At the American Booksellers Association’s annual meeting at BEA, ABA chief executive Oren Teicher celebrated encouraging membership and indie sales data and reinforced that “I believe this moment in our industry is rich with promise and opportunity.” (In addition to the data we have already reported, Teicher declared that across the network of Indie Commerce stores, “gross annual sales, year-to-date over year-to-date, are up 92 percent.” And separately, ABA board vice president Steve Bercu clarified that the reported gain of 55 new full ABA members comprises 77 new locations in all.) Teicher told members “you have our strongest assurance that there […]
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Gretchen Young will join Grand Central Publishing on June 25 as vp, executive editor, reporting to Deb Futter. Young has spent the past fifteen years at Hyperion, most recently as vp, executive editor. “I am thrilled that Gretchen Young is joining our team,” Futter said in a statement. ” The range of books she has acquired is most impressive in both breadth and depth and I know her editorial instincts will be showcased at Grand Central.” New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman has won the Center for Fiction’s 2012 Maxwell E. Perkins Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Field of […]
Print Sales Rise 13.4 Percent At Reporting Indie Stores; ABA Gains Members for Third Year
As Book Expo America opens (for educational programming today, and floor exhibitions tomorrow), the American Booksellers Association reports to the AP that their membership rose again–adding 55 members, now totaling 1,567, up 3.6 percent from last year. That is the third consecutive gain for the organization; this time a year ago, the ABA reported adding 102 members, following their merger with the Association of Booksellers for Children. (In 2010 they added 9 members–gains, while always good, do not necessarily reflect a change in the entire store landscape, since not all independent bookstores are members of the national organization.) The current […]
Google Makes Zagat’s Free In New Local Service; Northshire Launches Syndicated Author Radio Interviews
Eight months after acquiring Zagat’s for approximately $151 million, Google has announced how they will leverage the company’s content on the internet. Full (and free) Zagat reviews are a major element in the newly-launched Google+ Local service, a “way to discover and share local information” designed to “improve the way you find great local information.” Anyone who signs up for the Google+ Local service can now get free, open access to the Zagat database, which was previously a paid subscription product. The NYT says that the company will continue to issue their 40 printed guidebooks. Director of product management at […]
Bookselling: RJ Julia Still Searching For New Owner; ABA’s New “Why Indies Matter” Ad Campaign; And More
In the three months since owner Roxane Coady announced that R.J. Julia Booksellers was for sale, no buyer has been found yet, though Coady told the Madison Patch there have been “a few nibbles.” Coady, who repeats that there’s no deadline to sell, said she has received inquiries from people who have money, as well as from those who would be ideal to run a bookstore, “But the people who have money have never run a bookstore. And the people who could run a bookstore have no money.” She is also considering “opening a shared office space operation that could […]
People, Etc.: Loh, Fussell, and More
Sterling Publishing continues to empty out, as editorial director of Sterling Children’s Splinter imprint Cindy Loh moves to serve as publishing director of Bloomsbury Children’s (including the Walker Books line) starting June 4. Emily Easton, promoted to publishing director of Walker Children’s, and Michelle Nagler, editorial director of Bloomsbury Children’s, will report to Loh, as will creative director Donna Mark and senior managing editor Melissa Kavonic. At Simon & Schuster Children’s, Alyson Heller has been promoted to associate editor. Literary critic and cultural historian Paul Fussell, 88, died Wednesday in Medford, OR of natural causes in a long-term care facility, where he’d spent […]