"And yet, as I read the crowing of [Seth] Godin, [Ray] Connolly and the various other authors who are suddenly turning their backs on their publishers and going solo; and as I hear the rising chorus of abuse directed at the women and men (mostly women) who toil in the world's--I dunno? Third-? Fourth-?--oldest profession--I'm pretty sure which side of the barricades I belong on. You see, I love my publishers. Absolutely adore them. Couldn't live without them. Furthermore, I think anyone who willingly abandons theirs in favor of self-publishing, is either delusional, a peremptory jackass--or both."

 

In a response to Barnes & Noble's sharp letter to company shareholders last week (Shelf Awareness, August 25, 2010), Yucaipa Companies has sent its own letter to shareholders offering a decidedly different point of view--and leaning less frequently on the caps lock key than B&N did.

Yucaipa called the B&N letter "rife with misstatements and unfounded allegations" and an attempt "to distract you from the real issues: their record of poor performance and their history of approving special treatment and related party transactions that benefit the Riggio family."

Not surprisingly, Yucaipa called its slate of three nominees to the board--including Ron Burkle, who controls Yucaipa--"highly qualified" and "independent." It also defended its investment history, particularly in A&P.

It charged the current board has "approved years of related party transactions with the Riggio family, including: almost $70 million in lease payments for office space, warehouses and bookstores owned by entities in which the Riggio family has majority or minority interests; almost $100 million dollars of textbook purchases from an entity in which the Riggio family has a majority interest; almost a quarter of a billion dollars in payments to a shipping company in which Leonard and Stephen Riggio's brother has a 20% interest; and over half a billion dollars paid to Leonard Riggio and his wife to buy Barnes & Noble College Booksellers!"

Yucaipa characterized its proposal to change the board's poison pill provision enacted last year as a matter of fairness, showing that "all stockholders should be treated the same. Why should Leonard Riggio be allowed to own 33% of the outstanding stock but no other stockholder can own more than 20%?"

It continued: "The Board claims it is concerned that Yucaipa is trying to get control of the Company without paying a control premium. We find it curious that the Board apparently didn't have the same concerns while Leonard Riggio increased his ownership stake from approximately 20% to now approximately 33% of the outstanding stock without paying the stockholders any control premium along the way."

Yucaipa also noted that the company's stock buybacks of the past few years worth about $800 million helped increase Len Riggio's stake in B&N because he did not sell any of his shares. In addition, "The poison pill this Board adopted also allows Mr. Riggio to acquire even more shares by exercising stock options, which Mr. Riggio recently did to purchase almost a million extra shares, representing approximately 1.7% of the outstanding stock.

"Put simply, if Mr. Riggio is not considered a threat when he holds approximately 33% of the common stock, how can this Board reasonably consider any non-Riggio stockholder that acquires up to 30% of the outstanding stock as a threat? How does such a double standard benefit you?

Yucaipa asserted that it "has no plan to acquire control" of B&N and denied that it was working with Aletheia "to steal your company." Its denial was artfully phrased: "This issue was extensively examined in the Delaware poison pill case, and Barnes & Noble was not able to present any evidence, nor did the Vice Chancellor find, that Yucaipa and Aletheia have any agreement or understanding regarding their independent investments in the Company.

"In fact, the Board's own outside legal counsel advised the Board that they had NO evidence that Yucaipa and Aletheia were working together. That's because we never have worked together in the past and we are not now."

Yucaipa said that the most appropriate way to maximize shareholder is "a truly fair competitive bidding process to sell the Company.... However, we believe the way the Company has handled the process so far is deeply flawed," particularly as related to the possibility that the Riggios will take the company private.

"What message does it send when Leonard Riggio sells the Company his college textbooks business for over half a billion dollars when the Company’s stock is trading in the $24 range, yet now that the Company's stock is trading in the $14 range, Leonard Riggio suddenly wants to buy the Company?"

Yucaipa also said it is concerned that potential bidders may be deterred from bidding by Len Riggio's "locked-in voting and stock ownership advantage under the poison pill, his influence over the Board, and the long history of Board-approved related party transactions with the Riggios."

B&N's annual meeting takes place on September 28 in New York City.
 
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In other company news, Barnes & Noble plans to close its 15-year-old, four-story bookstore on West 66th Street near Lincoln Center in New York City when the lease expires next January. In a statement, the company said "the current lease is at its end of term, and the increased rent that would be required to stay in the location makes it economically impossible for us to extend the lease. We want our loyal customers and booksellers to know that we are ever committed to continuing our search for a new location on the Upper West Side."

The Wall Street Journal reported that during the past decade, "average asking rents for retail space have climbed by nearly 25% along Columbus Avenue and Broadway, to $128 a square foot in 2010 from $103 in 2000, according to the Real Estate Board of New York. Even so, rents are off their peaks. At the height of the real-estate boom, average asking prices were $147 a square foot, the report said."

"It's going to be tough for any of the tenants that went in 10 to 15 years ago, like Barnes & Noble, to afford new rents," said Robin Abrams, executive v-p of New York real-estate firm Lansco Corp.

 

Kobo, the e-book company based in Toronto, has opened an office in New York City "focused on publisher relations and content acquisition for the U.S. market," according to the company's blog, which also named two members to its New York staff: 

Jan Ehrlich is now director, newspapers and magazines, for Kobo's New York office. She worked most recently as director of business development for Texterity. Prior to that, she ran periodical publisher relations for Special Data Processing and held various roles at Playboy, Children's Television Workshop and Forbes.

Ami Greko is senior manager, vendor relations, books, for the New York office. She was most recently director of business development for GetGlue. She also managed digital marketing for Macmillan, was marketing director for Folio Literary Management, and held positions with FSG and Viking Penguin. Kobo said it is "still looking for some more NYC hires."

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A celebration of the life of Joe Drabyak, who died last Friday, will be held Sunday, October 3, at DellaVecchia, Reilly, Smith & Boyd Funeral Home in West Chester, Pa. Visitation begins at 2:30, and the service will start at 4:30. All are welcome to meet up at Chester County Book & Music Company afterwards to share memories and refreshments.

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In a bear market, maybe bears are the answer. Borders will sell begin selling items from Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc., "relying less on books for sales as more people use electronic reading devices," Bloomberg reported. Most of the chain's bookstores will create dedicated sections for the product line, including "books and DVDs tied to the brand."

"As more books are bought online or in digital format than bought at retail, it creates really the ultimate strategic challenge in terms of redefining the bookstore. We are totally rethinking it," said Michael Edwards, CEO of Borders, which "also plans to open departments that will sell as many as six digital book readers, Edwards said. Currently the chain only sells these devices through its website. In larger Borders' stores, these areas will have seating for shoppers to test the products," according to Reuters.

Michael Souers, a retail analyst for Standard & Poor's, said, "With online taking up more of the market in a few years, obviously there is less need for physical space allocated for the books themselves. If they can find additional uses for that space, it's a good idea."

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Boing Boing showcased a fantasy novel cover-art trends chart for books published in 2009. The summer intern at Orbit Books creates one annually. Among the notable discoveries:

"We have concrete evidence that the big three fantasy cover clichés ('castles,' 'glowy magic' and 'swords') are in decline."

"Hooded figures: Not as many hooded figures as you might imagine, but early indications suggest that this category might explode in 2010."

"Non-distressed damsels: We added this category because we were finding that most of the damsels gracing fantasy covers didn’t seem particularly distressed at all, and we wanted to show that."

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Wired magazine asked the "burning question"--Why do e-books cost so much?--and heard from three experts on the subject.

"People vastly overestimate how much a publisher saves," said Erik Sherman, an analyst and author who studies e-book economics.

"People would have heart attacks if they knew all the costs associated with digital publishing," added Maja Thomas, senior v-p of Hachette's digital division.

But author Larry Doyle observed, "Publishers do price e-books a little higher than necessary, because they're concerned about devaluing people's perception of books. They're worried that if they sell the digital editions for too little, they'll have to lower prices for the paper editions as well, which would undercut their main source of revenue."

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Attempting to fathom the sometimes unfathomable power of social networking, the New York Times explored the curious digital path of Shut Up, I'm Talking: And Other Diplomacy Lessons I Learned in the Israeli Government by Gregory Levey, whose Facebook fan page "went from having just 700 fans to 692,000 in a matter of months."

Levey said he "couldn't believe what I was seeing. Who were these people?" Not necessarily his readers, as it turned out. He gradually discovered that "somehow, people had fastened onto the book's title... and taken it in an unintended direction. People weren't telling their friends that they 'Like' his page because they were avid readers; instead, they were fans of the catchphrase," the Times wrote.

The author's next book, How to Make Peace in the Middle East in Six Months or Less Without Leaving Your Apartment, is scheduled for a September 7 release and has a new Facebook page, Peace in the Middle East, "which he hopes will draw a more thoughtful--or at least book-buying--crowd."

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Littlefly, literary jewelry by Jeremy May, is created "by laminating hundreds sheets of paper together, then carefully finishing to a high gloss. The paper is selected and carefully removed from a book, and the jewelry re-inserted in the excavated space.... The beauty of the jewels extends within the piece: text and images pass all the way though the object, only exposed at the surfaces--giving a tantalizing glimpse of the book within."

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Book trailer of the day: News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist by Laurie Hertzel (University of Minnesota Press).

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National Geographic Books has extended its sales and distribution partnership with Random House Publisher Services, which began in 2005. In addition to continuing to use Random House's sales and distribution services for traditional books, National Geographic Books will now also use Random House's e-book distribution platform and new online marketing services, which will launch this fall.

The online marketing services will include social media and Google Content Network campaigns; sales and marketing data enhancements; help develop and distribute marketing videos, online ads and other e-content.

Nina Hoffman, president of National Geographic Books, commented: "As the industry landscape continues to evolve, we look forward to connecting more deeply with our readers through the unique suite of online tools and services RHPS has created for us while continuing to build a quality, diverse list."

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The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group has established a department to provide publishing, sales and marketing, order fulfillment, and royalty and credit and collections services for the University of Delaware Press, Bucknell University Press, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Lehigh University Press.

The four presses will maintain their own publishing staffs and maintain editorial control, decide what manuscripts to publish and vet those manuscripts; once a decision to publish is made, Rowman & Littlefield will then take charge of the publication process, including copy editing, typesetting, design, etc.

The four presses had collaborated in a similar way with Association University Presses, Cranbury, N.J., whose director, Julien Yoseloff, announced his retirement earlier this year. AUP will continue to distribute some backlist titles of the four presses. Rowman & Littlefield will offer "a large selection" of backlist and recently published titles, and as of September it will publish all new books by the presses, using these new ISBN prefixes:

University of Delaware Press: 978-1-61130
Lehigh University Press: 978-1-61146
Bucknell University Press: 978-1-61148
University of Delaware Press: 978-1-61149

Contact Karen Mattscheck at kmattscheck@nbnbooks.com for a complete listing of the backlist titles of the four presses that Rowman & Littlefield will carry.

 

When Sheri Olson talks about her new vocation, one of the first things people inquire about is whether she's opening a Christian bookstore. "If I had $5 for every time someone asked that, I would have had the money to open my store last year," said Olson. The former pastor is the owner of Reading Frenzy BookShop, a general interest bookstore in Zimmerman, Minn., set for a soft opening the week of September 13.

For the past year Olson has been selling online at readingfrenzymn.com and at school book fairs, shows like the Zimmerman Business Expo and other venues. Her efforts have built name recognition for the store and allowed her to get to know the bookselling world. "I've been buying books for a year and marketing for a year, which has been a great learning experience for me," she said.

Olson's main motivation for setting up online and selling at book fairs and shows was to raise capital to open the bricks-and-mortar store. "I didn't have funding, and I needed to be creative. I was forced to think out of the box on how to get the storefront going," she said. One cost-cutting tactic was the purchase of $20,000 worth of bookshelves and fixtures from a closed Borders store for $3,000 via an online auction.

To further reduce opening costs, the store's inventory consists of half new and half used books. "We actually have three different types of books in the store," noted Olson. New books and gently used ones ("recycled readings") are shelved together, while tomes with slightly more wear are located at the back of the store in a section called "At the Cabin" and touted for vacation reading. "Here in Minnesota, we're cabin people," said Olson. "Everyone goes to a cabin for the summer." Some of the 5,000 used books were donated by family, friends and others who responded to Olson's requests on Facebook and Twitter. The rest came from a used bookstore in Kansas that was being relocated.

Last December, Olson introduced herself at a Chamber of Commerce network meeting. After explaining that she was looking to open a bookstore, she mentioned that her preferred locale would be in a strip mall next door to Dunn Bros Coffee with a door adjoining the two businesses. "Coffee and books, what's better than that?" she reasoned. It turns out the proprietor of the Dunn Bros shop, who also owns the building, was in attendance. "He came up to me and said, 'We can do this,'" recalled Olson. "He really cut his price for us to be able to get in there."

The interior of the nearly 1,600-sq.-ft. space, which was unfinished so that it could be built for the occupying business, has been transformed into a booklovers' haven with a reading nook and decorative touches like tables adorned with painted images of book spines. "We really want the store to be a hangout, which our community desperately needs," said Olson. Ready Frenzy is the only bookstore in Zimmerman, which is about 40 miles northwest of Minneapolis. And yes, there is a connecting door to the coffee shop.

Olson plans to run the store with the help of a part-time staffer. Along with her husband, Mike, who is the store's bookkeeper in addition to holding down a day job as an IT program manager, she attended a Paz & Associates bookseller training session. Olson has received advice and support from fellow workshop participants who have since opened stores, including Laura DeVault, co-owner of Over the Moon Bookshop and Artisan Gallery in Crozet, Va. (Shelf Awareness, June 22, 2010). For on-the-scenes instruction, Olson visited fellow Minnesota booksellers Laura Hansen of Bookin' It in Little Falls and Charlie Leonard of the Bookcase in Wayzata.

Reading Frenzy's whimsical logo--which features a drawing of a white dog and the tag line "sit, stay, read"--was inspired by an IndieBound poster. "His tail is wagging because he's excited about the books," said Olson, whose real-life canine companion is a basset hound, Smores.

The store's four-legged mascot, Frenzy, is the inspiration for the children's section--designated "Frenzy's Back Yard"--which is reached through an opening in a white picket fence. There is grass-green carpeting, a large water bowl adorned with Frenzy's name and a mural on two walls depicting the outdoors. Kids can read inside an oversized red dog house, or they can sit in one of several dog beds or white rocking chairs adorned with paw prints. Olson had a kid-oriented logo created with the words "Frenzy's Friendz" that appears on T-shirts and temporary tattoos.

IndieBound selections are featured near the store's entrance, along with a display of regional titles and books by local authors. Outdoor-themed tomes are prominently placed to appeal to the area's hunting and fishing enthusiasts as well as visitors to Zimmerman's 30,700-acre national wildlife refuge. Another highlight is the Pastor's Picks section. Olson has invited pastors to recommend up to five titles each. Anything is fair game, from religious books to fiction and weight loss titles.

Many of the store's sideline items are produced by Midwestern vendors, among them Amish butters and jams, T-shirts with fishing and hunting motifs created by a graphic artist and confections made by Arndt's Fudgery. Olson plans to showcase works by local artists and invite folk musicians to play on weekends.

Reading Frenzy is taking part in the county's "Krazy Days" festivities on September 18 and 19. Later in the month, animal rescuer Linzi Glass is scheduled to appear via Skype to discuss her middle grade fiction book Finding Danny. The event is partly a fundraiser for Ruff Start Rescue, an animal shelter located near Zimmerman. Reading Frenzy's grand opening celebration will take place October 16. Said Olson, "It's fun to see the dream you envision come true."--Shannon McKenna Schmidt

Reading Frenzy BookShop is located at 12530 Fremont Ave., Suite 200, Zimmerman, Minn. 55398; 763-389-0667.

 

Tomorrow morning on Fox & Friends: Laura and Jorge Posada, authors of The Beauty of Love: A Memoir of Miracles, Hope, and Healing (Atria, $24, 9781439103081/1439103089).

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Tomorrow on Tavis Smiley: Laura Lippman, author of I'd Know You Anywhere (Morrow, $25.99, 9780061706554/0061706558).

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Tomorrow night on a repeat of the Colbert Report: Leslie Kean, author of UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record (Crown, $25.99, 9780307716842/0307716848).

 

HBO's Temple Grandin was the big winner at last weekend's Emmy awards. The movie, which was based on the life of the world-renowned animal scientist and bestselling author, earned five category wins:

Grandin (l. in photo, with Danes) had forecast the win for Danes earlier this summer (Shelf Awareness, June 14, 2010), saying, "You would have never known it was her in the movie! I saw the movie four or five times--she literally became me. The way she walked, talked, everything was me.... I think Claire deserves the Emmy. She went above and beyond what anyone else would have done." Grandin, who attended the Emmy ceremony, also praised Danes in a red carpet interview.

Other Emmy winners with a literary pedigree included HBO's The Pacific, which used several books as part of its exhaustive research and won the Outstanding Miniseries award; and You Don't Know Jack (Al Pacino for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie), which was based in part on the book Between the Dying and the Dead: Dr. Jack Kevorkian's Life and the Battle to Legalize Euthanasia by Neal Nicol and Harry Wylie.

Factoring in the Creative Arts Emmys, The Pacific and Temple Grandin topped the field with eight and seven total awards respectively.

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday and Wednesday, September 7 and 8:

Ape House: A Novel by Sara Gruen (Spiegel & Grau, $26, 9780385523219/0385523211) investigates the bombing of a research center studying communication with apes through sign language.

The Weekend That Changed Wall Street: An Eyewitness Account by Maria Bartiromo and Catherine Whitney (Portfolio, $26.95, 9781591843511/1591843510) documents a CNBC business news anchor's experiences during the September 2008 weekend when the economy collapsed.

Getting to Happy by Terry McMillan (Viking, $27.95, 9780670022045/0670022047) reunites the four women protagonists from Waiting to Exhale.

The Elephant's Journey by Jose Saramago and Margaret Jull Costa (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $24, 9780547352589/0547352581) chronicles the voyage of an elephant and its keeper from Lisbon to Vienna in 1551.

The Widower's Tale: A Novel by Julia Glass (Pantheon, $25.95, 9780307377920/030737792X) follows a newly retired librarian who experiences unexpected life changes.

Zero History by William Gibson (Putnam, $26.95, 9780399156823/0399156828) follows members of a trend-forecasting firm ordered to discover the designer behind a secretive brand of clothing.

Fury: A Memoir by Koren Zailckas (Viking, $25.95, 9780670022304/0670022306) explores the repressed rage simmering under the tenuous sobriety of a former alcoholic.

Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst by Robert I. Sutton (Business Plus, $23.99, 9780446556088/0446556084) determines what makes a boss effective in motivating their employees.


New in paperback:

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Egan (Mariner Books, $15.95, 9780547394602/0547394608).

The Hidden Life of Dogs by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (Mariner Books, $13.95, 9780547416854/0547416857).

 

Pennie Clark Ianniciello, Costco's book buyer, has chosen Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay (St. Martin's Griffin, $13.95, 9780312370848/0312370849) as her pick of the month for September. In Costco Connection, which goes to many of the warehouse club's members, she wrote:

"Regular readers of the book department [in Coscto Connection] might remember Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay as one of our staff picks in April 2009. This book has become one of my all-time favorites.

"Sarah's Key comprises two stories, one contemporary and one set in 1942 Paris. Julia and her husband, Bertrand, are preparing to move into an apartment owned by Bertrand's family. As Julia researches the apartment's tenants from 60 years ago, she learns not only about Sarah, but also about her husband's family and herself.

"De Rosnay's descriptions of the filth and panic made me feel as if I had been at the Vélodrome d'Hiver during a roundup of Jewish families. While I was reading the book, I found myself turning to the Internet to research what I was reading about. It's been more than a year since I finished this book, and the story haunts me to this day."

 

Hiroshima in the Morning by Rahna Reiko Rizzuto (Feminist Press, $16.95 trade paperback, 9781558616677/1558616675, September 2010)

 

Opening lines of a book we want to read:

 

Leaving

I can tell you the story but it won't be true.

It won't be the facts as they happened exactly, each day, each breath. Times elides, events shift; sometimes we shift them on purpose and forget that we did. Memory is just how we choose to remember.

We choose.

It begins in our house, on the top floor of a nineteenth century brownstone. I'm sitting at our long dining room table across from my husband Brian, my two, brightly-pajamaed sons asleep.... The year is 2001, the place New York City, and in the quiet of the last, warming days of May, I am making a list.

 I am a list maker, a super-organizer who measures her success in life by how many of the items she's checked off....

 I knew I was leaving, but if I had known how thoroughly my life would shatter over the next six months, into gains just as astonishing as the losses; if I knew I was saying goodbye to the person I was that night, that decade, that lifetime; if I understood I was about to become someone new, too new, someone I was proud of, who I loved, but who was too different to fit here, in this particular, invisible narrative that I was sitting in but couldn't feel, would I still have gotten on the airplane?

 This is the question people will ask me. The question that curls now in the dark of the night.

 How do any of us decide to leave the people we love?

--selected by Marilyn Dahl

 

Patricia Engel's debut arrives with glowing endorsements from several literary luminaries, Junot Díaz and Uzodinma Iweala to name just two, and the praise is well-deserved. In this collection of connected stories, Engel explores timely questions of community versus personal identity, offers striking observations on the restrictions of class and race and does it all in a voice that is free of artifice and effort.

The common thread in Vida is Sabina, 14 years old when we meet her and living in New Jersey. The daughter of Colombian immigrants, Sabina describes her family as "foreigners, spics, in a town of blancos," who never manage to become accepted in their community. In the first story, "Lucho," the tomboyish, lonely Sabina strikes up a friendship with another outcast--a 16-year-old "bad boy" with a terrible secret--who takes a genuine interest in her. But this friendship, like so many others in Vida, has tragic overtones. In "Green," for example, the adult Sabina is contacted by Maureen, her high-school nemesis, who is dying as a result of her anorexia. Sabina's conviction that Maureen finally wants to apologize and make amends turns to horror when she realizes the real reason that Maureen has summoned her. In the beautifully constructed "Paloma," Engel packs a novel's worth of feeling into the story of Sabina's aunt and childhood caretaker, a complicated woman (and repository of family secrets) who is forced to yield her independence when she becomes ill. In the title story, perhaps the most poignant in the collection, Sabina (who has drifted to Miami in an effort to remake herself) befriends Vida, an illegal immigrant with a troubled past and dangerous future. Sold into prostitution and then freed from her brothel by one of its guards, Vida has become that guard's "girlfriend" and virtual prisoner. Placing both of them at considerable risk, Sabina cobbles together a plan to rescue her friend.

While some stories deal sensitively with Sabina's romantic relationships and her inability to sustain them, Engel is strongest when navigating the lives of Sabina's family and friends. Their struggles for acceptance, to become part of their wider communities without sacrificing their identities or values, and to work through pervasive cruelty and classism are rendered with precision and absolute honesty. These stories are quiet and deep, a function of Engel's clear, direct prose, which is devoid of frills and accouterments. These are real, three-dimensional characters and their stories are deeply moving. --Debra Ginsberg

Shelf Talker: A striking debut collection of linked stories tracing the life of an American-born daughter of Colombian immigrants.