Andy Laties, author of Rebel Bookseller, co-founder of the former Children's Bookstore in Chicago and a manager of the bookstore at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, has launched BiblioExpeditions, the first for-profit Bookstore Tourism company.

On his blog, Laties said, "I'm going to be looking at universities and colleges as initial points of departure, for, initially, Greenwich Village bookstore tours--in particular, colleges in Connecticut and Massachusetts, since I currently live in Amherst, Mass. . . . I think I may be able to run the first of these within two months--I'll try to run one every Saturday, to begin with, from a rotating set of departure points.

"Depending on demand, and on what I learn from riders, I'll either proceed to develop more, different tours, to different destinations, or I'll increase the number of departures for the Village, or, I'll add more points of departure."

Larry Portzline, the founder of Bookstore Tourism, said that "Andy's got the business chops and industry knowledge to make this thing fly, and I couldn't be more thrilled" about BiblioExpeditions. For his part, Portzline continues to work on the non-profit National Council on Bookstore Tourism, which promotes the concept as a form of cultural tourism.

Laties may be reached at alaties@aol.com. 

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Seeking to keep some aisles clear, the Barnes & Noble in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, N.Y., put up a sign banning strollers from the lower level, but after some parents were offended, it took the sign down and relies on an employee "who politely points out the availability of spaces to park the mini-vehicles," the New York Sun reported.

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The problem with celebrity authors whose contracts are big news:

Apparently an appearance yesterday at a New York City Barnes & Noble by Yankee star Alex Rodriguez promoting his new children's book, Out of the Ballpark, devolved for a time into "a media circus that included a paparazzi member tossing A-Rod a ball to sign," the New York Post wrote. "At one point, a New York policeman grabbed a reporter for the crime of trying to interview the beleaguered superstar."

The North Jersey Record explained the difficulty: "Print media at the New York signing were barely allowed five minutes of interview time, and at least two reporters were grabbed by security personnel for not dispersing quickly enough. With fans, Rodriguez smiled often and engaged in small talk."

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In a long piece in the Los Angeles Times about independent bookstores, David Streitfeld notes that Gary Frank has sold the Booksmith, long a presence in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, to Praveen Madan, "whose previous career involved steering tech firms to profitability." Madan aims to "create the store for the 21st century" by tying it more closely to the community and putting on more events, among other things.

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In a more upbeat piece, the Los Angeles Times also profiles Christy Coyne, owner of the First Page, which has two outlets in Orange County. She will soon launch an e-commerce Web site, plans to sell two franchises by September and is contracting with three employees to give them equity stakes in the operation.

Her goal from the beginning, she told the paper, was "to create a children's bookstore that would be a profitable haven for harried moms and curious kids alike." To do so, "I threw away all the ideas of what a bookstore should be."

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Congratulations to Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians, co-publishers of Melville House Publishing, Hoboken, N.J., who have won this year's Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing. The pair were cited for "their tireless devotion to their calling and the strategic innovations that have made Melville House, within five years of its founding, one of the industry's most successful independent publishers."

Sponsored by the AAP, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing and NBN--where Bass worked at the time of her death--the $5,000 prize will be presented in New York City on March 7 during the AAP's annual meeting for small and independent publishers. 

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National Book Network has made several appointments:

• Richard Lowe has joined the company as director of account management. He was formerly senior buyer at Smithsonian Business Ventures. Earlier he worked at Crown Books for nearly 20 years as senior buyer for children's, religion and calendar titles as well as Super Crown merchandise buyer, backlist buyer and Chicago regional merchandise manager. He began his career as manager of Kroch's & Brentano's stores in Oak Park and Rockford, Ill.
• Dave Bolen has joined the company as a national accounts manager with responsibility for American Wholesale/Books-A-Million and some responsibility for Borders Group. He was most recently at Levy Entertainment and earlier worked for Kudzu and Simon & Schuster.
• Jason Brockwell has been promoted to national accounts manager for Barnes & Noble, where he will work with Spencer Gale, also a senior manager.

 

Tim Huggins, who founded Newtonville Books, Newton, Mass., in 1998, has sold the store to Mary Cotton, a former employee who is receiving a Master's degree in English literature from Boston University this year and is publisher and managing editor of the literary magazine Post Road, according to an announcement on the store's Web site.

Cotton said she acted after hearing that the store would be closing, saying in a statement, "Over the years, Tim has built a well-respected cultural institution in service of the community, and when I realized that the creativity and intellectualism that flowed through the store was about to be staunched for good, I wanted to do something about it."

She plans to make some changes, adding a customer loyalty program, discounts on select titles, book clubs, writing workshops and "maybe even a film series of movies based on books." The store will also begin carrying "gently used" books.

Cotton is married to Jaime Clarke, a writer and founding editor of Post Road. The pair met at the store, which Cotton said, "has served as the headquarters for Post Road since the magazine's inception." She plans "to integrate" the magazine and store as much as possible. "I want the bookstore to continue to be a home to readers and writers alike."

Huggins, who developed an extensive events program at the store, said that this was the right time to sell. "I felt that the bookstore had arrived at a place where it needed something more and different than I could provide to help it reach the next level of sustainability. This sale is a rare situation where needs and opportunities matched perfectly. I find great comfort in knowing that Mary has the right passion, energy, abilities and commitment."

Newtonville Books closed on Monday and reopens tomorrow. It'll have a celebratory 20% off sale through Sunday and plans a grand reopening reception on Sunday, March 4.

Newtonville Books is located at 296 Walnut St., Newton, Mass. 02460; 617-244-6619.

A window display at Harbor Books in Old Saybrook, Conn., is generating interest and sales--and it's not promoting February's most hyped holiday, Valentine's Day. Instead it has to do with another hot topic: global warming.

Inspired by the unseasonably warm weather in much of the Northeast this winter (although not these past few days), Harbor Books owner Liz Burton has devoted the prime display space to titles such as An Inconvenient Truth and You Can Prevent Global Warming (And Save Money!): 51 Easy Ways. Books like the essay collection Leading Out: Mountaineering Stories of Adventurous Women are also part of the mix as are children's titles. For young readers there is Mary Pope Osborne's Polar Bears Past Bedtime, Anne Rockwell's Why Are the Ice Caps Melting?, and other tales.

"By now here in southern Connecticut our schools have usually had two or more snow days and people are talking about getting out of the weather," said Burton. "In the past, I've done travel windows with aloha and luau themes. This year we've barely worn winter coats, and so I did global warming."

Devoting the window space to a theme like global warming rather than Valentine's Day is the result of both personal preference and fiscal sense. By the time the end-of-the-year juggernaut of holidays has passed, from back-to-school days and Halloween through Thanksgiving and Christmas, "I'm ready for something different," said Burton, who explained that Valentine's Day is simply not a money-maker for Harbor Books. A nearby Wal-Mart provides stiff competition for bestselling books, greeting cards and other sideline items. "They sell book lights for $2.99," said Burton. "I can't compete with that." She noted, too, that Harbor Books is located in a shopping area with several other retailers that sell traditionally popular Valentine's Day gifts, among them a florist, a jewelry store and a gift shop with homemade candy.

Instead of devoting valuable display space to holiday merchandise, Burton has selected a few items to handsell to those customers looking for a Valentine's Day present. One is the Food Lovers' Guide to Connecticut by Patricia Brooks and Lester Brooks. Another is Townie Line gear, T-shirts and hats bearing the slogan "Townie: Old Saybrook, CT." Harbor Books is the exclusive distributor of Townie Gear merchandise in Old Saybrook, and Burton grouped pink T-shirts and red hats together with a card that reads: "Wouldn't your sweetie love this?" The Townie Line gear is a hit with local residents, whose seaside town of 10,000 swells to four times that size during the summer months.

Summer is peak season for Harbor Books, when sales go "through the roof," said Burton. During the other nine months of the year, Burton focuses on cultivating local connections and responding to customer needs--and sometimes even her own. A display of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts merchandise resulted from her sons' frequent need for scout supplies. She heard other mothers express the same need, and the store now carries socks, scrapbook kits and other official merchandise from the organizations.

Near the Scouts display is a selection of books about summer camps and activities for kids and teens, information Burton sought five years earlier when she moved to Connecticut but could not readily find. Burton has arranged the books--among them titles on camping and family travel like Frommer's 500 Places to Take Your Kids before They Grow Up--with water bottles and trail mix.

The local connection that has proved the most rewarding for Harbor Books is that of screen legend Katharine Hepburn. The store carries about 85 new and out of print books pertaining to the actress, whose family had a seaside house nearby. A fundraiser is being held this month in the town to raise money for the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, and a poster featuring the event is currently the centerpiece of a display made up of such titles as Kate Remembered by A. Scott Berg, At Home With Kate: Growing Up in Katharine Hepburn's Household by Eileen Considine-Meara, The Films of Katharine Hepburn, The Films of Spencer Tracy and Hepburn's own The Making of the African Queen.

The summer Hepburn died coincided with the release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Harbor Books sold a modest amount of the J.K. Rowling tale, a book that Burton notes customers could purchase elsewhere at a substantial discount. The young wizard took a back seat to the movie star, and his adventure was outsold by The Private World of Katherine Hepburn. This coffee table tome, which contains photographs by John Bryson and commentary by the actress, is one of the store's bestselling titles. Who needs Valentine's Day when you have Katharine Hepburn?--Shannon McKenna

Harbor Books is located at 270 Main Street, Old Saybrook, Conn. 06475; 860-388-6850. The store's Web site is www.harborbooks.com.

This morning the Early Show serves up Michael Tong, author of The Shun Lee Cookbook: Recipes from a Chinese Restaurant Dynasty (Morrow Cookbooks, $29.95, 9780060854072/0060854073).

Also this morning on the Early Show: Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, who are into the new, expanded edition of their bestseller, He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys (Simon Spotlight, $21.95, 9781416947400/141694740X).

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This morning on the Today Show: Dr. Sharon Moalem, author of Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease (Morrow, $25.95, 9780060889654/0060889659).

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The Book Report, the weekly AM radio book-related show organized by Windows a bookshop, Monroe, La., features two interviews:

• Susan Patron, author of The Higher Power of Lucky (Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books, $16.95, 9781416901945/1416901949)
• Michael Hoeye, author of the Hermux Tantamoq trilogy, soon to be a quartet, which begins with Time Stops for No Mouse (Putnam, $14.99, 9780399238789/0399238786) 
  

The show airs at 8 a.m. Central Time and can be heard live at thebookreport.net; the archived edition will be posted this afternoon.

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Today the Martha Stewart Show features 13-year-old author Nancy Yi Fan, whose new epic fantasy is Swordbird (HarperCollins, $15.99, 9780061130991/0061130990).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show, Brenda Maddox discusses Freud's Wizard: Ernest Jones and the Transformation of Psychoanalysis (Da Capo, $25, 9780306815553/0306815559).

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Tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Ralph Nader, whose new book is The Seventeen Traditions (ReganBooks, $19.95, 9780061238277/0061238279).

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Tonight Charlie Rose speaks with Tom Stoppard, whose new play, The Coast of Utopia, has sparked interest in Russian history.
 

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Tonight the Colbert Report pairs up with Zev Chafets, author of A Match Made In Heaven: American Jews, Christian Zionists, and One Man's Exploration of the Weird and Wonderful Judeo-Evangelical Alliance (HarperCollins, $24.95, 9780060890582/0060890584).

 
Linda Furiya grew up in Versailles, Ind., a farming community where her father worked during the day sexing chickens and then swing shift at a truck engine factory. He came to the U. S. in the '50s (born in California, he served in the Japanese army, and spent time in a Soviet POW camp), and her mother arrived in 1961 after an arranged marriage proposal. When Linda asked him why he moved to the Midwest, of all places, he told her a story about his daimyo clan and their last name, which means "falling arrow," and said, "Someday you will also shoot and follow your arrow. My arrow, it landed here." Her mother was a combination of an independent, strong woman (she came to the U.S. with a round-trip ticket, in case her fiancé wasn't good-looking) and subservient Japanese wife. Her deference was hard for Linda to fathom, but as she thinks back on her criticism of how her mother waited on both husband and sons, she says, "Today, Mom still fetches and fusses over Dad, but I don't say anything as I catch a sense of enjoyment that was probably there all along but that I was never able to detect through my prejudices in the past." Her prejudices and her reconciliation with her upbringing form the core of this engaging memoir.
 
Much of Furiya's childhood was idyllic, with the warmth of the Midwest a backdrop: "Summer vacation lay before me like a lazy ripple moving across a lake. My brothers and I spent our days digging for crawdads by the creek and our evenings catching fireflies as the dew fell . . . the early evening air cast a bluish tint as light leaked away from the muggy summer sky like a drying watercolor." And much of her childhood was spent worrying about being different, trying to fit in to her whitebread community. By turns protective of and embarrassed by her parents, she resented her role as mediator and translator. But she had one means of communication and solace: food. "It was only at the dinner table when I was a child, and later in the kitchen, that I experienced an absolute peace and connection with my Japanese heritage. Each bite, taste, cut of the knife . . . was solely my own experience that couldn't be diminished or belittled." As an adult, she realized that eating had been her family's communion, and Japanese home cooking was the only daily thread her parents had to their culture. Her enjoyment of food and sensation will make you hungry: "I dipped the piping hot gyoza into a shallow bath of tangy soy dipping sauce. I bit into the crescent shapes--crunchy on one side, soft textured on the other, and juicy hot on the inside. My first bite broke the skin . . . flooding my mouth with the savory ginger and garlic pork filling." Fortunately, she includes recipes at the end of each chapter.
 
Linda Furiya puzzles through her ingrained reticence and how it was formed growing up where she did, with the parents she had. They didn't instill in Linda or her brothers a strong sense of pride in their ethnicity or to even stand up for themselves. "We had to learn that all on our own as they did." But the other side of the coin, as she came to appreciate, was that her parents "always opted to rise above their pain. They did not allow themselves to get pulled under by disappointment and resentment." She comes to a place where she can treasure and honor the uniqueness of her childhood, and appreciate her mother's sense of adventure and self-sacrifice. When her father talks about his life in Japan, she understands why he switches from articulate Japanese to less-fluent English--it's his way of distancing himself from his early memories. Bento Box in the Heartland is a sensitive, graceful memoir. I hope she writes a sequel.--Marilyn Dahl
 

News from the latest ABACUS survey, which measures participating ABA members' finances, is mixed. Average net income of all reporting stores dropped to -3.92% in 2005, continuing a downward trend. But ABA CEO Avin Domnitz, who presented highlights of the survey at the Winter Institute, said that when stores with gross sales of less than $100,000 are excluded, average net income is -1.46%. In addition, some 54% of reporting stores were profitable--and their average net income before taxes was 4.27%. Altogether 286 stores reported on their results in 2005.

For the first time in the four years of ABACUS surveys, which were revived in 2002 after a hiatus, the reporting stores' average gross margin fell--0.4% to 41.13%. Domnitz noted that when he became a bookseller, a gross margin of 37% or 38% was considered healthy. "Booksellers have done a good job" of improving margins and finding more high-margin products, Domnitz said, but they are still "figuring out non-books," which need to be "solidified in the operations of the bookstore."

Key operating expenses for bookstores remain wages and rent. Total compensation in all stores rose 0.7% to 21.96% of gross sales, which Domnitz called "very explainable": in a time of static sales like today, pay, which generally increases, rises as a percentage of those sales. This is an area of concern, he continued, because "if compensation continues to go up, it's difficult to maintain an atmosphere of profit." At low-profit stores, compensation rose 1.2% while at high-profit stores it was up 0.6%.

Similarly occupancy costs rose to 9.1%, up from 8.95% in 2004 and 8.32% in 2003. Domnitz noted that when he started as a bookseller, "I aimed for 6%-8%."

Domnitz outlined "the gap" between high- and low-profit bookstore respondents, which increased to 18.7% from 16%. "It's not so much that the profitable stores are more profitable but that the less profitable stores are less profitable," Domnitz said.

Among low-profit bookstores, the cost of goods rose almost 2% to 61.1%, which Domnitz called "a really big deal."

Effect of Sales Volume on Profitability

Domnitz noted that, following a consistent pattern over the years, the most profitable stores had sales between $750,000 and $1 million--their average net income before taxes last year was 2.74%. Stores with sales between $500,000 and $750,000 had net income of 1.5% while stores with sales above $1 million had net income that ranged between 0.78% and 1.5%.

"It's not true that the highest level of sales is the most profitable," Domnitz said. "For some reason, $1 million is magic. There is something about an operation of that size that is most profitable."

Smaller stores were the least profitable. Those with sales of $250,000-$500,000 had an average net income before taxes of -3.18%; stores with sales between $100,000-$250,000 were slightly worse, with net sales of -4.6%; those with sales under $100,000 had net sales of -35.61%. "Sales below $100,000 are obviously a threat to a store's viability," Domnitz said.

Despite the difficulties for small stores, Domnitz said he wanted to debunk "the notion that you can't make money in the book business. Bookselling is not real estate or oil but you can do better than General Motors."--John Mutter