Janet Olsen-Ryan has bought Baileywick Books, New Milford, Conn., from Blanche Bailey, owner of the store for 14 years, the New Milford Times reported. Olsen-Ryan is changing the store's name to Bank Street Book Nook but otherwise is making no major shifts. "It's primarily a bookstore and that's what we'll continue to do," she told the paper. By profession, she is a psychotherapist who has used music and art therapy to help children.

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Yesterday's New York Times had a front-page Business Day story about the pre-publication tour that Steven Hall took earlier this year for his new novel, The Raw Shark Texts (Canongate, $24, 9781841959115/1841959111). The tour included many dinners with booksellers and a visit to the ABA's Winter Institute in Portland, Ore. (By the way, the picture on "page two" depicts quite a few booksellers who happen to be wearing Shelf Awareness badge holders--although they're a bit difficult to read here.)

Russ Wilbur, a Barnes & Noble store manager who was at a dinner with Hall, told the paper that the tour would help the book at his store, saying, "I can go back to 70 employees in my store and say I talked to the publisher, and that will motivate them to hard sell."

Paul Yamazaki of City Lights, San Francisco, provided some perspective on such tours, noting, "What they're trying to do is make a statement about the book. They want you to go read it, and it gives them another five minutes. But you can't manufacture these things. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, and the book has to deliver. Ultimately it's about the book."

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Effective immediately, Independent Publishers Group is distributing Bull Publishing Company. Bull was formerly distributed by PGW.

For more than 35 years, Bull Publishing, Boulder, Colo., has specialized in self-help books in health and nutrition as well as child care, personal health management, women's health, fitness and sport nutrition, psychology and supporting professional resources. Bull also publishes health care titles in Spanish. Bull bestsellers include Living a Healthy Life with Chronic Conditions by Kate Long, Baby & Me by Deborah D. Stewart and two books by Ellyn Satter, Child of Mine and How to Get Your Kid to Eat. 

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To help independent publishers avoid financial duress of the type caused by the AMS bankruptcy, PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association is creating a Publishers Advocacy Fund. "While many former PGW clients have moved on to other distributors, there is currently a small group of independent publishers who, through no fault of their own, face financial ruin due to the AMS/PGW bankruptcy," PMA director Terry Nathan said in a statement. "Some of these publishers have been in business as long as 30 years and have kids in college. That they are now going to lose their livelihood at the hands of lawyers for a huge conglomerate is unconscionable. The publishing community as a whole is not served well when smaller publishers suffer hardship and loss simply because they lack the resources to defend themselves."

 

Books-A-Million earnings improvements in the quarter and full year cheered Wall Street. Yesterday shares of the company rose $3.34 to close at $17.58, up 23.5%.

Net sales in the fourth quarter ended February 3 rose 8.4% to $174.6 million and net income rose 34.8% to $15.1 million. Sales at stores open at least a year dropped 2.4%.

For the fiscal year, net sales rose 3.3% to $520.4 million and net income rose 44.3% to $18.9 million. Sales at stores open at least a year dropped 0.6%.

Sandra B. Cochran, president and CEO, said, "It was a tough fourth quarter for bookselling. A strong fiction lineup was not enough to offset a quiet media environment, the absence of a major book related movie tie-in and the lack of strong non fiction bestsellers." Still, she noted that the company was "able to deliver improved earnings despite the difficult year end sales environment. Improvements in margin, better inventory management and discipline in cost control contributed to these solid results."

BAM also announced that it is raising its quarterly dividend to nine cents a share, payable April 27 to shareholders of record at the end of the trading day on April 13.

The Birmingham News pointed out that BAM stock "outperformed all the other publicly traded companies in [Alabama] over a one-year period, a three-year-period and a five-year period. . . . According to data from Bloomberg News, Books-A-Million returned 134% in 2006; 251% in the three years between 2004 and 2006, and 649% in the five years between 2002 and 2006."

This morning the Today Show stirs things up with Food Network star Giada De Laurentiis, whose new cookbook is Everyday Pasta (Clarkson Potter, $32.50, 9780307346582/0307346587).

Also on Today: Leslie Bennetts, author of The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much (Voice/Hyperion, $24.95, 9781401303068/1401303064). This is the new imprint's first title.

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Today on the Early Show Mary Higgins Clark discusses her new psychological thriller, I Heard that Song Before (S&S, $25.95, 9780743264914/0743264916), as well as her first children's tale, Ghost Ship (S&S/Paula Wiseman Books, $17.99, 9781416935148/1416935142).

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Today the Martha Stewart Show hears from wedding expert Darcy Miller, author of Our Wedding Scrapbook (Collins, $24.95, 9780060735210/006073521X).

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Today on Oprah: John Wood, author of Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur's Odyssey to Educate the World's Children (Collins, $25.95, 9780061121074/006112107X).

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Today the Ellen Degeneres Show receives make-up tips from Kym Douglas, co-author of The Black Book of Hollywood Beauty Secrets (Plume, $15, 9780452287655/0452287650).

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In a repeat, tonight the Daily Show with Jon Stewart hosts NBC news correspondent Chris Hansen, author of To Catch a Predator: Protecting Your Kids from Online Enemies Already in Your Home (Dutton, $24.95, 9780525950097/0525950095).

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Tonight the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson serves up celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, whose culinary tomes include Wolfgang Puck Makes It Easy: Delicious Recipes for Your Home Kitchen (Rutledge Hill Press, $34.99, 9781401601805/1401601804).

Philip Roth has won the first PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, which carries a $40,000 prize. In a statement quoted by the AP, Roth called Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March "the most important book published in English in the second half of the 20th century . . . How could I be anything but thrilled to receive an award bearing Saul Bellow's name?"

 

From last week's Book Sense bestseller lists, available at BookSense.com, here are the recommended titles, which are also Book Sense Picks:

Hardcover

The Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of a Universe by Michael Frayn (Metropolitan, $32.50, 9780805081480/0805081488). "Part of what makes Michael Frayn's fiction and plays so appealing is his philosopher's view of the world. [Here] he points out that humankind is a tiny and insignificant anomaly in the impersonal vastness of the universe. But, he asks, what would that universe be like if we were not here to say something about it? With brilliance, wit, and charm, Frayn sets out to make sense of our place in the scheme of things."--Elaine Petrocelli, Book Passage, Corte Madera, Calif.

Effigies by Mary Anna Evans (Poisoned Pen, $24.95, 9781590583425/1590583426). "This latest entry in Evans' archaeology series featuring Faye Longchamp is both intelligent and satisfying. This time Faye and Joe Wolf Mantooth travel to Mississippi to study artifacts from the Choctaw Indians. Faye and Joe are asked to help an elderly congressman unearth the truth about a hate crime, but soon find themselves drawn into a murder investigation."--Linda Walonen, Bay Books, San Ramon, Calif.

Paperback

The Sweet Life by Lynn York (Plume, $14, 9780452288225/0452288223). "Few writers capture a character's thoughts as deftly as Lynn York. It's a pleasure to return to Swan's Knob in this sequel to The Piano Teacher, one of our all-time favorite novels set in North Carolina."--Kathryn Henderson, Market Street Books, Chapel Hill, N.C.

For Grades 5 to 9

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart (Little, Brown, $16.99, 9780316057776/0316057770). "Dozens of gifted kids respond to a mysterious ad in the newspaper and go through several magical tests, but only four prove themselves worthy of the Mysterious Benedict Society--and become top-secret spies. Stewart's oddball characters and youth-empowering message is worthy of Roald Dahl--don't miss any of the action!"--Jill Saginario, Powell's Books, Portland, Ore.

[Many thanks to Book Sense and the ABA!]

On the night of July 14, a few hours before his 40th birthday, Roy Deacon is on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, awaiting the appearance of his older brother Paul. The sky is overcast, the tide is rising, and the salty gulf water mixes with fresh from the rivers. This kind of night is called Jubilee, when people gather to harvest fish and blue crab. As he walks to their favorite spot, he's greeted often, since he's well-known, the seventh generation of owners of one of the best funeral homes in Mobile. "Strangers would come up to me all the time saying that they remembered a kind word my father or my grandfather offered when burying their loved one. They had seen our family photo on the church fans parishioners waved on hot days, trying to cool down the humidity or the Holy Ghost." As he waits in the dark, he recalls a time 22 years earlier, a time he would rather forget, but cannot.

On that past night in Mobile, March 19, 1981, a young man named Michael Donald was lynched. Paul Deacon, on his way home from night shift at the paper mill, found his friend's body hanging from a camphor tree. It had been sixty-some years since the last town lynching, and the police portray it as a drug deal gone wrong--the city doesn't want to admit the Klan is still active, it's bad for business in the new Mobile. "On the first edition of the sunrise news, a familiar scene was broadcast live from Government Street. The recognizable black faces, a dozen at least, had assumed the position, standing before a narrow podium on a downtown street flanked by the Old South architecture . . . The police had already had their say, and the sordid theories spread like kudzu . . . Familiar words for dead black boys portrayed as complicit in their own demise." The least offensive explanation is that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but is there a right time for a man to be hanged on a street?

Most of the story takes place between the lynching and a Jublilee night five months later. Ravi Howard's pace is Southern-timed, where an hour seems longer than 60 minutes, but it's deceptively slow--the book is a page-turner. He has a sure hand with detail, deftly creating a human landscape where an old man's "frail fingers quaked like leaves," and sweat rolled down a minister's temples "as he doled out the comfort verses like penicillin." People brought food to the bereaved households "as if grief was a hunger that could be overcome a spoonful at a time."

Like Trees, Walking is based on the true story of Michael McDonald's lynching by the Ku Klux Klan, and the subsequent six-year struggle to bring the murderers to justice. Ravi Howard's novel focuses on the personal tragedies of this brutality--the outrage and helplessness felt by the community, the small moments of grief, the collateral damage, if you will. Underlying this tragedy is Roy's struggle to shape his future--constrained by his father's expectations in taking over the funeral home, he feels the weight of generations of Deacons as he deals with death and his brother's pain. This is a gripping tale of evil and injustice, and a fine debut from a talented writer.--Marilyn Dahl

Today is the official pub date for Lone Creek by Neil McMahon (HarperCollins, $24.95, 9780060792213/0060792213), which besides being a great read, is the first book edited by Carl Lennertz, v-p, independent retailing, at HarperCollins. Here author and editor answer questions put to them by Shelf Awareness.

So how did you two come to work with each other?

Neil: Best I can remember, my wonderful first editor Dan Conaway had just left for a new gig at Putnam, and I was wondering who might be assigned to me at Harper. I had finished a draft of Lone Creek and was ready for the first editing pass. I knew that Carl had read all four of my previous books, and we'd hit it off at a SIBA trade show over dinner. So I dropped him an e-mail to inquire as to whether he'd be interested in being the editor for Lone Creek.

Carl: Hmmm, that SIBA was more drinks than dinner. Anyway, I was very flattered by Neil's request but said no, of course not, I just didn't have that training or experience. I had been edited--and by two of the best, Shaye Areheart and Sarah Burnes--but I didn't feel I could do it from this side of the page. But I said, hey, send me the manuscript for my own enjoyment, and I'll be your in-house sales advocate when your new editor comes on board.

I settled in one weekend to read Lone Creek and was totally hooked by Neil's new story line and characters. And then, yes, on p. 9 there was a small typo, and on p. 25 I wasn't completely sure what time of day it was . . . and I kept going. It was so pure and good, I had to be a part of this book's publication. I went in on Monday and asked my boss, Josh Marwell, president of sales, and Jonathan Burnham and Kathy Schneider, Harper's publisher and associate publisher, if I could edit Neil and they gave me their blessings.

Q: Why the new setting and characters?

Neil: A few years back, I had been invited to New York to meet with the Harper sales department, and in talking it came up that I wrote mysteries set in San Francisco--I'd spent a lot of time in the Bay Area, in school and working, and I'd based my Monks character on my brother, a doctor there--even though I lived in Montana. The salespeople noted how western fiction had caught on--James Lee Burke, C.J. Box and others. I gave it a try and quickly found myself writing much more about my own experience--gut, heart, soul and the way I'd lived the past 35 years. It was like a new lease on life.

Carl: I loved the San Francisco/Monks books, but Neil's full voice and love of the land just show through in Lone Creek.

Q: Were there any hitches in working together long distance?

Neil: Not at all, despite the long phone calls. And we got to see each other at the Mountains and Plains show back in the fall. One funny story: When I first saw the galley jacket, which is a stunner--the sunset, horses in the foreground--there was one little glitch. I had to call Carl and tell him that I loved the design and didn't want to sound ungrateful, but the saguaro cactuses on the cover don't grow on the cold Montana prairie.  They don't appear on the final cover, thanks to the magic of Photoshop.

Q: So the galley is collectible! Carl, you've been published and now you've edited a book. How has this rounded out your perspective?

Carl: Omigod, my respect for editors has gone through the roof. I had some sense that their weeknights and weekends were consumed by reading manuscripts on submission as well as editing upcoming books, but I had no idea how hard it would be just to balance editing one book on a series of deadlines with other work and with one's home life. I have just the one book and it took up a dozen weekends of work: reading, rereading and then getting on the phone with Neil, going page by page, fine-tuning some dialogue here, making a character's motivations crystal clear in a key scene, that sort of thing. That level of detail was fun for me, but I was lucky; how does a real editor balance dozens of current projects at one time AND acquire AND do their marketing advocacy in-house? Not enough hours in the day.

Neil: My respect for editors is in full synch with Carl's. And, especially with my Irish Catholic background, I admit to guilt for heaping more on his already overburdened shoulders. However, that didn't stop me.

Q: How did your sales and marketing background affect the editing process, if at all?

Carl: That was my other lesson in the Dual Life of an Editor. Working on the words means living in the author's world without outside distraction or considerations. I just listened to the rhythm of Neil's voice, which we all do as readers anyway. Often I wanted Neil to add more of his eloquent descriptions of landscape. He might feel it slowed down the action, but I'd say it's okay here and here, and he'd come back a week later and it would all just sing. When the writing is all done, on goes the sales and marketing hat.  Then begins the work of settling on the final book title (we had a dozen different ones), jacket (we got that in just three tries; it often takes more), advocating for the book in-house, writing flap copy, writing letters to booksellers and more. A big part of the process, as you know, is writing other authors to get endorsements as far ahead of time as possible.

Q: I noticed that posse of blurbs on the galley. They seemed a cut above the usual ones.

Carl: I figured some authors might come through with kind notes, but I was blown away.  We got glowing letters from the western lit crowd: Kittredge, Crumley, Claire Davis, C.J. Box, Annick Smith, Peter Bowen, Deidre McNamer and more. I mean, rousing fan letters to Neil about Lone Creek. And then the starred PW, and news just in of a "Mystery Pick of the Month for April" in Book Page.

Q: What's next for you two?

Neil: The sequel, Dead Silver. I'm well into it, and Carl and my wife both seem very happy with what they've read so far: Hugh, Madbird, more double dealing involving a 12-year-old homicide, and Hugh tumbling down the rocky slopes of love with the prime suspect's daughter.

Carl: Neil has to take much of April off to tour for Lone Creek, drive to over a dozen stores in Montana, and then on to Colorado. Lone Creek is a Tattered Cover First Edition pick for May, and Boulder Books and the Bookworm near Vail are hosting book groups for Lone Creek.  Then we plan to go through the new manuscript together right before Book Passage's Mystery Conference in late June. We've been invited to talk about our Odd Couple pairing. And I'm also helping some young writers with their early manuscripts, as well as a retired British actress and her travels to writers' homes around Europe. And oh yeah, one of a duo that recorded my favorite album in college, Rex Fowler of Aztec Two Step, found me via my blog, and he and I are talking about his story of 35 years on the musical road. Having said all that, I'm firmly rooted in sales and marketing and looking for that new voice to talk up with booksellers.