Books-a-Million announced on Friday the creation of a dedicated online shop featuring Hachette Book Group titles at www.booksamillion.com/hbg. The top of the HBG home page says in headline type, “Don’t miss out on your next favorite book, pre-order today!” And one of the home page carousels is labelled, “Pre-Order the HBG Books You Want from the Bookseller You Can Count On.” The press release notes: “This announcement comes in addition to Books-A-Million’s commitment to offer their customers a discount of up to 30 percent off a wide selection of Hachette Book Group pre-order titles, and 40 percent off select current Hachette […]
Bookstores
ABA’s Teicher Says “The Book Industry Is Being Held Hostage” By Amazon; Celebrates Indies’ Gains
ABA ceo Oren Teicher addressed the organization at their annual membership meeting on Thursday afternoon in an enthusiastic vein: “I could not be more pleased to be able to reiterate – the indie bookstore resurgence has continued.” At the same time, he noted how “the aggressive discounting and strong-arm tactics of the dominant online retailer continue to cause havoc. Its recent bullying assault of a major publisher is just the latest example of a unilateral and shortsighted strategy. To put it plainly: the book industry is being held hostage by a company far more interested in selling flat screen TV’s, […]
Patterson Names 43 Stores to Receive $268,000 In Grants
Some of the best experiments for innovations in brick-and-mortar bookselling are coming through the ambitious, ongoing program in which author James Patterson is giving $1 million in personal funds as direct grants to support independent bookstores in a variety of initiatives. In February Patterson announced the first grants, allocating $267,000 to 55 stores and at a Wednesday afternoon BEA panel, booksellers who received some of those grant shared success stories and appreciation. Mitchell Kaplan of Books & Books, who moderated the panel and was among the first round of recipients, said the initiative is “one of the most genuine things I […]
At BEA, Booksellers Further Contemplate Bundling
The closest thing to an opening keynote program on a generally quiet conference day at BEA was an afternoon panel on The Future of Brick and Mortar Retailers — moderated by Dominique Raccah of Sourcebooks and featuring John Ingram of Ingram Content Group; Joyce Meskis of The Tattered Cover; Michael Tamblyn of Kobo; Mike Hesselbach of Readerlink; and Oren Teicher of the ABA. The session’s applause line came at the end, when Teicher reminded everyone, “We want to make books of all publishers equally available, all the time.” And the session’s laugh line when Tamblyn followed up by noting Kobo […]
Target Plans eBooks, with Librify
In another BEA-timed announcement, Target plans to pair with start-up Librify to offer some form of ebook club/subscription service, though an “official launch is still several months off,” USA Today reports. As a result, the details are opaque for now, with Target indicating they will reveal more this summer. “The service will be targeted at women, especially young professionals and moms of the coveted Millennial generation.” Target spokeswoman Erica Julkowski says, “We are proud to partner with Librify to offer a differentiated experience, which focuses on social connectivity and book clubs. She adds, “It is a great solution for bringing a […]
At Least One New Holder for Barnes & Noble
With the April sale of 3.7 million shares of Barnes & Noble common stock by chairman Len Riggio — and the sale earlier in the month of nearly all of Liberty Media’s convertible preferred shares in the bookseller — there were bound to be disclosures on the way about new major holders in the company. On Friday, investor David Abrams and associated hedge funds operated by Abrams Capital Management disclosed ownership of a total of 3.746 million shares in the bookseller, or 6.26 percent of the common stock. Separately, a scan of large holders on Bloomberg indicates that other hedge […]