In the Riverhead publicity department, Claire McGinnis has been promoted to senior publicity manager; Liz Hohenadel moves up to publicity manager; and Margaret Delaney is now associate publicist. The ABA nominated Pete Mulvihill at Green Apple Books in San Francisco to join the board, with Valerie Koehler (Blue Willow Bookshop, Houston) and Jonathon Welch (Talking Leaves…Books, Buffalo) put up for second three-year terms. As planned, current board vp Betsy Burton (The King’s English Bookshop, Salt Lake City) will move up to president for a two-year term at the end of May, with Robert Sindelar (Third Place Books becoming vice president/secretary), subject to ratification by ABA membership. Deputy director […]
Bookstores
In Bankruptcy Court, Questions About Plan to Sell Family Christian Stores Back to Itself
There was no hiding the suspicious reorganization strategy being pursued by Family Christian Stores in a bankruptcy court hearing earlier this week. Family Christian Ministries has proposed selling the stores from one FCM subsidiary to another, new subsidiary. No other changes are proposed across the 266 stores and roughly 4,000 employees; the sole point of the reorganization is to clean out their creditors and start all over again. In the initial announcement, FCS ceo Chuck Bengochea said, “We strive to serve God in all that we do and trust His guidance in all our decisions, especially this very important one.” In a video […]
ABA News: 54 New Stores In 2014, and Winter Institute Buzz Authors
In the lead up to next week’s tenth annual Winter Institute, the ABA noted that they tabulated 54 new member stores selling new books in 2014: 45 new bookstores, and 9 new branches or satellites of existing members (plus another 5 stores primarily selling used books). Perhaps more significantly, they also charted sales of 28 ABA member businesses to new owners. (The story includes a complete list of new stores and new owners.) At their dedicated WI mini-site the ABA lists all of the many authors who will appear at next week’s event, and we have already run our seasonal […]
Daily Amazon: Flame Out On Tablet Sales, Interest In Radio Shack, and More
Suspicions about broad weakness in the market for new tablets were confirmed by the latest fourth quarter Tablet Tracker report from International Data Corporation. Apple already reported that iPad sales declined to 21.4 million units in the holiday quarter, still the dominant player in the market. More surprisingly, IDC says that Amazon shipped only 1.7 million Fire tablets across the line, despite refreshing their offerings last September. By IDC’s count, Amazon’s tablet shipments were down almost 70 percent from 5.8 million units in Q4 2013. Similarly, the company estimates Amazon shipped only 3.3 million tablets all year last year, down […]
Briefs: R&L Acquires Distributed Line; Borderlands to Close, Blaming Minimum Wage Law
Rowman & Littlefield announced it has acquired the assets of cookbook publisher Gooseberry Patch, which has been a longtime distribution of R&L’s National Book Network (NBN). Gooseberry Patch will operate as part of Globe Pequot, which R&L acquired in 2014, and Gooseberry coo Liz Plotnick-Snay will continue to oversee the line of over 200 titles. San Francisco bookstore Borderlands announced on its website that it plans to close “no later than March 31,” blaming the city’s new minimum wage law passed last November. “Although all of us at Borderlands support the concept of a living wage in principal and we believe that it’s […]
Barnes & Noble Retail CEO Mitch Klipper To Retire (But Stay On As Real Estate Advisor)
Barnes & Noble’s chief executive for the retail group, Mitchell Klipper, will retire from his role on May 2 (the end of BN’s 2015 fiscal year) after more than 28 years with the company, though he will stay on with the company as special advisor on real estate and other matters through May 3, 2019, at an annual base salary of $400,000. A search for Klipper’s successor is underway, and he will have a hand in the selection process. BN chairman and founder Leonard Riggio said in the announcement: “Mitchell Klipper’s contributions to Barnes & Noble have been nothing short […]