Notes: Feds Probe Google Settlement; Shaman Drum to Close
The U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division "has sent formal demands to Google
Inc. and publishers for information about a deal that would allow the
search giant to make millions of books available online," according to
the Wall Street Journal,
which reported Hachette's CEO David Young "confirmed Tuesday the
company received a CID [civil investigative demand] regarding the
Google settlement but he declined to comment further."
A New York publishing executive, who preferred to remain anonymous, "said the Justice Department is requesting
documents about pricing, digital strategy and conversations with other
publishers related to the Google settlement," the Journal reported. "The Justice Department is
clearly focused on Google," said this executive. "It's a wide-ranging
request for documentation."
The New York Times
reported that the Justice Department also sent CIDs to the Association
of American Publishers and the Authors Guild. Michael J. Boni, a
partner at Boni & Zack, who represented the Authors Guild in
negotiations with Google, said, "They are asking for a lot of
information. It signals that they are serious about the antitrust
implications of the settlement."
The Justice Department has been reviewing the settlement Google reached with authors and publishers last fall (Shelf Awareness,
October 29, 2008) "after various parties complained that it would give
Google exclusive rights to profit from millions of orphan books.
Orphans are books still protected by copyrights, but that are out of
print and whose authors or rights holders are unknown or cannot be
found," the Times observed.
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Shaman Drum Bookshop, an Ann Arbor, Mich., institution for nearly 30 years, will close at the end of June. The Ann Arbor News reported that in a statement, owner Karl Pohrt "said the shop is not a sustainable business anymore despite 'a first-rate staff, a fiercely loyal core of customers, a very decent landlord and my own commitment to the community of arts and letters in Ann Arbor.'"
For more than a year, in the face of a dramatically changing book industry, the economic meltdown and declining college textbook sales (Shelf Awareness, February 17, 2009), Pohrt has explored alternatives with the community to find a way to keep his shop alive. These included a move to form a nonprofit literary arts center (Shelf Awareness, February 4, 2008), a search for investors (Shelf Awareness, February 9, 2009), and more recently the formation of a campus/community coalition (Shelf Awareness March 16, 2009).
In his statement, Pohrt "pushed for Ann Arbor area customers to support other local independent book stores. While Pohrt said it was an emotional decision to close the store, he called himself lucky to have to have had 29 good years in the Ann Arbor book-selling business," the News reported.
"I feel like I've had this charmed life to sell books in Ann Arbor for nearly 30 years," Pohrt said. "That's a good run."
He told the News that "he plans to continue with the venture to create the literary arts center. The plan for the center is still in the works and does not have a planned location."
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Conkey’s Bookstore, Appleton, Wis., "a fixture for 113 years, is going out of business," the Post-Crescent reported. In an open letter to the people of the Fox Valley, owner John Zimmerman called the decision a difficult one.
"Nevertheless, as the fifth proprietor of this establishment and as the previous owners before me have done, we have given it our all," he wrote. Earlier this year (Shelf Awareness, March 18, 2009), Conkey’s "lost its on-campus bookstore contract with Fox Valley Technical College to Barnes & Noble, which filed the lowest bid effective July 1. That contract represented about 50% of Conkey’s business," according to the Post-Crescent.
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A "micro-independent" bookshop has opened in Seattle, Wash. The Capitol Hill Seattle blog reported that Pilot Books, which "specializes in journals, poetry and other small-run or small-publisher volumes," features a collection that "is diverse and fascinating, covering the edges of the alterna-mainstream (i.e., quite a few McSweeney's volumes and authors) all the way through to the unimaginably obscure." The blog also noted that the shop has "only been open for a week and a day, and doesn't have a web presence yet that I can find, but word is already burbling on the internet."
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Random House Audio/Listening Library is featuring a pair of promotions for the summer. The Fantasy Road Trip Contest challenges teens to create videos based on an imaginary road trip with characters from one of three fantasy series by authors Libba Bray, Tamora Pierce and Rick Riordan. Three entrants, selected by the authors, will win an 8GB iPod Touch and a collection of signed audiobooks.
Listen Up, Florida! is a regional summer marketing campaign to promote audiobook awareness in the Orlando area, encouraging families to listen to audiobooks during their summer vacation drives. The promotion will be featured on billboards and local radio spots; bookstore shelf talkers and displays; as well as print advertising in the Orlando Sentinel, Winter Haven News Chief and New York Times Book Review.
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Verdict: guilty. Sentence: verbal hard labor. The New York Times reported that Dr. Andrew G. Bodnar, a former senior vice president at Bristol-Myers Squibb who admitted "making a false statement about efforts to resolve a patent dispute over a blood thinner," was sentenced to "two years of probation during which he is to write a book about his experience connected to the case. Dr. Bodnar must also pay a $5,000 fine."
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USA Today's celebrity-chasing Lifeline Live blog reported that Twilight series author Stephenie Meyer has announced on her website she is "taking down my bloated MySpace page. It was a lot of fun while it lasted, and I really miss the early days when I could hang out with people online. Many of you are hilarious and insightful, and I wish it was easier for me to talk to everyone the way I used to.
"With the MySpace no longer in existence, I can now clearly state that--beside than this website--there is no other outlet where I communicate with people online. I do not have a Facebook page, and I have never had one. I don't do Twitter. So if you're communicating with someone online that you think is me, it's not."
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Illustrator Anthony Browne, "whose picture books have become famous for their brilliantly realised, surreal images of gorillas," was named the U.K.'s new children's laureate, taking over from the poet Michael Rosen. The Guardian reported "Browne said that he would use his two-year stint as laureate to focus on the appreciation of picture books, and the reading of both pictures and words."
"Picture books are for everybody at any age, not books to be left behind as we grow older," said Browne. "The best ones leave a tantalising gap between the pictures and the words, a gap that is filled by the reader's imagination, adding so much to the excitement of reading a book. Sometimes I hear parents encouraging their children to read what they call proper books (books without pictures), at an earlier and earlier age. This makes me sad, as picture books are perfect for sharing, and not just with the youngest children."