Notes: Are Leaks Plugs?; Potter Vocabulary Spreads
Using Alan Greenspan's new book as an example, today's New York Times
looks again at the issue of embargoed books and prepublication leaks
thereof. A producer at 60 Minutes, which was partially scooped by a
slew of newspapers before it aired its Sunday interview with the former
Fed chairman, indicated the show might do exclusive interviews on
embargoed books less frequently "unless the publishers do something
different in the way that they distribute the books, making it more
difficult for people to get copies of the books before 60 Minutes
broadcasts."
Antoinette Ercolano, v-p of trade book buying at Barnes & Noble,
summed up the consensus view on leaks of embargoed books, telling the Times,
"If the author has a lot to say and the leak is only a portion of it,
then it works in our favor. But if everything is in the leak, then it
works against it."
An interesting, ancillary if puzzling but not definitive trend indicator, as the chairman might say: Newsweek apparently paid just $1 for rights to its excerpt of the book, although it did grant the publisher free ad space.
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"Sprechen Sie Potter?" asked the Guardian
in an article speculating that "Muggle, quidditch and house elf are
quickly becoming part of German schoolchildren's English vocabulary
thanks to huge sales of the original language Harry Potter book."
Bloomsbury
announced recently that its English-language edition of HP7 "has sold
as many copies overseas as in the U.K. In Germany alone 1m copies were
sold in the last month. Pre-orders in China were more than 200% higher
than those of the previous book."
According to the Guardian,
Bloomsbury chairman Nigel Newton expects the Potter franchise to
generate revenues indefinitely. "'The main thing to remember is that
Harry Potter will be a big book for many years,' he said, comparing the
series with the Chronicles of Narnia and Winnie the Pooh. 'The world loves British children's classics and they last for decades.'"
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"They say my first word was book," Ken Gloss told the Hanover, Mass., Mariner in
an article about his upcoming talk, "Treasures in Your Attic: Old and
Rare Books," sponsored by the Hanover Historical Society. Gloss is a
renowned antiquarian book collector/appraiser, guest on PBS' Antiques
Road Show and owner of Boston's legendary Brattle Book Shop.
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Good news, bad news about the holidays.
Holiday sales should rise 4% to $475.5 billion this year, less than
last year's 4.6% gain and the lowest gain since 2002's 1.3%, the
National Retail Federation predicted. The Federation's chief economist
told the Wall Street Journal
that lower-income customers continue to be hurt by rising food and
gasoline prices while middle-income customers are being hurt by the
deflating housing market. "This could spell trouble for discounters and
some department stores whose shoppers may be looking to trade down."
She noted, however that luxury retailers "appear to be a bright spot."
Sales of holiday gift cards will jump 25% to $35 billion this year, an Archstone Consulting study quoted by the Wall Street Journal predicted.
The cards are proliferating in part because more retailers are selling
them at other locations, such as in supermarkets and drug stores, and
retailers have better equipment for processing the cards at cash
registers.
Another reason for the growth: "increasing cultural acceptance," meaning more people feel comfortable giving them as gifts.
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In
October, Borders Group will sell the Sony Reader in more than 500 of
its stores, up from 270 now, and Borders will launch an online store
with support from Sony to sell digital downloads of more than 20,000
e-books, a site that eventually will be part of the revamped
Borders.com.
The moves are part of a new agreement between Sony and Borders that
also aims to expand the number of e-titles available to consumers.
As an announcement put it, "Through collaboration with publishers, the companies plan to
broaden the number of e-books offered including more backlist titles by
popular authors, expansion of the e-book format among small and
mid-sized publishers, and by working toward the development of enhanced
content that will provide added incentive to purchase books in
traditional and digital formats."
Borders CEO George Jones said that the efforts with Sony are an element of the part of the company's strategic
plan calling for "embracing technology . . . to differentiate Borders" and to
make Borders a "true cross-channel retailer."
Borders has been one of the few non-Sony retailers to offer the Sony
Reader, whose sales levels remain a mystery. Sony has been promoting the e-book reader
heavily again recently.
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Headed to the Ukraine? The Kyiv Post
affectionately explored the ever-increasing number of bookstores in the
city that are available for those afflicted with "book mania."
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At
Vroman's Bookstore, Pasadena, Calif., after Bill Clinton signed copies
of Giving: (back row, l. to r.) Robert Popoff, Joel Sheldon, Michael
Tuck, Anne Edkins, Allison Hill, Alanna Kirby, Justin Junge, Alison
Keyes, Natalie Esser, Clark Mason, and Rebecca Flick; (front row, l. to
r.) Jennifer Ramos, Sherri Gallentine, Laura Payne, President Clinton,
Martha Ramirez, Guinevere Platt, Rosalee Velasco, Marie Du Vaure, Robyn
Kamimura and Brenda Ramirez.
Like the 15-year-old hero of Lyga's debut novel, The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl, narrator Josh Mendel has a female champion, who witnesses his inner struggles and roots for him to conquer them. The book opens with a scene between the two: on Rachel Madison's 13th birthday, she has connived, in a game of Spin the Bottle, to point the bottle at Josh. She takes him into the closet, where things quickly spin out of control. The action then skips ahead five years. Now 18-year-old Josh, in a scene with his parents, unveils the cause of his sexually aggressive behavior: Josh's history teacher molested him when he was 12. 