BookNet Canada’s point-of-sale tracking service published their lists of bestselling books for the year (through the week ending December 13), including: Top 5 Overall 1. The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown 2. Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer 3. Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer 4. New Moon, Stephenie Meyer 5. The Book of Negroes, Lawrence Hill Top 5 Hardcover Adult Fiction 1. The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown 2. The Host, Stephenie Meyer 3. An Echo in the Bone, Diana Gabaldon 4. The Associate, John Grisham 5. Twenties Girl, Sophie Kinsella Top 5 Hardcover Non-Fiction 1. Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell […]
International News
Bookselling: Up Close at Square Books; It's Over at Borders UK
Poets & Writers starts the new year with a new series of interviews with bookselling entrepreneurs, Inside Indie Bookstores. The first installment visits with Richard Howorth of Square Books: “It’s a very difficult business. But in many ways, I like the fact that it’s a difficult business. Otherwise, people who want to make money–by selling crap–would be trying to get into the book business. [Laughter.]” Looking to the digital reckoning, he says: “I think bookstores offer an experience to book consumers that is unique. To be able to go into a place physically, to experience a sensation that is the […]
People: Paulsen to Launch Eponymous Children's Imprint; Knopf and Random Canada Merge Editorially; and More
President and publisher of Putnam Children’s for the last 15 years Nancy Paulsen will launch an eponymous imprint, Nancy Paulsen Books in 2011. She plans to publish 12 to 15 picture books, middle grade and young adult novels a uear. Paulsen will keep her current position until a replacement is named, with a search underway now. Paulsen says in the announcement, “I am thrilled with the opportunity to return to my true passion full time–editing. My imprint will focus on publishing a select group of picture books that are eye-opening and inventive, along with fiction, from culturally diverse and distinct […]
Renamed Kobo Spins Out of Indigo Into Separate Company; New Funders, and Partners, Include Borders
In addition to changing the name of Shortcovers to Kobo, the venture announced that it is separating out of parent company Indigo Books to operate as an independent company. A new round of funding has raised $16 million (Canadian), with $5 million coming from Indigo, now joined by Borders Group, REDgroup Retail (which currently owns the major book chains in Australia and New Zealand), and Instant Fame, a subsidiary of Cheung Kong. Those new funders will also serve as strategic distribution partners for Kobo’s international rollout. Indigo retains a 58 percent stake in Kobo, the Canadian Press reports. Borders is […]
Sales at Waterstone's Are "Weak"
Similar to the performance of the big US booksellers, the UK’s Waterstone’s “performance remains weak” according to parent company HMV, though “the recent administration of Borders UK may benefit the Group in the medium and long term.” Or not, since they admit to “continued market share gains by supermarket and online competitors.” For the first half of the fiscal year, sales of 225 million pounds were down 4.3 percent compared to a year ago, but down 5.1 percent on a same-store basis. And that was with sales growth from “related product ranges, such as gift stationery and technology, including the […]
WSJ Gives UK Indie Publishers Some Love
The WSJ covers the resilience and success of some of the UK’s best independent publishers, giving Jamie Byng’s Canongate in particular the kind of press he gets all the time in the UK. In each case, one big author or book has lifted the entire house. Barack Obama the author has taken Canongate to new heights financially; Atlantic Books’ sales “more than doubled…thanks largely” to The White Tiger; and Steig Larsson has rescued the otherwise-overextended Quercus. Faber and Faber sales director Will Atkinson quips, “There are some big publishers who can’t go to the toilet without looking at BookScan. They […]