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From the AAP Annual Meeting Borders CEO George Jones led off the APP’s meeting this morning, saying that early indications from their new concept store are encouraging. Though the store carries twenty percent fewer titles than a typical superstore, “the number of titles selling has doubled” according to Jones, who calls the change “dramatic.” The store has only been open two and half weeks, but Jones says “sales have been way better than expectations.” Jones called the current coop system “crazy,” noting they have “16,000 individual co-op agreements” and “a lot of endcaps make so sense” in merchandising to readers. […]

Signals From BN on “Recessionary Pressure” Barnes & Noble stores reported preliminary results for fiscal 2007 after the close of the market yesterday and warned that “the company believes that recessionary pressures in this uncertain economic environment will make 2008 an especially challenging retail year.” They added, “the company’s post-holiday sales trends have continued into the first quarter of 2008 and the bookselling environment remains very competitive.… Given this environment, the company is focusing its efforts on managing its expenses and working capital with a realistic view of market conditions, as well as continuing to refine its marketing strategies and […]

Rinaldi Leaves Bloomsbury Richard Charkin announced today, “It is with enormous regret that I have to let you know that Karen Rinaldi, President of Bloomsbury USA, has accepted a very senior and interesting post at Rodale Books. Karen has been the heart and soul of one of the most innovative and successful publishing companies in the USA. She has been instrumental in building a great list of books, a great team of people and a great reputation for Bloomsbury. We shall all miss her enormously but she has left a superb legacy on which we can build and for that […]

Oprah Sells Tolle at Record Pace Following Oprah’s enthusiastic endorsement Eckhart Tolle’s A NEW EARTH has added another 3.45 million copies in print, “the record for the most copies ever shipped by Penguin Group USA in a four-week period.” That’s on top of an initial shipment of 776,000 copies in advance of the Oprah announcement. BN buyer Jules Herbert says “for the first four weeks on sale [it] is our bestselling Oprah’s Book Club title.” The publisher says over 500,000 people have registered for the 10-week webinar that begins next Monday night. LAT Nominees The paper announced the nominees for […]

Virgin USA in Flux Founding publisher of Virgin Books USA Ken Siman has resigned his permanent position to become a consultant to the business. He will continue to edit and publicize the books that he has acquired. The line, distributed by Holtzbrinck, was put in an odd position from the start after Random House UK purchased Virgin Books in March 2007, before the US division had begun publishing. Random UK’s Richard Cable says they are “absolutely committed to Virgin Books USA.” He adds, “We are currently talking to a number of parties and considering how to best structure the US […]

More Free Book Fever: Now BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN Charles Bock’s debut novel BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN is being offered as a free PDF download via www.beautifulchildren.net/read, starting last night and running through midnight this Friday. (Sharing, emailing and printing are all allowed.) The free file is also available online via Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, Powells.com and Northshire.com. Bock says in the announcement, “I want people to read the book. If that means giving it away for free on-line, great.” Random’s deputy director of marketing Avideh Bashirrad adds, “The book really struck a chord with readers as bookstore sales have demonstrated. We believe it […]