If three is a trend is four a pattern? As the industry prepares for BEA — which includes the American Booksellers Association’s annual meeting — the organization announced to the AP that ABA member stores have increased for the fourth straight year. CEO Oren Teicher says the ABA now has 1,632 members, a gain of 65 from a year ago. Total member locations rose by 71, to 1971 in all. The previous year the organization added 55 members, and the year before that they picked up 102 members — though that gain was driven by the merger with the Association of Booksellers […]
Bookstores
People, Etc.
At the Random House Publishing Group, Andy Ward has been promoted to vp, editorial director, nonfiction, while David Ebershoff moves up to vp, executive editor. At Crown Archetype, Suzanne O’Neill has been promoted to executive editor, while Talia Krohn moves up to senior editor and Stephanie Knapp has been promoted to associate editor. Mary McCue has been promoted to senior publicity manager for Gallery and Threshold. At Inkwell Management, Charlie Olsen has been promoted to agent. He joined Inkwell in 2007 and is interested in commercial fiction; young adult and middle-grade fiction and non-fiction; graphic novels and illustrated works for […]
Bookselling: Waterstones To Restructure Store Management; New Bookstores in Bryn Mawr, PA and Astoria, Queens
Waterstones is preparing to restructure store management and has begun the required consultation with more than 560 employees that will result in an unspecified number of layoffs, the Bookseller reports. In a letter to staff, managing director James Daunt said the current positions of branch manager, assistant manager, general manager and deputy manager will be abolished, replaced with a “bookshop manager” role that will “call on different skills.” Daunt explained: “It is particularly important that we do this because more than ever before our managers will be central to our ability to deliver effective bookshops: the decisions that define the […]
Anonymous Microsoft Insider Denies Nook Story; Barnes & Noble Stock Suffers
The grain of salt we advised on the flawed TechCrunch report of potential interest in Microsoft buying out the digital assets of Nook Media has turned into a veritable salt flat. Another site, Insider Monkey, posted an item early Monday afternoon said to come from “a highly placed source inside Microsoft” denying the likelihood of a deal. Barnes & Noble stock fell 13 percent in about 30 minutes Monday afternoon on very heavy volume. It hit a trough and by 3 PM started to recover some of the losses, off about $2.20 a share or 9.5 percent for the day, […]
Report of Microsoft Offer to Buy Nook’s Digital Business Drives BN Shares
Wednesday night TechCrunch claimed to have obtained internal documents in which “Microsoft is offering to pay $1 billion to buy the digital assets of Nook Media LLC.” — and the stock market responded Thursday morning with a jump in Barnes & Noble’s stock. It opened up more than 25 percent or about $4.60 a share but has settled over the next 90 minutes, up about $3 a share. Prior to the report, BN’s entire market cap was just over $1 billion. But the TC piece is full of errors and oddities, starting with the belief that Nook Media “also includes […]
Bookselling: Fundraising Campaign for BookCourt North; New Children’s Bookstore in Edgewater, MD; and More
BookCourt in Brooklyn has launched a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo to buy the Bibliobarn in the Catskills and rename it BookCourt North: Bookshop, Event Space, and Writers’ Retreat. Should they raise the $300,000 needed to buy and renovate the Bibliobarn, which opened for business in 1996, BookCourt would convert the second floor into a writers’ retreat, host events on within the barn and on the five acres of land surrounding it, and possibly open a cafe. Current owners H.L & Linda Wilson put the property for sale and hope to move to a nearby Catskills town. Children’s bookstore Edgewater Books […]