In honor of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, we will not publish on Monday. We'll see you again on Tuesday!

 

Expanding its digital reach, HarperCollins has made what it describes as "a strategic investment" in NewsStand, Inc., and will work in partnership with the company and its LibreDigital division, which digitizes, stores and distributes books electronically, "to create, market and operate digital services" for other publishers.

Since last April (Shelf Awareness, April 10, 2006), LibreDigital has digitized more than 10,000 HarperCollins books and has created "Browse Inside" abilities for several thousand titles. These appear on HarperCollins Web sites and author sites, allowing consumers to view book content on screen.

Based in part on LibreDigital's work for HarperCollins, the two have proprietary systems that together manage "the digital publishing process"--from typesetting and production to Internet display and distribution. Throughout its digitization drive, HarperCollins has emphasized copyright control issues.

With the investment, HarperCollins group president Brian Murray is joining the NewsStand board of directors. Other investors in NewsStand include Adams Capital Management, Noro-Moseley Partners and the New York Times Company. NewsStand is a major digitizing service and marketer for more than 200 newspapers and magazines around the world.

According to today's Wall Street Journal, Hyperion is considering adopting the HarperCollins/LibreDigital process as part of its decision to have HarperCollins distribute its books. Among other major publishers, S&S is constructing its own digital warehouse, and Random House has been digitizing books since the late 1990s. Random's Stuart Applebaum indicated that larger houses will also offer digitization services to other publishers in the near future.

As a reminder that distribution shifts can occur pleasantly, efficiently and without drama, we offer the following:

Effective June 1, McBooks Press, Ithaca, N.Y., will be distributed by Independent Publishers Group. The house has been with National Book Network since 2002.

Founded 27 years ago, McBooks Press has some 140 titles in print and is best known for its historical fiction, especially nautical fiction. Among its authors in this area are several who specialize in series fiction about the era of wooden sailing ships, including Alexander Kent, Dudley Pope, Julian Stockwin and Dewey Lambdin. The press also publishes books on boxing and food and nutrition.

McBooks Press president Alex Skutt praised both IPG--"for its effective sales and operations, its excellent personnel, its financial stability and the help and advice with which it provides its clients"--and NBN, from whom the company is leaving "on the best of terms. They have done a fine job for us and were particularly helpful to McBooks Press when we were impacted by the 2002 demise of LPC Group."

The Michigan Business Review has a long profile of Nicola Rooney, owner with her four children of Nicola's Books in Ann Arbor, Mich.--and holder of a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Cambridge University. Who knew?

There's a lot of bookselling detail in this story, but one thing that stands out especially is Rooney's commentary on marketing strategy, which, she said, has changed over the past decade. "Instead of radio and newspaper advertising, Rooney now relies more on being out in the community, forming partnerships and hosting fundraisers at her shop," the Review wrote.

"The key thing is to get new customers into the store," Rooney said. "Our major challenge is visibility. Traditional methods of advertising are not as effective as they used to be. It is hard to find affordable, effective advertising."

Wassup is that 50 Cent, Nikki Turner and K. Elliott were signing books at the Borders store at Columbus Circle in New York City. The event last week marked the official bookstore launch of 50 Cent's G-Unit Books imprint, a joint venture with MTV/Pocket Books. G-Unit will publish hip-hop novellas.

 

 

 

 

This spring MacAdam/Cage is rolling out Readers' Choice, a program that allows booksellers to decide whether they'd like to purchase select frontlist titles in hardcover or paperback formats.

Of the 11 new titles on MacAdam/Cage's spring 2007 list, seven are designated Readers' Choice books. The program's inaugural selections include Open Me, a debut novel by Sunshine O'Donnell; A Circle Is a Balloon and Compass Both: Stories about Human Love by Ben Greenman, an editor at the New Yorker; and Kick the Animal Out, a novel by Véronique Ovaldé translated from the French. The first Readers' Choice title to hit stores will be Donna Daley-Clarke's novel Lazy Eye, a March publication.

The company has been considering the Readers' Choice program for some time and decided to launch it with the spring list, a time of year when it tends to publish lesser-known authors who are "brilliant but haven't found a niche yet," said MacAdam/Cage publisher David Poindexter. For such authors, booksellers routinely indicated a willingness to take a stronger stance on paperback originals than hardcovers.

The San Francisco house, which publishes primarily literary fiction, keeps hardcover editions on its backlist in print even after paperback versions become available. Incurring the cost of printing simultaneous editions for the Readers' Choice titles is a factor the company is willing to accept, noted Poindexter, in the interest of the program's importance as a marketing tool to gain exposure for authors and attract additional readers.

Are booksellers responding? "The follow-through is there," said Poindexter, and early indications suggest orders are evenly divided between those opting for hardcovers only, trade paperbacks only and both editions. Chain stores, according to Poindexter, are favoring trade paperback editions.

"A publisher's job is to find a readership for your authors," Poindexter said. "When you talk to booksellers and they say, 'I can sell more copies if it's a trade paperback original,' it becomes the responsibility of publishers to do that."--Shannon McKenna

Today on the Martha Stewart Show: Andrew Weil, M.D., author of Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Well-Being (Anchor, $14.95, 9780307277541).

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Today on NPR's News & Notes: Lalita Tademy, author of Red River (Warner, $24.99, 9780446578981).

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Today on Fox & Friends: advice from Garrett Sutton, author of Rich Dad's Real Estate Advantages: Tax and Legal Secrets of Successful Real Estate Investors (Warner Business, $17.99, 9780446694117).

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On Sunday, MSNBC will air a story about independent booksores that will feature Kepler's, Menlo Park, Calif. Rise early (or stay up late) for this one: it airs at 7:30 a.m. EST (and 6:30 Central, 5:30 Mountain, 4:30 Pacific). The show will repeat on Saturday, January 20, at 5:30 a.m. EST and at even more ungodly hours the farther west one goes.

 

The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association's 2007 Book Award winners, celebrating exceptional books written by Northwest authors, have been announced and will be presented Friday, March 16, at the PNBA Spring Tradeshow in Portland, Ore. The winners (with commentary from the judges) are:

• Ivan Doig for The Whistling Season (Harcourt). He "masterfully invokes the spirit of early 20th century Montana, revisiting the simplicity that was and mourning the voids left by the inevitable march of time."
• David James Duncan for God Laughs & Plays: Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalist Right (Triad Books/Triad Institute). "Humorous and poignant, Duncan hits all the right notes, reminding us that honoring our neighbors and ourselves shouldn't be a political thing."
• Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin for Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time (Viking). "Mortenson's story proves that wild things are obtainable and his work is a shining example of how to leave a legacy."
• Jess Walter for The Zero (ReganBooks/HarperCollins). This novel is set five days after 9/11. "From the laughable absurdity of celebrity tours of ground zero to the terrifying reality of what one's government may do in times of crisis, the reader slowly recognizes all that our hero has lost--and all that we have lost as well."
• William Stafford Memorial Poetry Award: David Biespiel, editor of Long Journey: Contemporary Northwest Poets (Oregon State University Press). "Not every poet here is a native, nor are all of the poems about this fine region, yet a familiar sense of place emerges to define them all as Northwestern."
• Children's Book: Iain Lawrence for Gemini Summer (Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers). Danny Rivers' defining moment "came the summer of 1965, amidst the escalating space race and the U.S. buildup in Vietnam. Heavy with loss and dreams dashed, Gemini Summer is ultimately an unforgettable tale of strength and hope."

The following were the bestselling titles at member stores of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association during the week ended Sunday, January 7, as reported to Book Sense:

Hardcover Fiction

1. Next by Michael Crichton (HarperCollins, $27.95, 9780060872984)
2. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Knopf, $24, 9780307265432)
3. For One More Day by Mitch Albom (Hyperion, $21.95, 9781401303273)
4. Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende (HarperCollins, $25.95, 9780061161537)
5. Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf, $25.95, 9780307262998)
6. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky (Knopf, $25, 9781400044733)
7. The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman (HarperCollins, $26.95, 9780060563455)
8. What Is the What by Dave Eggers (McSweeney's, $26, 9781932416640)
9. The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory (Touchstone, $25.95, 9780743272506)
10. The Hunters by W.E.B. Griffin (Putnam, $26.95, 9780399153792)
11. Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris (Delacorte, $27.95, 9780385339414)
12. The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford (Knopf, $26.95, 9780679454687)
13. Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier (Random House, $26.95, 9780375509322)
14. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (Algonquin, $23.95, 9781565124998)
15. The Echo Maker by Richard Powers (FSG, $25, 9780374146351)

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (Houghton Mifflin, $27, 9780618680009)
2. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama (Crown, $25, 9780307237699)
3. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press, $26.95, 9781594200823)
4. I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron (Knopf, $19.95, 9780307264558)
5. About Alice by Calvin Trillin (Random House, $14.95, 9781400066155)
6. You: On a Diet by Michael F. Roizen, M.D., and Mehmet C. Oz, M.D. (Free Press, $25, 9780743292542)
7. A Photographer's Life: 1990-2005 by Annie Leibovitz (Random House, $75, 9780375505096)
8. Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris (Knopf, $16.95, 9780307265777)
9. Marley & Me by John Grogan (Morrow, $21.95, 9780060817084)
10. Palestine by Jimmy Carter (S&S, $27, 9780743285025)
11. The Intellectual Devotional by David S. Kidder and Noah D. Oppenheim (Rodale, $22.50, 9781594865138)
12. The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, M.D. (Morgan Road, $24.95, 9780767920094)
13. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Morrow, $27.95, 9780061234002)
14. I Like You by Amy Sedaris (Warner, $27.99, 9780446578844)
15. French Women for All Seasons by Mireille Guiliano (Knopf, $24.95, 9780307265234)

Trade Paperback Fiction

1. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards (Penguin, $14, 9780143037149)
2. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (Grove, $14, 9780802142818)
3. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (Norton, $13.95, 9780393328622)
4. Snow by Orhan Pamuk (Vintage, $14.95, 9780375706868)
5. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (Random House, $13.95, 9780812968064)
6. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (Back Bay, $13.99, 9780316010702)
7. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead, $14, 9781594480003)
8. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (HarperSanFrancisco, $13.95, 9780061122415)
9. March by Geraldine Brooks (Penguin, $14, 9780143036661)
10. On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Penguin, $15, 9780143037743)
11. Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Vintage, $11.95, 9781400095940)
12. The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea (Back Bay, $14.95, 9780316154529)
13. The Sea by John Banville (Vintage, $12.95, 9781400097029)
14. The Lighthouse by P.D. James (Vintage, $13.95, 9780307275738)
15. The Children of Men by P.D. James (Vintage, $13.95, 9780307275431)

Trade Paperback Nonfiction

1. The Iraq Study Group Report by the Iraq Study Group (Vintage, $10.95, 9780307386564)
2. Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama (Three Rivers, $14.95, 9781400082773)
3. Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk (Vintage, $14.95, 9781400033881)
4. The Places in Between by Rory Stewart (Harvest, $14, 9780156031561)
5. Zagat: San Francisco/Bay Area Restaurants 2007 (Zagat, $13.95, 9781570068102)
6. The End of Faith by Sam Harris (Norton, $13.95, 9780393327656)
7. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (Amber-Allen, $12.95, 9781878424310)
8. 1491 by Charles C. Mann (Vintage, $14.95, 9781400032051)
9. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan (Mariner, $14.95, 9780618773473)
10. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Vintage, $14.95, 9780375725609)
11. The Pursuit of Happyness by Chris Gardner (Amistad, $14.95, 9780060744878)
12. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (Back Bay, $14.95, 9780316346627)
13. A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle (Plume, $14, 9780452287587)
14. The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2007 (World Almanac, $12.99, 9780886879952)
15. Bad President by R.D. Rosen, Harry Prichett, Rob Battles and James Friedman (Workman, $8.95, 9780761146209)

Mass Market

1. The Hunt Club by John Lescroart (Signet, $9.99, 9780451220103)
2. S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton (Berkley, $7.99, 9780425212691)
3. The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury (Signet, $9.99, 9780451219954)
4. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (HarperTorch, $7.99, 9780060515195)
5. The Fallen by T. Jefferson Parker (HarperCollins, $7.99, 9780060562397)
6. The Cat Who Dropped a Bombshell by Lilian Jackson Braun (Jove, $7.99, 9780515142419)
7. The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, Fourth Edition (Merriam-Webster, $7.50, 9780877799290)
8. Point Blank by Catherine Coulter (Jove, $7.99, 9780515141689)
9. The Cell by Stephen King (Pocket, $9.99, 9781416524519)
10. Death of a Dreamer by M. C. Beaton (Warner, $6.99, 9780446618137)

Children's Titles

1. Eragon by Christopher Paolini (Laurel-Leaf, $6.99, 9780440238485)
2. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd (HarperCollins, $7.99, 9780694003617)
3. Pirateology by Captain William Lubber (Candlewick, $19.99, 9780763631437)
4. Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann (Putnam, $7.99, 9780399230035)
5. Eldest by Christopher Paolini (Knopf, $21, 9780375826702)
6. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (HarperCollins, $16.95, 9780060254926)
7. The Lost Colony (Artemis Fowl, #5) by Eoin Colfer (Miramax, $16.95, 9780786849567)
8. Sunset (Warriors, The New Prophecy Series #6) by Erin W. Hunter (HarperCollins, $16.99, 9780060827694)
9. Good Night San Francisco by Adam Gamble, illustrated by Santiago Cohen (Our World of Books, $9.95, 9780977797950)
10. The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 13) by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Brett Helquist (HarperCollins, $12.99, 9780064410168)
11. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (Megan Tingley, $17.99, 9780316160193)
12. Hoot by Carl Hiaasen (Yearling, $6.50, 9780440421702)
13. Season of the Sandstorms (Magic Tree House Series #34) by Mary Pope Osborne (Random House, $4.99, 9780375830327)
14. Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt (Golden, $9.99, 9780307120007)
15. Christmas by Robert Sabuda (Orchard, $12.99, 9780439845687)

[Many thanks to Book Sense and NCIBA!]