* “Live from Prairie Lights,” the Iowa Public Radio show typically taped at Prairie Lights bookstore, will come to an end after an 18 year run, with the final show airing in December. Interim executive director of Iowa Public Radio Steve Carignan says the show has “a very loyal but very small audience.” In the Press-Citizen newspaper, co-owner of the store Jim Harris “said the program is part of Iowa City culture and said the news was disappointing” but “does not come as a surprise. He said that when the program was switched from being broadcast live to Saturdays, the […]
Bookstores
Indigo Has An e-Content Play
Canada’s dominant retailer Indigo has plans for a electronic text offering focused on free and paid downloads for mobile devices, Quill and Quire reports. The enterprise will be established as a separately-branded subsidiary of Indigo, serving customers throughout North America (with intentions of going global), and set to launch in early 2009. “The final details won’t be unveiled until December,” the magazine reports, but Indigo cto Michael Serbinis confirms certain detials. Material on offer will range from complete e-books for mobile reading to small chunks (chapters, articles and short stories) and user-generated content. It sounds as if download fees will […]
Distributor Tells Clients No Cash from Borders
Distributor IPG told clients in an e-mail (now cited on multiple websites) that Borders “tell us that they will not be paying us for two months due to anticipated excessive returns.” In the letter, clients were told that for new shipments to Borders, the distributor will guarantee only the actual printing cost of those books, for as long as “there are serious concerns about Borders viability.” IPG president Mark Suchomel tells us that “almost all of the clients” have instructed the company to continue shipping orders to Borders. He notes that “we’ve typically been very conservative and that’s been a […]
Riggio: Prepare for A "Terrible Holiday Season"
The WSJ reproduced an in-house memo to Barnes & Noble employees sent last week bychairman Len Riggio: “Never in all of the years I’ve been in business have I seen a worse outlook for the economy. And never in all my years as a bookseller have I seen a retail climate as poor as the one we are in. Nothing even close.” He warns, “we are bracing for a terrible holiday season, and expect the trend to continue well into 2009, and perhaps beyond.” Riggio announces that “new store openings will be curtailed greatly, and discretionary expenditures will be cut […]
Meanwhile Borders US Loses Credit Cover
Credit insurer Euler Hermes told publishers on October 17 that it was reducing its cover for vendors of Borders in the US to zero. The Bookseller, which has seen the document, reports that it “said the move is related to Borders Group’s continuing losses.” Recently, we’ve heard of major US publishers looking anew at whether to take out their own credit insurance policies to cover their inventory at Borders in the event of a bankruptcy. The policies can be very expensive, and in informal polling we’ve heard of one big six publisher that did take out a policy and one […]
Test Program for Universal Online Catalog
The innovators at Above the Treeline will begin testing an online interactive catalog of books from multiple publishers. The six-month pilot program features books from Chronicle, Harper, Wiley, Penguin, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Thomas Nelson, and Tyndale House. Called Edelweiss, the new interface aspires to let retailers “manage their catalogs easily in a single online library, to view dynamic, enriched content about new titles, and to efficiently integrate orders and bibliographic information back into their point-of-sale systems.” CEO John Rubin explains to BTW that they have tried to redesign the catalog to work as an interactive online product rather […]