Net sales at Books-A-Million in the second quarter, ended August 4,
rose 9.6% to $132.8 million, and net income rose 24% to $3.1 million.
Sales at stores open at least a year rose 6.6%.
In a statement, Sandra B. Cochran, president and CEO, said, "The publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
generated record-breaking sales. Our marketing efforts along with our
Fast Lane checkout process helped us achieve strong market share. In
addition, continued discipline in inventory management, expense control
and operational execution led to an improvement in profitability in a
very competitive sales environment."
The company is maintaining a quarterly cash dividend of nine cents a share, payable on September 19.
---
Madeleine B. Stern, a rare-book dealer, memoirist, biographer and
literary sleuth, died last week at her home in New York City, the New York Times reported. She was 95.
With her longtime partner, Leona Rostenberg, Stern ran Rostenberg &
Stern Rare Books for many years and was a co-founder of the New York
Antiquarian Book Fair. In 1942, she and Rostenberg discovered several
potboilers written by Louisa May Alcott under a pseudonym and later
oversaw their publication.
Stern also wrote several biographies, including one of Alcott. With Rostenberg, she wrote three delightful memoirs: Old & Rare: Thirty Years in the Book Business, Old Books, Rare Friends: Two Literary Sleuths and Their Shared Passion and, in 2001, Bookends: Two Women, One Enduring Friendship.
---
Although Barnes & Noble won't sell If I Did It
in its stores, the title has become hot on B&N.com--reaching No. 16
this morning--in part because on September 13 Oprah will bring together
Nicole Brown Simpson's sister and Ron Goldman's parents, the AP reported. Denise Brown reportedly objects to the book's publication by the Goldmans.
---
Bookselling This Week celebrates Read Between the Lynes,
Woodstock, Ill., founded two years ago by Arlene Lynes. The store does
such proactive marketing as seeking out local authors for book
signings, partnering with nonprofit organizations and holding an annual
Banned Books Night, when customers are invited to read from their
favorite banned books.
---
The Los Angeles Times
asked four over-40 "randomly selected people" to describe their favorite
weekend. Montecito Heights resident Oralia Michel said that, on
Saturday afternoons, she "might stop at Vroman's Bookstore for a latte
and a book," while on Sundays, "If I go to the Santa Monica Farmers
Market, I'll drive down to Small World Books on the Venice Beach
boardwalk. It's an eclectic, independent store, with smart employee
reviews."
---
Mark Nemmers is seeking a buyer for Bogey's Books, the Davis, Calif., bookstore he founded in 1990, the California Aggie
reported. Nemmers would like to move abroad, he told the paper. If he
can't sell the store by the end of the year, he will close it, he said.
---
The Topeka Capital-Journal
profiles Granny's Used Books, Topeka, Kan., which grandmothers Mysel
Sherraden and Wanda Burge opened this past spring exactly a month after
they first had the idea to become booksellers.
The store has a strong children's section and aims to appeal to seniors as well.
---
In yesterday's New York Times Magazine,
Randy Cohen, who writes the Ethicist column, gives a ringing
endorsement of the role of booksellers and librarians in providing
material to all customers. (A reader who works at a bookstore and
processes
mail orders from prisoners indicated an aversion to
filling orders from sex offenders.)
"You should treat all your customers the same--that is, fill their
orders," Cohen advised the reluctant bookseller. "Every merchant--pharmacist, greengrocer or milliner--should do
likewise, but a bookstore clerk, dealing in the exchange of ideas, has
an even greater obligation. You are not a librarian, bound by a
librarian's code of ethics, but you should be guided by it. Your duty
is to provide books to anyone who walks (or writes) in to the store,
not to determine a person's worthiness to read (or have a prescription
filled or buy lettuce or wear a fetching hat)."
---
The Hugo Awards, presented by the World Science Fiction Society each year at Worldcon, have a new website, TheHugoAwards.org,
with a range of information about the awards, including lists of
winners and nominees over the years, information on nominating and
voting for awards and more. This year's awards will be presented
September 1 in Yokohama, Japan, at Worldcon, this year also called
Nippon 2007.
---
We're not quite sure if this qualifies as the cool or cruel idea of the day, but the Scotsman
featured a profile of Robin Ince, who "trawls the
second-hand bookshops and charity shops of Edinburgh in search of
suitable material to 'read out loud sarcastically' (as he tells me
Stewart Lee once described it)."
Ince runs the Book Club, where
"performers can go to try out new stuff. Not just material, but ideas.
. . . Alongside the experimenting talent, there is always Ince--or a
guest--reading from a book they had found and brought in, to the
backing accompaniment of music selected at random from an unmarked
list."
---
John
R. Molish has joined Tantor Media as v-p of sales and marketing. In
this newly created position, Molish will lead the audiobook company's retail,
library and consumer sales divisions as well as its marketing efforts.
He was formerly executive sales director at Brighter Minds Media and
earlier worked at Ballantine, Penguin, St. Martin's and McGraw-Hill. He
began his book career at B. Dalton Bookseller.
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