Notes: Rainy Day Books Evolves; Scribd's New Store
Like other independent bookstores nationwide, Rainy Day Books, Fairway, Kan., "has had to become a lot more than a paperback exchange to keep the doors open," the Kansas City Star reported in an article exploring the changing retail landscape for city booksellers that noted when co-owner Vivien Jennings "got into the book business in 1975, people still went to the neighborhood bookstore to buy a book. Her Rainy Day Books, which at the time was just a paperback exchange, was one of some 30 bookstores in the Kansas City area."
"Many communities have lost their community bookstores," said Jennings, who, with "her business and personal partner Roger Doeren have made Rainy Day Books a model for how to make service integral to a reader’s experience," according to the Star.
An ambitious events program is one of the calling cards that has contributed significantly to their success, and Jennings told the Star the bookshop's national reputation for hosting authors is also a way to keep Kansas City on the cultural map.
"People are aware that if we go away, this goes away," Jennings said. "Nobody else is going to do it because it’s a lot of work. A lot of work."
Finding ways to compete in an increasingly online, bargain-based retail world is also a challenge. "People need to understand the high cost of cheap," she said. "If you value what we do, we need your business."
"That’s kind of the call to action," added Susan Walker, executive director of the Midwest Booksellers Association. "If you do not support your community, ultimately you will lose your community and you will end up being big-box wasteland."
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Document-sharing website Scribd (Shelf Awareness, May 12, 2009) introduced a method yesterday "for anyone to upload a document to the Web and charge for it," the New York Times reported. "In the new Scribd store, authors or publishers will be able to set their own price for their work and keep 80% of the revenue. They can also decide whether to encode their documents with security software that will prevent their texts from being downloaded or freely copied."
The Times cautioned that Scribd "also has some hurdles to overcome itself. Though large publishing firms like Random House have experimented with the site, they also express frustration that copies of some works have been uploaded to Scribd without permission."
Scribd is "building a database of copyrighted works and using it to filter its system," according to the Times, but thus far "no major publishing houses have signed on to the store, though the company says it is talking to them. The independent publishers Lonely Planet, O’Reilly Media and Berrett-Koehler will add their entire catalogs."
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Obituary note: David Herbert Donald, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, died Sunday. He was 88. In its obituary, the New York Times observed that Donald's works "were praised as much for their narrative vigor and elegance of style as for their insights into the period."
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Hyperion has launched the Kernl, a web-based instrument designed to blend short bits of video and text with interactive components. The Kernl e-imprint will "publish topical web-based content that delivers useful and timely information in the most current context," according to Hyperion.
"With the creation and launch of the Kernl, Hyperion's goal is to redefine the manner in which a book publisher delivers current news and timely information to twenty-first-century consumers," said Ellen Archer, Hyperion's president and publisher. "Linking short bits of text and video with links to web resources allows us to leverage a broader media platform and make timely content relevant to the digital generation. Kernl projects will also be incubators for future full-length Hyperion and Voice print books."
On today's edition of ABC News' Good Morning America, Hyperion's Voice imprint and Tory Johnson, GMA's workplace contributor, introduced the initial Kernl, the Job Kernl. In a statement, Hyperion said, "Each of the 10 weekly installments will provide readers and viewers with advice on every aspect of a job search, from valuable tips on competing for interviews, to guidance on how to utilize social networking to help a job search, and suggestions for non-traditional career options. Users will receive videos with direct coaching advice, have the opportunity to participate in weekly polls, and find links to other valuable online resources. Users will also be able to install the Kernl on their own blogs, Facebook pages, and other social media platforms."
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Ruth Padel has been elected the first female Oxford professor of poetry. The Guardian reported that Padel, "the great-great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin, is the first woman to take the role since it was created in 1708."
The announcement came in the wake of controversy after Nobel laureate Derek Walcott had to withdraw his name from contention last week when "a dossier detailing sexual harassment claims made against him by a Harvard student in 1982 was sent anonymously to 200 Oxford academics," the Guardian added. Walcott's withdrawal left Oxford graduates and staff with a choice between Padel and Indian poet and critic Arvind Mehrotra.
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"Could this be the summer we finally bury the notion that a beach read must be mindless to be fun?" asked New York magazine in its "What to Read This Summer" feature, which noted, "We find ourselves particularly drawn this season to nonfiction and a few realistic novels."
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Daniel Nester's How to Be Inappropriate will be published by Soft Skull later this year, but MediumAtLarge.net reported that the author and publisher "have done something terribly inappropriate. . . . And I love it. They created a How to Be Inappropriate @ BEA preview PDF of Nester's new book."
A link to the PDF is available at MediumAtLarge.net, and Nester will be signing a special edition of How to Be Inappropriate @ BEA on Saturday, May 30, 11 a.m., booth #4437. (Via former Soft Skull publisher Richard Nash on Twitter.)
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SOMe Book Nook in South Orange, N.J. (Shelf Awareness, September 25, 2008), hosted the launch party on Sunday for Dessert First by Hallie Durand (reviewed in Shelf Awareness, April 12, 2009). Sporting a "Celebrate South Orange" T-shirt, Marietta Barral Zacker, who runs the bookstore half of the book-and-toystore venture, served dessert first, naturally. She followed IndieBound practice by featuring baked goods from their neighbors at Bonté Wafflerie and Café (12 South Orange Ave). Durand, a Maplewood, N.J., resident who doubles as agent Holly McGhee, talked about her inspiration for the project, read a cliffhanger excerpt, then signed 72 copies of Dessert First. For more details and photos of the event, click here.
On Saturday, June 13, SOMe Book Nook will partner with the South Orange Public Library to help the town with its third annual "Celebrate South Orange" bash. They will host 20 authors, books signings, workshops and panel discussions. Click here for more information.
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Sean Westcott and Jean Riescher Westcott, authors of Digitally Daunted: The Consumer's Guide to Taking Control of the Technology in Your Life (Capital Books, $15.95, 9781933102726/1933102721) (r.), with Sherri Wright, owner of 
Robert Rodi and his partner, Jeffrey, had just moved into a Chicago Victorian, so of course they got a dog, Carmen, and soon discovered she required more than a big backyard and kibbles. Rodi thought that nothing would sap his will to live more than playing fetch, but when a friend suggested canine agility training--basically doggie track and field--he was somewhat interested. He worried that this activity would be too too adorable, but found that the cute factor was nonexistent, although it was the only sport he'd seen "in which one member of the winning team congratulated the other by licking his face." As Carmen learned and thrived, Rodi's ambitions increased to competitive trials, which she excelled at, but hip dysplasia led to her early retirement. Still, Rodi wanted a championship; to do that, he had to get another dog. Enter Dusty, a Sheltie rescue dog--scruffy, thin, marsupial eyed. "If Iggy Pop were a dog, this is how he'd look." Rodi found out that Dusty had been rejected several times. "Here was a narrative that badly needed a happy ending." So lured by dreams of glory mixed with rescue fantasies, he adopted Dusty, who turned out to be viciously antisocial on their walks, while cowering in terror at the dog trainer's. Not, at first, championship material. 