Owners of Los Angeles-based Bodhi Tree Bookstore Phil Thompson and Stan Madson reportedly told their staff last week that the store will be shutting its doors in a year’s time” after almost 40 years in business, LA Weekly reports. With both owners in their 70s, they decided to sell the building on Melrose Avenue to a real estate developer.LAW
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Direct Brands has hired David Gitow as chief marketing officer and Alan Katz as evp, business development, the first major appointments under new ceo Deborah Fine. Gitow was cmo at both BN.com and Barnes & Noble, and in a long time stretch at Time, Inc. founded and ran Time, Inc. Home Entertainment. Katz has had a long career in magazine publishing, including executive positions at Vanity Fair and New York. BookEnds Literary Agency co-founder Jacky Sach will retire from publishing after 10 years as an agent for “new opportunities.” Sach began her publishing career in 1985 at Berkley. BookEnds will […]
Pfeffer Joins East/West Agency, and More People News
Former svp, group publisher of Simon & Schuster Children’s Trade imprints Rubin Pfeffer has joined the East/West Literary Agency, heading up the East Coast office in Boston as a partner, digital strategist, and content agent, a new position “focused on developing and creating content for the 21st -century incarnations of publishing, both electronic and traditional print.” Pfeffer says, “The value that I hope to offer East/West and the clients that I represent is being nimble and opportunistic about how their intellectual property can be leveraged effectively in this dawn of electronic publishing. There are many more options for writers and […]
Laura Hruska, 74, Dies
Laura Hruska, co-founder of the Soho Press in 1986 (along with her husband, Alan Hruska, and their friend Juris Jurjevics) died Saturday at her home in Manhattan. While at Soho, Hruska helped to launch the careers of many prominent writers, including Edwidge Danticat, whose novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory began as a short story submitted to Laura. Other notable Soho authors have included Dan Fesperman, Robert Hellenga, Susan Richards, Garth Stein, and Jacqueline Winspear. As of January 1 Hruska’s daughter Bronwen Hruska took over as publisher of Soho Press. There will be a memorial service on Friday, January 15, at 11:30 […]
Barnes & Noble College Rolls Out Textbook Rental Program
Expanding a pilot program begun last fall, Barnes & Noble College will let students rent textbooks online from their campus bookstore’s e-commerce site as well as through their stores. They will accept “any form of tender, including campus debit cards and student financial aid” as payment. Now featured in 25 of the 636 campus bookstores they operate, “in the coming months [the company] will dedicate significant resources to expanding its rental program to more of the colleges and universities it serves.”Release
Random House Publisher Services Repeats as Amazon's Distributor of the Year
For the second year in a row, Amazon has honored RH Publisher Services, the company’s third-party distribution service, “for its exemplary work in helping Amazon.com build a world-class customer experience through operational excellence.” The selection criteria listed include “short and consistent receive lead times to make tens of thousands of books available to ship within 24 hours; increasing the percentage of books available in digital format to Amazon Kindle customers; leveraging print-on-demand technology; and providing high-quality and authoritative ONIX data.”Release