Bookselling Buffalo’s Talking Leaves Bookstore is closing their Main Street store after 42 years in the University Heights neighborhood and will consolidate inventory in their Elmwood location over the next three months. “Significant changes in book buying habits and in the University of Buffalo neighborhood are major factors in this decision,” they write on their Facebook page. With the consolidation will come “a renewed focus on a resurgent future that incorporates all that bookselling in the 21st century entails. We will continue our many partnerships with cultural organizations, schools and other community groups to sponsor readings, conversations, and other events, […]
Bookstores
Bookselling: Amazon’s Tenth, and More
Building permits flagged for the media Amazon‘s newest bookstore location, back home in Bellevue, WA, which was then confirmed by the company. They say they are now hiring personnel for the store, which is Amazon’s tenth known bookstore so far. Further underscoring Amazon’s ambition for these stores is the wording in this recently updated listing for a program manager, launch, for Amazon Books: “The books category team is hiring a Program Manager to develop and execute scalable launch plans to grow and improve our business. As the Program Manager, Launch, your job is to make it easier, faster, and more efficient […]
Riggio Addresses Publishers
In a session titled, “Barnes & Noble Looks to the Future,” Penguin Random House ceo Markus Dohle interviewed Barnes & Noble ceo Len Riggio at the AAP’s annual meeting on Wednesday, held at PRH’s offices. Dohle started the session with the jovial question, “How’s retirement?” (since Riggio was supposed to retire from the executive ranks of the bookseller until he stepped in following the firing of Ron Boire). “My original plan, believe it or not,” Riggio said, “was to retire at the age of 45 and become a schoolteacher, so I guess I’m running late on that plan.” In terms […]
Bookselling: Albany Book House Downsizing; Wide World Books and Maps to Vacate Space; and More
Albany store Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza is downsizing, due to the economy and online competition. They will close the children’s store next door, Little Book House, and move children’s books into the back area of their main space. In an email the owner also cited “the relentless impact of Amazon on the publishing industry.” Seattle’s Wide World Books and Maps, saved from closure in February 2016 by a crowd-funding campaign, will leave its current location by the end of April. In an email announcement, the owners noted that they are exploring options including changing locations, becoming web only, or partnering with a cafe. The announcement explains, “While […]
Barnes & Noble May Not Keep Prototype Restaurant Feature
Barnes & Noble ceo Len Riggio did provide one interesting hint about their concept store development in an interview with the WSJ on Thursday. While Riggio told investors the company was to refining their new store “protoype” into something “that we think will carry us well into the future,” that future may not include the new Barnes & Noble Kitchen restaurants. “It’s unclear whether the final prototype will have such a restaurant, Mr. Riggio later said in [the WSJ] interview.” Remember that in mid-December, longtime BN executive Jamie Carey resigned after the company eliminated his six-month-old position of president, development […]
People, Etc.: BN Discover Winners, and More
Barnes & Noble presented their annual Discover Great New Writers Awards to Abby Geni’s debut The Lightkeepers (Counterpoint Press) for fiction, and Matthew Desmond’s widely-acclaimed Evicted (Crown) for nonfiction. People Erin Somers has joined Publishers Lunch as a reporter. Previously she has worked for two trade publications, and her writing about books has appeared in Literary Hub, The Millions, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. Somers is also the recipient of a 2016 Center For Fiction Emerging Writer Fellowship. News editor Sarah Weinman is on a leave of absence to complete the manuscript for her forthcoming book AMONG THE WHOLESOME CHILDREN, the story of the real-life inspiration for […]