Notes: Ingram Signs Graphic Arts; Miami Store Reopens
Graphic Arts Center Publishing Co., which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year (Shelf Awareness,
April 11, 2006) and has acted as a distributor for a handful of other
publishers in the Pacific Northwest, will be distributed by Ingram
Publisher Services, effective in January.
The tentative agreement includes order entry, customer service,
warehousing and fulfillment services. Graphic Arts will keep its sales
and marketing team. In a statement, Graphic Arts president Mike Hopkins
commented: "This is a very exciting opportunity, and is an important
step in ensuring our emergence from Chapter 11 and our future growth as
a company dedicated to quality book and calendar publishing."
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Afro-In Books and Cafe, which closed at the end of last year (Shelf Awareness, January 2, 2006), has reopened, the Miami Herald
reported. The new owners are Larry Capp, director of the Miami-Dade
Office of Community Relations, and his daugher Jamila Capp, a culinary
arts graduate from Johnson & Wales University and a former pastry
chef.
Located in the Liberty City section, Miami's only black-owned
bookstore was founded in 1978 by Earl and Eursla Wells, who sold the
store in 1993 to William "D.C." and Stephana Clark. After the Clarks
closed the store, the Wellses, who still own the building, negotiated a
deal with the Capps.
For much of the year, the store was renovated and now has a new kitchen
and dining area, four desktop computers for customers, a water
fountain, sidewalk tables--and last but not least, new fixtures and
central air conditioning.
The store will focus on contemporary fiction and nonfiction. Jamila
Capp said that partly
with essay and open mic poetry contests, she wants to create a store where people can hang out.
Afro-In Books and Café is located at 5575 NW Seventh Ave., Miami, Fla. 33127.
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Through the miracle of the Internet and a wi-fi connection, we've learned more about the
Selexyz store in Almere, Netherlands, owned by BGN, that uses radio
frequency identification (RFID) technology in ways not yet seen in U.S.
bookstores. The store was the subject of a presentation at the annual
meeting of the International Supply Chain Specialists just before the
Frankfurt Book Fair (Shelf Awareness, October 3, 2006).
According to a feature article in ComputerWorld,
the RFID system--which tracks books wirelessly on arrival and in the
store via tags that are on every book--cost between $550,000 and
$650,000 to implement. Jan Vink, IT director at Selexyz, estimated the
store will save $350,000 on "inventory-related costs" alone, apparently on an annual basis. Vink added
that the company plans to introduce RFID in another 20 stores this year; by the end of 2007, all 42 BGN stores should be using
RFID.
Vink said that the tags cost about 19 cents per item; at Frankfurt the
cost was estimated to be 13 cents because of "competition among tag
suppliers."
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One book, one country.
In another story from the Netherlands, through mid-November, Dutch libraries are giving away 575,000 copies of Dubbelspel (Double Play), a 1973 novel by Frank Martinus Arion set on Curacao, Reuters
reported. The Dutch library association, which is sponsoring the
program, hopes to encourage discussions of the book and get more
people to read. The association is giving away about one copy of the
book for every 30 citizens; the equivalent number of copies in the U.S.
would be 10 million.
"It's a novel you can read on several layers: an exciting and moving
tale about friendship and betrayal, a political allegory and also as an
atmospheric picture of the Netherlands Antilles in the 1970s," the
association said.
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Muhammad Yunus, who shares the Nobel Peace Prize with Grameen Bank, which he founded and heads, and author of Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
(PublicAffairs, $15, 1586481983), will be in the U.S. in mid-November,
a visit that includes an interview on Oprah that will be taped November
21. The publisher is working on other "in-studio national media" for
the laureate's book.
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State of Denial by Bob Woodward and Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction
by David Kuo are two recent examples of embargoed books whose contents
were leaked before their official pub date--in their cases by the New York Times, which said it bought the titles in bookstores.
A Washington Post
piece about embargoes--and breaking them--notes that "for many
reporters, blowing the lid off of embargoes has become a beat in
itself. Barbara Meade of Washington's Politics and Prose bookstore says
that she gets loads of calls from journalists begging her to sell them
books on the sly. MaryAnn Brownlow of the L Street Borders is similarly
pestered. 'Couldn't I just come in the back and speed-read a book?' she
says reporters ask her. Both Meade and Brownlow always say no."
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Bill Ackman, whose Pershing Square hedge fund owns 2.8% of Barnes & Noble, is bullish on the bookseller, saying in Barron's, as quoted by Yahoo, that B&N's stock could double in three years. Among the positive
points: gross margin has been rising; the company continues to shut
down less-profitable mall stores; it hasn't been hurt by the CD sales
implosion because they were never a big part of the business; its
margins are helped because it buys ever more directly, 10% of sales are
its own titles and it sells more and more non-book merchandise. The
company's cash flow is strong, allowing it to pay off its long-term
debt, finance superstore growth, pay a dividend and buy back shares.
Although he says he hopes it doesn't happen, Ackman calls B&N an
attractive buyout target.
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Barnes & Noble College has opened another store that aims to serve
the local community as much as the university. In this case, it's a new
10,000-sq.-ft. store in St. Petersburg, Fla., that is described as a
partnership between B&N and the University of South Florida at St.
Petersburg, according to the St. Petersburg Times.
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In the middle of November, Borders will open a 22,000-sq.-ft. store in Rogers, Ark., in the Pinnacle Hills Promenade lifestyle center at 2203 Promenade Blvd. The store will stock nearly 200,000 book, music and video titles. It's the first Borders in Arkansas, which has four Waldenbooks and a Brentano's outlet.
