Publishers Weekly has laid off at least five more staff members, including editor-in-chief Sara Nelson, executive editor Daisy Maryles, bookselling editor Kevin Howell, children's reviews editor Elizabeth Devereaux and director of business development Rachel Dicker. School Library Journal editor-in-chief Brian Kenney is becoming editorial director of PW, SLJ and Library Journal, the New York Times reported. We also hear that Críticas, which reported on the U.S. Spanish-language market for the past eight years, is being shut down and senior editor Aída Bardales has been laid off.
We're sorry to see more of our former colleagues go and wish them the very best.
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Calvin Reid, still at PW, reports that Amazon.com plans to stop offering e-books in Microsoft Reader or Adobe e-formats and will offer e-books only in Kindle or Mobipocket formats. Amazon owns the Kindle and Mobipocket.
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The University of Kentucky Bookstore, Lexington, Ky., is currently celebrating its grand reopening following extensive renovations that included the addition of 7,000 square feet of space, wider aisles, more merchandise and a new entrance.
In a statement, bookstore director Sally Wiatrowski said, "We are now a 'one-stop shop' for students who live on campus. This store will be a campus destination for textbooks, trade books, and Wildcat imprinted clothing, which includes a Nike shop for men and special sections for women's and children's apparel." In the trade area, the store sells bestselling fiction and nonfiction and books published by University Press of Kentucky.
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Daniel Goldin and Lanora Hurley, the two Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops managers who are setting up separate stores in two of the four Schwartz locations that are closing in and around Milwaukee, Wis., were interviewed on WUWM's Lake Effect on Friday. Both make a marvelous, articulate case for the importance of bookstores in communities, talk about memories of Schwartz, praise other booksellers around the country and more. Listen to them here.
Goldin is in the process of establishing Boswell Book Company, which will be in the Schwartz location on Downer Avenue in Milwaukee, and Hurley is opening Next Chapter Bookshop in Mequon (Shelf Awareness, January 19, 2009).
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The Los Angeles Times surveyed the state of Book Soup, West Hollywood, Calif., following the death early this month of owner and founder Glenn Goldman. There have been several offers, but Adrian Newell, who was Goldman's partner, is waiting for someone who understands Goldman's vision. Poignantly she added, "I wouldn't have wanted to be in any other industry at a time like this. I've felt so supported and embraced by everyone in the book community. I've never really had a family, but it's felt like a family."
Manager Tyson Cornell said that last year Book Soup did "very well." And Kerry Slattery, manager and co-owner of Skylight Books, Los Angeles, said sales at the store rose 17% in December and were up 7.5% for the year. The Los Feliz store expanded at the end of the summer to 3,100 square feet of space from 2,000.
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As Kepler's Books & Magazines, Menlo Park, Calif., cuts hours to 80 from 90 hours a week, owner Clark Kepler told the Almanac News that the new schedule is "seasonal. We do it every time the economy goes really bad and we need to reduce our costs."
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The Calgary Herald profiles Pages Books on Kensington, which was founded in 1993 and is co-owned by Simone Lee, who formerly working in publishing in Toronto and bought an interest in the store in her hometown 18 months ago. Her business partner is Ben Falconer.
"The joke was, the only way I was going to have as many books as I wanted was for me to buy a bookstore," Lee told the paper. "My very first badge I got as a Brownie was a reading badge."
Pages, which stocks about 10,000 books, won the Bookseller of the Year award from the Canadian Booksellers Association in 2003, held 150 author events last year and has a strong literary bent. The store also has one of the strongest poetry sections in Canada--in part because of University of Calgary's creative writing Ph.D. program.
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Wendy Sheanin has been promoted to director of marketing, adult books, at Simon & Schuster. She was formerly senior marketing manager.
In a statement, Liz Perl, senior v-p of marketing, said, among other things, that Sheanin's "retail marketing program has lead to increased sales, better bookseller relationships, and happier authors. . . . She has cultivated valuable relationships with the bookselling community and is able to galvanize independent and chain store booksellers in support of a wide variety of titles."
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Effective immediately, University Games, the game and toy manufacturer that publishes games books under its Spinner Books imprint, is being distributed to the trade in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Australia by National Book Network.
In related news, James Connolly, former publisher of BAY/Soma Books, has been named publisher for Spinner Books.
University Games has headquarters in San Francisco, Calif., and subsidiaries in the Australia, the U.K. and the Netherlands. Spinner Books was founded in 2001 and has more than 75 active titles and publishes about a dozen new titles a year.
In a statement, University Games president Bob Moog indicated that the company views the relationship between NBN and University Games as "more of a partnership rather than that of strictly publisher and distributor."
In the spring of 2007, Coyne set out from his home in Philadelphia with the goal of playing all of Ireland's more than 40 links, layouts hard by the ocean and distinctive for their rolling turf, mountainous dunes and ever-present wind. Links golf, in contrast to its tamer inland cousin is, as Coyne describes it, "unapologetic, unpretentious, and wonderfully unrefined." What makes his story remarkable was his decision to cover the entire itinerary on foot, walking up to 20 miles a day with a backpack and partial set of clubs slung over his shoulder. Four months, 963 holes, 196 pubs and 1,118 miles later he completed his odyssey.