Unionized workers at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square walked off the job at 2 PM on Friday, December 22 to protest “the company’s failure to return on economic portions of the contract amid their highest sales season.” After joining the RWDSU in June, employees have met with management to negotiate a contract throughout the fall. According to the union, last week, ceo James Daunt came to the bargaining table. In a release, the union stated, “If the company wants to live up to James Daunt’s vision of a well trained, knowledgeable sales team, and a shopping experience for […]
Archives for December 2023
People 12/21
Holiday Sales Come Down to Final Week
For the sales week ending December 16, Circana Bookscan reports weekly sales of 28.6 million units, falling behind last year’s sales of 29.5 million units in the same week. But with Christmas on Monday, booksellers should see another very full week of sales leading into the holiday. As Circana Bookscan analyst Kristen McLean wrote a week ago, “Overall we expect the close of 2023 to look very much like 2022 — two shallower ‘Super Saturdays’ rather than a single high peak.” Unit sales are expected to run about 3 percent below last year’s totals. For the eight weeks of sales […]
The Very Best of the Best Books of 2023
The votes are all in and we’re ready to celebrate the consensus very best books of 2023, based on a broad collection of lists. James McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store was both novel of the year and overall book of the year, followed in the voting by Safiya Sinclair’s How to Say Babylon and David Grann’s The Wager, which tied for nonfiction book of the year. Farrar, Straus outperformed this year with five titles among the top 20. Independent publishers were represented by newcomers Red Tower and Yale University Press, as well as Grove/Atlantic. Sinclair’s memoir was first […]
Distribution: Five New Publishers for IPG
The phazelFOZ Company’s print titles are now distributed by Independent Publishers Group in the US and Canada. Momentum Press is now distributed in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Oceania by Independent Publishers Group’s academic and professional division, Eurospan. Starting on January 1, Hummingbird Press will be distributed by IPG worldwide. Also on January 1, Eurospan will distribute Zophorus Books worldwide and Manohar Books worldwide, excluding South Asia.
Small Beer Press To Halt Publication
Small Beer Press, which closed for submissions in March 2023, will likely cease publication permanently due to the publisher’s health problems. Publisher Gavin Grant has experienced health complications caused by Covid-19. He wrote, “In 2022 we only managed to publish two books. This year we published four and here at the end of the year I see how much these books missed the old me…. I’d thought there was a chance I could keep Small Beer going but it is too much for me. As long as the authors are happy, we’ll keep the books in print—or sell them on […]