Every time Amazon opens a new bookstore they invite the local press to a preview and receive glowing write-ups that all read pretty much the same as the stories that ran in the previous cities. But the opening of their first New York City store on Thursday at Columbus Circle, a modest 4,000-square-foot space with 3,000 titles, means that those preview pieces are from national news organizations. (Reportedly, 20 percent of that space is devoted to Amazon’s devices.) So once again we hear how the company says they are using data to drive obvious decisions that regular booksellers have already […]
Bookstores
Picks: Library Reads, and More
Anthony Horowitz’s Magpie Murders tops the June Library Reads list. The novel is also excerpted in our Buzz Books 2017: Spring/Summer sampler, available for download now. The rest of the list features: Silver Silence, by Nalini Singh The Waking Land, by Callie Bates Down Among The Sticks And Bones, by Seanan McGuire Do Not Become Alarmed, by Maile Meloy The Alice Network, by Kate Quinn The Child, by Fiona Barton The Little French Bistro, by Nina George The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid Midnight At The Bright Ideas Bookstore, by Matthew Sullivan Target announced its book club selections […]
Bookselling Briefs: Amazon 13, Helping Carmichael’s, and More
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 […]
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 […]