Amazon has leased its 13th known bookstore in a 5,227-square-foot space in Westfield Century City Mall in Los Angeles, according to permits filed earlier this month. (Word of a fourteenth store in Georgetown has been reported informally by the landlord but not the company.) Amazon has not formally announced the store, or provided a date for its opening. Author of The Rap Year Book Shea Serrano, practicing random acts of kindness online, asked his 135,000 Twitter followers to order books online from Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, KY. In a little over 5 hours they exceeded the goal of 1,000 orders in a day. Co-owner Carol Besse […]
Bookstores
Bookselling Notes and Beyond: Indies, Amazon and More
Owner of WORD bookstores Christine Onorati has an “open letter” of interest posted at Melville House’s website. She writes because, “I believe that we are at a crossroads in our industry, and, for the first time, I’m genuinely worried for our future. I think that we need to start brainstorming new business models and figuring out how to make the retail equation work in our favor so that we can stay afloat. Many of us will not make it; Amazon bookstores, online competition, skyrocketing rents, increased minimum wage, lack of young booksellers who choose this industry as a viable career — […]
Barnes & Noble’s Market Cap At New Low
Pushed by yesterday’s marketwide slump, Barnes & Noble’s stock is now trading at levels that the company it’s lowest market capitalization in at least a decade, if not longer. This morning shares opened at $7.30 and were down slightly again, for a market cap of about $510 million. The stock had dipped to about $8.25 a share in early 2016, and the last big dip was in March 2011, when the price dropped a little below $9 a share — but there were fewer common shares outstanding then, since Liberty Media still held separate preferred shares at time. [Update/correx: There were fewer common […]
People, Etc.
Don Linn has joined UK-based Unicorn Publishing Group as a full partner, based in the company’s new Chicago office, helping “to drive the business forward in the US and Canada” by “working with various galleries, museums, artists, historians and others across North America on new publishing projects.” Previously, he was director for Chicago University Press Distribution Center. At Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Kate O’Sullivan has been promoted to senior executive editor. Allison Vroegop and Lily Kessinger have each been promoted to editorial associate. At Knopf, Erinn Hartman has been promoted to director of publicity; Jordan Rodman moves up to publicity manager; and Anna Dobben is now […]
People, Etc.: Kosztolnyik to Grand Central As Editor-In-Chief
Karen Kosztolnyik will return to Grand Central on May 30 (where she once was executive editor) as vp and editor-in-chief, under new publisher Ben Sevier. Reporting to Kosztolnyik will be editors Millicent Bennett, Maddie Caldwell, Wes Miller, Suzanne O’Neill, Lindsey Rose, and Gretchen Young, along with their teams. Kosztolnyik will acquire and edit “in her areas of interest, most prominently in commercial and literary fiction.” Most recently she was executive editor at Gallery and Scout Press, which she joined in 2011. Sevier says in the announcement Kosztolnyik “is well known in the book business for her taste, for her devotion […]
Amazon “Dedicated to Removing Bad Actors”
Further to our first story on Tuesday about efforts to ensure that third-party booksellers winning the buy box under Amazon’s new initiative are offering truly new, legitimate inventory, an Amazon spokesperson told us that the company “remain[s] dedicated as always to removing bad actors.” Reinforcing that “Amazon’s policy is that only new books are eligible to win the Buy Box,” the spokesperson said, “we move quickly to address any violations” and maintained that they “continuously verify and monitor all seller accounts.” Separately, Penguin Random House spokesperson Claire von Schilling confirmed the authenticity of the company’s email to Amazon third-party booksellers we cited […]