Notes: B&T for Sale; Bookstore Cats and Dogs
It's semi-official: Baker & Taylor is for sale, according to the Book Standard.
Bought by investment house Willis Stein in 2003 for $255 million, the
wholesaler has an estimated $1.5 billion in sales. About two-thirds of
that amount is said to be books; video and music are the company's
other major lines.
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Following up on Seattle being named the "Most Literate City" in the U.S. (Shelf Awareness, November 30), the Seattle Times's Nicole Brodeur talks with Matthew Mors and Gretchen Montgomery, the husband-and-wife owners of Square One Books in West Seattle. Mors called their customers "voracious" and showed a wonderful ability to handsell. For example, Brodeur wrote:
"Mors took my list of loves--David Sedaris' Holidays on Ice, James Frey's A Million Little Pieces and Laurie Colwin's Another Marvelous Thing--and presented me with a copy of Augusten Burroughs' Running With Scissors. ('It's as if A Million Little Pieces was written by Sedaris,' he told me. I'm game.)"
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Books-A-Million is opening a store in Cookeville, Tenn., about halfway between Nashville and Knoxville. The store will be in Jackson Plaza at South Jefferson Avenue and East Jackson Street. BAM has 14 other stores in Tennessee.
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Thanks to a $7,500 gift from the Costa Mesa, Calif., City Council, the Friends of the Costa Mesa Libraries is moving into a portable building that will house its headquartes and a new library bookstore, the Daily Pilot reported. Behind the Mesa Verde branch, it should open early next year.
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After a little over two and a half years--but long enough for three holiday catalogues and three trade shows--Nancy Fish has left the New England Booksellers Association as assistant executive director. NEBA executive director Rusty Drugan said that "the board and I very much appreciate Nancy's service to the association and wish her well in her future endeavors."
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Peggy Durbin and Michele Vochosky, longtime residents of Los Alamos, N.M., have bought the Otowi Station Bookstore in Los Alamos from Colleen and Bart Olinger, who have owned it since 1993, according to the Los Alamos Monitor. Earlier the store was known as the Ojo de Dios bookstore.
For the most part, the new owners plan to keep the store as is. "The staff is outstanding, the store has a wonderful reputation, scientists know where their books are; as the saying goes, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it,' " Durbin told the paper.
Besides adding a frequent reader's discount and bolstering e-commerce, the pair will install Ike as the new bookstore dog, replacing Bridget, who is trailing after the old owners.
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Internet Retailer magazine has named Powells.com one of the 50 best Internet retailers, the only bricks-and-mortar bookstore to make the list. The magazine cited Powells.com's "wealth of material designed to bring consumers back," including author interviews, essays, daily book reviews and podcasts. Created in 1994 and relaunched this past July, the site draws 70,000 visitors a day and 90% of its orders go to customers outside of Oregon. The magazine also mentioned Fup, the store cat, who keeps a highly popular journal on the site.
Concerning the redesign, Dave Weich, director of marketing and development at Powells.com, told the magazine, "It had grown up as Web sites tend to do. You leave them for two or three years and end up with these appendages that don't quite fit."
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Forbes.com looks at how book digitization by Google, Microsoft and Amazon might affect book retailers. Pete Mulvihill, co-owner of Green Apple Books, San Francisco, Calif., said, "There's still something wonderful about browsing in a book store compared with browsing online. There's a sense of possibility about walking into a store like ours."
Asked whether an online book search at one of the big online companies will lead customers to buy a book elsewhere, the frequently-quoted Dave Weich of Powells.com, responded, "Generally, in retail, the customer will take the path of most convenience. You're making an assumption that someone will go from Google and then out of their way to our site or our store. It's so hard to say what will happen, but it's hard to imagine how a small bookstore will benefit from this."
---
Following up on Seattle being named the "Most Literate City" in the U.S. (Shelf Awareness, November 30), the Seattle Times's Nicole Brodeur talks with Matthew Mors and Gretchen Montgomery, the husband-and-wife owners of Square One Books in West Seattle. Mors called their customers "voracious" and showed a wonderful ability to handsell. For example, Brodeur wrote:
"Mors took my list of loves--David Sedaris' Holidays on Ice, James Frey's A Million Little Pieces and Laurie Colwin's Another Marvelous Thing--and presented me with a copy of Augusten Burroughs' Running With Scissors. ('It's as if A Million Little Pieces was written by Sedaris,' he told me. I'm game.)"
---
Books-A-Million is opening a store in Cookeville, Tenn., about halfway between Nashville and Knoxville. The store will be in Jackson Plaza at South Jefferson Avenue and East Jackson Street. BAM has 14 other stores in Tennessee.
---
Thanks to a $7,500 gift from the Costa Mesa, Calif., City Council, the Friends of the Costa Mesa Libraries is moving into a portable building that will house its headquartes and a new library bookstore, the Daily Pilot reported. Behind the Mesa Verde branch, it should open early next year.
---
After a little over two and a half years--but long enough for three holiday catalogues and three trade shows--Nancy Fish has left the New England Booksellers Association as assistant executive director. NEBA executive director Rusty Drugan said that "the board and I very much appreciate Nancy's service to the association and wish her well in her future endeavors."
---
Peggy Durbin and Michele Vochosky, longtime residents of Los Alamos, N.M., have bought the Otowi Station Bookstore in Los Alamos from Colleen and Bart Olinger, who have owned it since 1993, according to the Los Alamos Monitor. Earlier the store was known as the Ojo de Dios bookstore.
For the most part, the new owners plan to keep the store as is. "The staff is outstanding, the store has a wonderful reputation, scientists know where their books are; as the saying goes, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it,' " Durbin told the paper.
Besides adding a frequent reader's discount and bolstering e-commerce, the pair will install Ike as the new bookstore dog, replacing Bridget, who is trailing after the old owners.
---
Internet Retailer magazine has named Powells.com one of the 50 best Internet retailers, the only bricks-and-mortar bookstore to make the list. The magazine cited Powells.com's "wealth of material designed to bring consumers back," including author interviews, essays, daily book reviews and podcasts. Created in 1994 and relaunched this past July, the site draws 70,000 visitors a day and 90% of its orders go to customers outside of Oregon. The magazine also mentioned Fup, the store cat, who keeps a highly popular journal on the site.
Concerning the redesign, Dave Weich, director of marketing and development at Powells.com, told the magazine, "It had grown up as Web sites tend to do. You leave them for two or three years and end up with these appendages that don't quite fit."
---
Forbes.com looks at how book digitization by Google, Microsoft and Amazon might affect book retailers. Pete Mulvihill, co-owner of Green Apple Books, San Francisco, Calif., said, "There's still something wonderful about browsing in a book store compared with browsing online. There's a sense of possibility about walking into a store like ours."
Asked whether an online book search at one of the big online companies will lead customers to buy a book elsewhere, the frequently-quoted Dave Weich of Powells.com, responded, "Generally, in retail, the customer will take the path of most convenience. You're making an assumption that someone will go from Google and then out of their way to our site or our store. It's so hard to say what will happen, but it's hard to imagine how a small bookstore will benefit from this."
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