Rafferty will serve as chair of the London Book Fair’s Digital Minds […]
More 2013 Picks
The Christian Science Monitor published two lists of their top 15 works of fiction and nonfiction for 2013. Listed in numbered order, they are: Fiction The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, by Mohsin Hamid A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki Harvest, by Jim Crace We Need New Names, by NoViolet Bulawayo MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt Sycamore Row, by John Grisham We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, by […]
Barnes & Noble Sells Less of Everything — But Shows Surprise Profit
Barnes & Noble reported weak sales across all of their divisions for the company’s fiscal second quarter (ending October 26), but a slightly smaller Nook loss and some of the fee concessions they’ve won from publishers for the retail stores allowed the company to produce something strange: actual net income. Sales for the quarter were $1.73 billion, down 8 percent or $150 million from a year ago, but EBITDA of $75.7 million was $9.1 million higher than 2012 and net income of $13 million, or 15 cents a share, was much improved and well ahead of expectations. (The loss for the […]
Bookselling, Etc.: Fundraising for Changing Hands and St. Mark’s; Harper’s Inflight Experiment
Changing Hands Bookstore has planned to open a second location in Phoenix, AZ for quite some time, but they hope to make it a reality thanks to a crowdfunding campaign to raise $80,000. It’s a fixed-funding campaign, which means backers will see their money returned if the store doesn’t reach its goal by December 24, and the store told Shelf Awareness that goal “is just a fraction of what we need to build a new indie bookstore. We’re putting up the bulk of the funding from our own resources. The $80K we hope to raise with this project will bring […]