Education Media & Publishing Group, the Irish owner of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which accounts for about 30% of the U.S. textbook market, is struggling with $7 billion in debt and falling textbook sales, according to the Wall Street Journal. As a result, Education Media "has been firing staff, outsourcing functions, buying fewer new books, and phasing out some textbooks for the past year." In some cases, the company is eliminating textbooks that duplicate material. Education Media also remains "open" to selling its well-regarded trade publishing operation.

Education Media president Jeremy Dickens told the paper that the cuts are making the company stronger. "The cost-savings opportunity is significantly greater than any revenue loss we might expect," he said.

Other text publishers are having difficulties, too, the paper noted. McGraw-Hill school division revenue fell 9.1% in the third quarter, and CEO Harold McGraw III estimated that the market for texts and other educational materials fell 3%-4% last year.

Scholastic cut its 2009 profit forecast 30%.

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The firings of CEOs at corporations doubles in bad times, a business school professor estimated, in an article in the Wall Street Journal that counted among recent examples George Jones, the Borders Group CEO who was fired January 5.

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During the seven years Nancy Spiller spent writing Entertaining Disasters: A Novel (With Recipes), she anticipated the day when she would get to have her own author event at Dutton's Brentwood Bookstore.

Unfortunately, the bookshop's closing last year altered her dream, but the Los Angeles Times reported that Spiller was undeterred, writing in L.A. Weekly that she would "do whatever is necessary to find Doug's home address so that I can do a reading on his front lawn. . . . Together we can make magic, we can avert tragedy--just like Dutton's Brentwood used to do."

And last Saturday, 50 of Spiller's friends showed up at Dutton's house and the long-awaited reading took place.

"The idea that I wasn't entirely forgotten, that this might have something to do with a book community that is a continuous book community was very appealing to me," said Dutton, "and it sounded like a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon."

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"I couldn't believe how instantly I loved selling books," Stanley Hadsell, manager of Market Block Books, Troy, N.Y., told the Albany Times Union in a profile that observed, "Knowing books and knowing customers go hand in hand for Hadsell."  

"His experience is so broad and deep and extensive," noted colleague Mary Muller. "Whether people want 'chick lit' or horror or science fiction, he treats them with the same interest and respect. . . . Stanley is the king of handselling. We joke that he should be Stanley Hand-sell. . . . He even does it to us."

Hadsell's interest in the world of books extends well beyond the shop sales floor, however. "Stanley looks at the bigger picture rather than just keeping a nose to the bookstore's glass window," added Shelf Awareness contributing editor Robert Gray. "He has a sense of the book world as a whole. He's a good reader, a thinking person and observant."

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The bad weather that put a dent in sales for many bookstores nationwide during the holiday season actually helped Broadway Books, Portland, Ore. KATU News reported that owner Roberta Dyer "was really worried about her shop's sales the week before Christmas--right before the big snowstorm hit Portland. She knew it would be a tough week. There were no shoppers on the street. After a devastating few months, it was not a good sign."

"We were pretty devastated," Dyer said. "We thought, 'That's it! How can we even get to the store to open it? And if we can't get there, how can people come to shop?"

Then her son, Aaron Durand, who lives in San Francisco, posted a plea on his blog, everydaydude, promising "to buy customers a burrito at Cha Cha Cha on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard if they spent $50 at his mom's book store."

"They started to beat a path to our door," Dyer said, adding that the traffic wasn't hampered at all by the snowstorm. "They started cross country skiing and snowshoeing to get here. . . . We started running out of books. . . . We ended (the month) 6.5% ahead of last year. It was our best December ever." The burrito party is scheduled at Cha Cha Cha January 16.

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In another story about how the recession is increasing library usage, the director of the Town of Tonawanda (N.Y.) Library told the Tonawanda News that "all of the libraries in the system are doing well"--in 2008 library circulation rose 9%. And for the first time, the North Tonawanda Library lent more than 500,000 materials.

Some patrons complain about book prices but among the most popular uses for the libraries are computers "for document writing and Internet access."

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For a time, we were running what seemed like regular stories about cars and trucks driving into bookstores. Happily there has been a lull in this kind of bricks-and-mortar-and-car activity--until now. According to the Daily Herald, a "vehicle" struck the outside of a Barnes & Noble in Schaumburg, Ill., yesterday afternoon. Police said there were no injuries or damages but firefighters arrived to assess the building's structural integrity.

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After a 20% drop in revenue the first 11 months of last year, Earth-2 Comics and Collectibles, Sherman Oaks, Calif., has worked "doubly hard to engage their superhero-minded clientele," the Los Angeles Daily News reported.

The store has longer opening times because "ever hour counts," Jud Meyers, who owns the store with Carr D'Angleo, said. The pair aims "to connect to each customer, to entice each buyer with subscriptions," the paper added. "They e-mail each client. Call them at home. Tell them when their latest Avenger issue is in."

Meyers commented: "For us, small is the new big--meaning one product, one person . . . each person is connected to a particular product."

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The AP has an update on efforts by states and others to encourage sales tax collection on online purchases, a change that is being given extra urgency because so many states are in dire financial straits because the recession has resulted in smaller sales tax receipts.

Online sales last year were estimated by Forrester Research to total $204 billion, about 8% of all retail. A Forrester analyst believes that if online retailers had to collect sales taxes, it could generate $3 billion for state governments.

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"Spend time with your sweetie--or a great book," advised the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, noting, "if you're lucky enough to be dating or married to someone who shares a love of books, what better way to spend a gloomy afternoon or evening but in the company of great authors at some of the few independent bookstores that are left in Western Pennsylvania?"

The whirlwind bookshop tour included Penguin Bookshop and the Open Mind Bookstore, Sewickley; Mystery Lovers Bookshop, Oakmont; Aspinwall Books, Aspinwall; Caliban Book Shop, Oakland; and City Books, Pittsburgh.

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MinnPost.com reported that the February issue of Midwest Living magazine showcased five independent bookstores "with cozy corners, author events and good selections." The quintet includes Common Good Books, St. Paul, Minn.; Town House Books, St. Charles, Ill.; Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop, Milwaukee, Wis.; Prairie Lights Bookstore, Iowa City, Iowa; and Watermark Books and Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

"We're delighted that people think we're worthy," said Common Good Books manager Sue Zumberge. "I don't mean to sound like it doesn't matter, but we're just who we are. Of course, we love to be in the same group as Prairie Lights."

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Boing Boing featured "From the Typewriter to the Bookstore: A Publishing Story," a very funny video created by the Internet marketing team at Macmillan.

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A collaborative publishing grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, totaling more than $1 million, has been awarded to the University of North Carolina Press, University of Arizona Press, University of Minnesota Press and Oregon State University Press. In a statement, UNC Press noted that the grant was awarded "to support the publication of first books in the under-served and emerging field of Indigenous Studies," and that the publishers will "work together to enhance the vitality of a growing field that encompasses such critical topics as cultural and political sovereignty, the value of traditional knowledge, and ethnic identity."

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Obituary note: Scottish poet Mick Imlah died earlier this week, the Guardian reported. He was 52. Imlah's The Lost Leader, his first collection of poetry in 20 years, won the 2008 Forward prize and was shortlisted for T.S. Eliot Prize.

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Effective February 2, Perseus Distribution will distribute and otherwise provide fulfillment services for Zagat Survey.

 

 

Effective January 21, Jon Anderson becomes executive v-p and publisher of Simon & Schuster's children's division. He has been president and publisher of Running Press, a division of Perseus, since 2004, in charge of both the children's and adult publishing programs.

In a statement, Carolyn Reidy, S&S president and CEO, said that Anderson "is a truly original thinker who brings great creativity, financial and business acumen, and managerial skill to all his publishing endeavors, and he is the right person to build upon our rich legacy in children's publishing."  

Writing under the nom de plume William Boniface, Anderson has written the Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy series, the third installment of which, The Great Powers Outage, came out in November 2008 (see his December 11, 2008, Book Brahmin in Shelf Awareness).

Anderson was credited with the expansion of Running Press's children's program to include middle grade and young adult fiction, including Cathy's Book. Also under his watch, the company published the revised 25th Anniversary edition of Marlo Thomas's Free to Be . . . You and Me, the Skinny Bitch and the Sneaky Chef series and revitalized Miniature Editions.

Anderson began his career at B. Dalton Bookseller, where he worked in retail and as a buyer.

 

This morning on Imus in the Morning: Debra J. Dickerson, guest editor of Best African American Essays: 2009 (Bantam, $23, 9780553806915/0553806912).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Annette Gordon-Reed, author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (Norton, $35, 9780393064773/0393064778).

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Tomorrow morning on the Today Show: Joan Rivers, author of Men Are Stupid . . . And They Like Big Boobs: A Woman's Guide to Beauty Through Plastic Surgery (Pocket, $25, 9781416599227/1416599223).

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Tomorrow on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show: J.P. Olsen and Nancy Campbell, authors of The Narcotic Farm: The Rise and Fall of America's First Prison for Drug Addicts (Abrams, $29.95, 9780810972865/0810972867).

 

Jen Hadfield won the £15,000 (US$22,227) T.S. Eliot Prize for her second book of poetry, Nigh-No-Place. According to the Guardian, poet laureate Andrew Motion, who chaired this year's judges, said, "Nigh-No-Place shows that she is a remarkably original poet near the beginning of what is obviously going to be a distinguished career."

 

Selected new titles appearing this week and next:

Nemesis: The Final Case of Eliot Ness: A Novel by William Bernhardt (Ballantine, $26, 9780345487582/0345487583) chronicles the disclosure of America's first serial killer. (January 13.)

The Best of Everything by Kimberla Lawson Roby (Morrow, $23.99, 9780061443060/0061443069) is the sixth entry in the Rev. Curtis Black series, this time focusing on his shopaholic grown daughter. (January 13.)

Bicycles: Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni (Morrow, $16.99, 9780061726453/0061726451) is a companion collection to her Love Poems, published in 1997. (January 13.)

The Lexicon: An Unauthorized Guide to Harry Potter Fiction and Related Materials by Steve Vander Ark (RDR Books, $24.95, 9781571431745/1571431748) is a revised version of the book about the Harry Potter series that J.K. Rowling took to court. (January 16.)

Agincourt: A Novel by Bernard Cornwell (Harper, $27.99, 9780061578915/0061578916) reconstructs the Battle of Agincourt, which took place in 1415 during the Hundred Years War. (January 20.)

Breakneck by Erica Spindler (St. Martin's, $24.95, 9780312363901/0312363907) follows two Illinois detectives tracking a serial killer whose victims are apparently harmless young adults. (January 20.)

We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work by Jimmy Carter (Simon & Schuster, $27, 9781439140635/1439140634) outlines a former President and Nobel Peace Laureate's ideas for ending seemingly endless Middle Eastern conflicts. (January 20.)

 

The introduction to Justin Marozzi's account of his journey tracing the footsteps of the world's first historian, The Way of Herodotus: Travels with the Man Who Invented History (Da Capo, $27.50, 9780306816215/0306816210, January 2009) is subtitled "Dog-Headed Men, Gold-Digging Ants and Flying Snakes, or Why We Should All Read Herodotus." He left out sacred prostitution, rocket attacks in Baghdad and an exorcism in Thessaloniki, among other wonders in this marvelous mix of history and travel writing. Marozzi is a passionate advocate for reading Herodotus, author of "the world's first page turner." He discovered Herodotus this way:

Although I never came across Herodotus at university, I wish I had. Quite by accident I found myself reading history at Cambridge in the early Nineties. I went up to read Arabic and French but quickly revolted, dillied with English, dallied with social and political science and worked my way methodically if unsuccessfully around the entire corpus of the humanities until, after a brief flirtation with philosophy, a sceptical look at archaeology and anthropology and dire warnings of immediate expulsion, eventually there was nothing else left to study . . . Hovering nervously between subjects one bleak weekend in December, steeling myself for a stab at theology, on the brink of being sent down in humiliation, I went to see Neil McKendrick, the legendary head of [history] . . . 'You're in danger of becoming a laughing-stock,' he said, slowly crushing a piece of paper in his perfectly manicured hands . . . 'History's your last chance,' he said. I made up my mind there and then. History was the future.

As soon as he read the Histories, he was hooked:

But with Herodotus it's different . . . It's not the book, in other words, it's the man: his voice and his thoughts, his hopes, jokes and asides, a personality so obviously effervescent, startlingly modern in outlook, highly amusing, freedom-loving, broad-minded and humane. In time I started to think of him as the ideal travel companion, though we never went much further than the beach together.   

I remember reading him one afternoon beneath a slate-grey Norfolk sky unravelling across a wilderness of sand. Skeins of pinkfooted geese arrowed across the gloaming in their thousands, honking away like pigs possessed as they dropped out of the cloud, gently spiraling down to form a tufty grey carpet across the reclaimed saltmarshes. The wintering birds were a reminder of the dark months ahead and I found myself longing for Herodotus' turquoise world, a light so piercing you had to squint to see anything, the warmth of a topaz sun that wasn't a wan white disc besieged by cloud, a limpid sea you wanted to swim in rather than one so gaspingly cold it was a childish dare just to plunge in for a few seconds. I wanted olives and oranges, feta cheese and falafel, bobbing fishing boats and battlefields, pyramids, tombs and temples, marble columns hurled across sylvan groves in Ozymandian disarray. I wanted grand civilisation and the birth of history, not darkness at three o'clock and cold wet patches on my moleskins.

Idly, I started wondering where the two of us--because we were a team now--could go. Willed into life as the Norfolk chill took hold, a Herodotean expedition started to emerge from the frost-wrapped fields . . . There was no doubt about it. A journey was taking root . . .

My wife, unmoved by the obvious glory of the Herodotean trail, started panicking. 'What about the dog?' she asked.

Wit, adventure, history--it's all here in a compulsively readable book.--Marilyn Dahl

From the book The Way of Herodotus: Travels with the Man Who Invented History by Justin Marozzi.  Excerpted by arrangement with Da Capo Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group.  Copyright © 2009.

 

From Dana Brigham, co-owner of Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, Mass.:

"Last one standing."

I saw a regular customer in town yesterday and those were her words. I liked the spaghetti Western-ish feel of them. I confess to a big grin since I knew she was referring to Brookline Booksmith after Barnes & Noble closed its store a block and half from ours last week. After 15 years of "healthy competition," we feel good about continuing our 47-year history here in Brookline, Mass., a few miles from Fenway Park. We could call it our own small World Series win. It's not too often that the story of chain vs. indie ends that way, right?

A B&N spokesperson said the store was "too small for our current business model." Plus it was a crummy location on a second floor. Still, B&N had 14,000 square feet to our 5,500. So we'll take some credit, and we'll take any customers we can get or get back. We've already noticed many new faces, heard "oh, this is a cool place," been given suggestions for titles we should have. This is really fun!

After we got over plotting to put sand in B&N's escalator on its opening day, we moved on to devising more effective competitive strategies. We've lived a constant version of "dancing as fast as you can." Make that "dance faster and faster." The effort to stay hip and current while maintaining our familiar funkiness has been interesting. If someone asks, "What have you done to stay in business?" the answer would be, "Everything we could think of." That includes author events, a website, used books, remainders, a whole room of sidelines, an e-mail newsletter, e-commerce and more. In addition, the stellar selection and passionate super smart booksellers are huge factors. And luckily our community is full of readers, many of whom "get it" about shopping independents.

I have personally felt and acted like some combination of the Energizer Bunny and a Dodge 'Em Car. This is year 28 for me as manager and year 20 as co-owner. The store has grown and changed and always, always been exciting.

But I'd say the main reason we're still here is that we followed the concept of visionary founder and now co-owner Marshall Smith. He wanted to create bookstores that offered life-long learning and love of reading to as wide a variety of people as possible. Many of today's long-time independent bookstore folks began with Booksmith. Marshall believes in "going with your winners," and he means it in terms of titles, people and communities. Being a razor-sharp businessperson is also in his skill set.

Another crucial person is our controller and co-owner, Evelyn Vigo. She has been here almost since the start, first as a bookseller, then as a manager and book buyer. For many years, she has been a financial force to be reckoned with.

Credit is also due to the American Booksellers Association and the New England Independent Booksellers Association for continuing support through education and other programs. The camaraderie and swapping of ideas with others in the business has been invaluable. And the ranks of fantastic sales reps cannot go unmentioned.

Our story is not so different from that of many of the surviving older independents and peppy, smart newer ones. The competition is still ferocious and comes from many directions. But this moment in time feels very sweet. What a great way to start the New Year. The only thing better is that new guy taking over in Washington on January 20.