The American Booksellers Association held their annual meeting and town hall virtually on Thursday. Incoming president Bradley Graham at Politics & Prose presented membership data that revealed the significant toll the pandemic (and potentially other factors) has had on the sector. “At the latest count, the ABA has 1,700 member companies and 2,100 locations,” Graham reported. A year ago the organization did not report membership data because of the pandemic, so the most recent comparison is from two years ago, when the numbers peaked at 1,887 members, operating 2,524 locations. Graham said the ABA “lost 80 members unfortunately due to […]
AAP Trade Publishers Were Up 35 Percent in March
The AAP released its Stat Shot statistics for March, showing a continuation of the very strong sales recorded at the start of the year. (More current measures, such as NPD Bookscan’s weekly statistics, show the big early gains moderating somewhat starting in mid April). Helped in part by an early Easter, overall trade sales were $685.5 million, up a big 35 percent (or $176 million) from $509.4 million in March 2020. That’s the level of total sales the trade more typically sees in September, when stores are loading up for the busy fall sales season. eBook sales of $84 million […]
Independent Booksellers On Selling Pence and More
A Book Show panel with four independent booksellers on Monday addressed a variety of current issues, from the transition back to regular in-store commerce to the challenges raised by authors such as Mike Pence and Blake Bailey. Asked by moderator Ed Nawotka at PW about dealing with controversial books and authors, the booksellers illuminated multiple perspectives. Co-owner of Tattered Cover Kwame Spearman said, “A former vice president writes an autobiography — you probably have to run that and yet the autobiography is going to be about four years at a time that was just incredibly divisive. It’s going to be […]
Back to the Future: Kobo Launches Writeable eReader
If you remember the Newton and the early days of dedicated ereaders, Kobo’s new product announcement is a trip down memory lane. Their Elipsa reader, launching June 24 is oversized — a 10.3-inch screen — and writeable. It comes with a stylus and lets you annotate ebooks and PDFs (depending on the DRM permissions). You can also “create your own notebooks, where you can instantly convert your notes to clean typed text, and export them off your device as needed.” With students finally converting to digital textbooks, the $399 Elipsa is positioned as a better dedicated learning reader. In other […]
People, Etc.
Co-founder of industry newsletter Subtext and co-owner of Open Book Publishing Stephanie Oda, 77, died earlier this week. Retired Bantam, BDD, and RH svp, fulfillment and trailblazing distribution and facilities leader Phyllis Mandel died Thursday, the day after her 75th birthday. The company notes: “Mandel was a large presence, professionally and personally, often underestimated and disrespected early in her tenure because she was a formidable woman boss in the ‘man’s world’ of facilities operations. But most who misread her initially came to admire her tough and tender dimensions, encyclopedic knowledgeability and team-building skill sets, fierce loyalty to her staff and […]
Streaming Buzz
In case you missed it, we had another terrific evening on Wednesday with six breakout fall authors and their editors on our latest Buzz Books Editors Panel. Praise and enthusiasm from booksellers continues to pour in and now we have the full recording available to watch at your leisure. Once again, our thanks to the ABA for co-sponsoring, to bookseller Donya Craddock from The Dock Bookshop in Ft. Worth, TX for stepping in to host, and to all of the participating editors and authors. The featured titles are shown below in the order in which they presented. You can use […]