As Field Sales Forces Retreat, Will Telereps Take Up the Slack? Opened nearly a quarter-century ago, Auntie’s Bookstore is a solid fixture on the corner of Main and Washington Streets in downtown Spokane, Washington, a bustling burg of almost 200,000 that boasts the largest book-buying population between Seattle and Minneapolis. Judging by the number of…Continue Reading
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Tagged A Thousand Country Roads, ABA, Abrams, Book Sense, CDS, Chris O'Harra, City Lights, Doug Whiteman, Eleanor Jones, Fern Jaffe, HarperCollins, Harvard Press, Hue-Man Experience, Joi Afzal, Julie Smith, Kathi Kirby, Katya Olmsted, Luanne Ripley Kreutzer, MIT Press, Paperbacks Plus, Paul Yamazaki, Penguin Putnam, Phone Books, Powell's Books, Publishers Group West, Random House, Robert James Waller, Simon & Schuster, St. Helens Book Shop, Stanley Cohen, Ted Valand, Time Warner, Yale Press
The 9th International Budapest Book Festival was bursting at the seams this year, with 600 publishers jammed into the Budapest Convention Centre from April 18-21. As some 60,000 visitors browsed 40,000 books on display, it’s no wonder that the punchy fair organizers — those being the Hungarian Publishers’ and Booksellers’ Association in partnership with the…Continue Reading
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Tagged Anne-Sophie Brasme, Annette Pehnt, Bloomsbury USA, Budapest Book Festival, Cesare Garboli, Claudio Magris, Einaudi, European First Novel Festival, Feltrinelli, Ferenc Madl, Frankfurt Book Fair, Gabriella d'Ina, Hungarian Publishers' and Booksellers' Association, I Must be Off, In Beautiful Disguises, Judit Hermann, Madeleine St. John, Mondadori, Rajeev Balasubramanyam, The Essense of Things
Now that a flock of formerly high-flying technology vendors has gone down in flames (Reciprocal and Digital Goods: remember them?), it may seem odd that a 50-person business based in London should be winging toward the publishing sector. But that’s just what SealedMedia is doing, having scored $16.5 million in a third round of funding…Continue Reading
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Tagged Adobe, Cavendish Publishing, Congressional Quarterly, Digital Goods, Harcourt, ipicturebooks.com, Martin lambert, McGraw-Hill, Microsoft, Pearson Education, Reciprocal, Reed, SealedMedia, Time Warner
The drumbeat of optimism was heard on the floor of the London Book Fair, and it is echoing in the corridors of New York publishers, as well: Sales, it appears, are improving. The AAP came out with stats that chart a “meager” growth rate in 2001 of 0.1% overall, with trade sales actually dropping 2.6%….Continue Reading
The London Book Fair has, like its sister Reed-sponsored show, BEA, extended its dates in recent years. This year’s expo was two-and-a-half days long, but with the accompanying ebook and subrights conferences, ended up sprawling from March 14th to the 19th. The conferences had a tough time pulling the crowds that LBF continues to pack…Continue Reading
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Tagged Abrams, AMS, BEA, Bill Black, Bloomsbury, Cambridge University Press, Curtis Brown, ePub London, George Gibson, HarperCollins, Harris/Elon Agency, Hrvoje Bozicevic, Institute of Publishing, Jill Patton Walsh, Jonathan Lloyd, Knowledge of Angels, La Martiniere, Macmillan, Michael Eisenberg, Microsoft Press, Napster, Penguin, PGW, Random House, Reed, Richard Charkin, Rodale, Transworld, Walker
Duck and Cover Fowl Play in Argentina, Penelope Unbound in Spain, And Birdsell’s Back in Canada Argentina’s “official historians” are quacking away over the latest provocation from historical novelist María Esther de Miguel, titled The Palace of the Ducks. The book carries forward the author’s “generally transgressive” history of Buenos Aires and adapts a detective…Continue Reading
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Tagged A Winter in Lisbon, Alexandre Jardin, Alfaguara, Angela Vallvey, Anna Vila, Anne-Solance Noble, Antonio Munoz Molina, Aschehoug, Autobiography of a Love, Balcells, Bruce Westwood, Cappelen, Carmen Pinilla, Charlotte Jorgensen, Critica Prize, Don't Say It Was a Dream, Feltrinelli, Femina Prize, Gallimard, Giller Prize, Gretelise Holm, Guillermo Schavelzon, Hunting the last Wild Man, Kriminalakademis Prize, Kruger, Lattes, List, Maria Esther de Miguel, MB Agency, Mercedes-Benz Syndrome, Miss Liberty, Missing Blanca, Monica Herrero, Nadal Prize, Paranoia, Penguin, Piratforlaget, Planeta, Raquel de la Concha, Sandra Birdsell, Seven Stories, State of Deprivation, Terenci Moix, The Blind Harpist, The General The Painter and the Lady, The Palace of the Ducks, The POlish Rider, The Russlander, The Zebra, Westwood Creative Artists
In the War Over Market Share, Focus Groups Are a Secret Weapon If you wandered into the loo of London’s Grosvenor House Hotel last month, as did plenty of attendees at the British Book Awards, you’d have found one of the more literal-minded brand campaign “roll-outs” in recent years: stickers slapped on rolls of toilet…Continue Reading
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Tagged Bethany Chamberlain, Bloomberg Press, Bloomsbury, Bookreporter.com, British Book Awards, Carol Fitzgerald, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Damian Horner, Goldberg McDuffie Communications, HarperCollins, Ideas To Go, Joanna Prior, John Crutchcer, Lloyd LaRousse, Lord Group, Mark Fortier, Mayor Bloomberg, Mills & Boon, Mustoe Merriman Levy, Penguin UK, Reader's Digest, Research Business International, Richard Laermer, RLM Public Relations, Roger Chiocchi, Sally Richardson, Spier New York, St. Martin's, Steve Xenakis, trendSpotting
As the great mother ship BookExpo America prepares to set down in New York City on May 1, and the wall-to-wall lineup of bashes, fests, and sundry galas has us all excruciatingly triple-booked, Publishing Trends checked in with a number of show veterans to see whether this year’s industry summit will be a whirlwind of…Continue Reading
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Tagged Amazon, Belfond, BookExpo America, Books-A-Million, Borders, Bruna, Burlington Coat Factory, Campus, Christina McInerney, Christopher Kerr, Costco, Droemer, Ediciones B/Vergara, Grijalbo-Mondadori, Het Spectrum, Ingram, Jack Burke, K-Mart, Kadokawa, Livanis, Livres de Poche, London Book Fair, Macmillan, Marriott, Mary Anne Thompson, Michael Selleck, Parson Weems, Pennsylvania Library Association, Piemme, Reed, Richters, Rocco, S&S, Sanford J. Greenburger, Sarah Goodwin, Scherz, Sony Books, Steven Rosato, Toronto Book Fair, Vassallucci, Verlagsgruppe Luebbe, Wal-Mart
Mike Shatzkin of the Idea Logical Company took a retro tack at the Seybold Seminars last month as he rolled out “a brand new opportunity to get more sales and lower the returns of physical books.” We offer a brief excerpt of his remarks. Here’s the fact most publishers and chain booksellers seem to ignore:…Continue Reading
As panelists brandished tablet-sized, next-generation Nokias (“wireless ebooks will be a reality in 2002,” one e-prophet intoned) and others dusted off vintage ’90s web nostrums (“go where the traffic is”), there was also some refreshing digital realism on hand for the Seybold Seminars at the Javits Center on February 21. While much time was spent…Continue Reading
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Tagged Barbara Kline-Pope, Barry Lipsky, e-reads, Franklin, Jennifer Gold, Joseph Henry Press, Julie Blackwell Stamstad, Kathleen Doody, Ken Brooks, Mellon, Microsoft, Mike Segroves, National Academy Press, Nokia, Palm, Publishing Dimensions, Richard Curtis, Rough Guides, Seybold Seminars, Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
