Index (scroll down for stories) 

  1. ‘Huffington Post’ names 15 top-selling books of all time
  2. Wylie’s Amazon-only e-book venture stirs up a ruckus in publishing
  3. Breaking news from the book barons
  4. Amazon announces that Kindle e-book sales outpace sales of hardback p-books
  5. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor to publish memoir with Knopf
  6. News about bookstores, publishing, marketing and promotion
  7. GABBS announces Boston training for bargain book buyers, sellers
  8. Books to Movies Department
  9. How bad is it – and what is the book business doing to cope?
10. Publishers’ May book sales increase 9.8 percent
11. Update journalism: Latest skinny on past Southern Review stories
12. The publishing revolution: News of e-books and other new media
13. Pete Hamill's book on immigration goes straight to e-book
14. FTC, DOJ, states looking into e-book pricing with eye to price-fixing
15. Starz, Penguin launch vook version of ‘Pillars of the Earth’
16. TeleRead sidebar provides details on Wylie deal with Amazon
17. Comics news: Digital comics find new home on Apple’s iPad
18. Books in bad taste, and books that taste bad
19. Freebies: Barnes & Noble offers free e-classics
20. Marketing books: what’s new, what works and what doesn’t
21. Powell's uses Facebook for virtual author chat
22. Check out these book publisher pages on Facebook
23. Milestones: 17,000 NPR listeners vote on 600 top thrillers, pick top 10
24. News of chicanery, dishonesty and tort-feasing in the book business
25. John Densmore of ‘The Doors’ sues over book publication
26. Antiques dealer sentenced in theft of rare Shakespeare folio
27. Chuckles: Finding humor amid the stacks and shelves
28. Trade shows: International vendors line up for bargain book show
29. ComicCon draws 125,000 to San Diego
30. ICRS attracts 4,647 Christian booksters to St. Louis show
31. 17th annual Tokyo International Book Fair attracts 75,000
32. Hong Kong Book Fair pushes electronic publishing, attracts 900,000
33. Major upcoming trade shows, book fairs and book festivals
 

1. ‘Huffington Post’ names 15 top-selling books of all time

Well, actually, the article named 16 books that have sold the most copies worldwide, noting that the Bible is the top seller in the world. The Post did not give total sales for the Bible - and missed other top-sellers - but the article was interesting.

The Bible, incidentally, is said to have had approximate sales of 2.5 billion copies, including all translations. Add in the copies given away, and the total comes closer to 6.0 billion.

The Post article names the following 15 titles as top sellers:

Quotations from Chairman Mao (The Little Red Book). This collection of quotations from Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong was put together by the People's Liberation Army in 1964 and has sold over 800 million copies worldwide.

The Qur’an. This ancient Islamic religious text has sold over 800 million copies.

Xinhua Dictionary (primary editor: Wei Jiangong). This Chinese dictionary, first published in 1957, has sold over 400 million copies.

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien. This cult classic was published in 1954 and has sold 150 million copies worldwide.

The Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, Jr. This religious text was published in 1830 and has sold over 120 million copies worldwide.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J. K. Rowling. The first novel of J. K. Rowling's famous "Harry Potter" series sold over 107 million copies after its 1997 publication.

And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie. Published in 1939, this murder mystery has sold over 100 million copies.

The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown. This wildly popular adventure novel has sold over 80 million copies since its publication in 2003. (The last number we saw at the Southern Review before this was 40 million.)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J. K. Rowling. "The Half Blood Prince" was the sixth installment of the "Harry Potter series." The 652-page book sold 65 million copies after its 2005 publication.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J. K. Rowling. The second installment of the "Harry Potter" series sold over 60 million copies after its 1999 publication.

The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger. This classic coming of age story, first published in 1951, has sold over 60 million copies.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling. The third installment of the "Harry Potter" series sold 55 million copies (as did the two that followed) after its 1999 publication.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J. K. Rowling. The fourth book in the "Harry Potter" series sold over 55 million copies worldwide after its publication in 2000.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J. K. Rowling. The fifth book in the "Harry Potter" series also sold 55 million copies worldwide after its publication in 2003.

Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Lew Wallace. This book has sold 50 million copies worldwide since its original publication in 1880.

Aside from the suspicious number “55 million” used for sales of three of the Harry Potter books, the list has some conspicuous absences. Specifically, along with estimated sales, the following were not included in the Huffington Post list:

American Spelling Book, Noah Webster (1783), up to 100 million copies sold.

The Guinness Book of Records/Guinness World Records (1955 ff.), over 95 million copies sold.

World Almanac (1868 ff.), over 80 million copies sold.

The Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins has sold more than 60 million copies.

The McGuffy Readers, William Holmes McGuffey (1836), 60 million copies.

The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, Benjamin Spock (1946), over 50 million copies.

We’ve undoubtedly left out some other top sellers – it’s doubtful anyone can compile a completely accurate list, given the wildly unreliable nature of book sales statistics. We are doing some research. We'll publish some of the books that should be listed above in a future issue. If you have a candidate we’ve left out, email us the details at custserv@anvilpub.com. Be sure to include the numbers.

2. Wylie’s Amazon-only e-book venture stirs up a ruckus in publishing

By far the most important and controversial story about trends in book publishing that unfolded in July was the announcement by literary agent Andrew Wylie that he had created his own publishing imprint, Odyssey Editions, and would produce e-book editions available exclusively on Amazon.com for 20 titles.

To help you keep the cast of characters straight, recognize that Wylie is a man that many believe is so wanting in ethical principles that he is nicknamed “The Jackal.”

The titles that Wylie has contracted to market as e-books solely through Amazon are evergreen best-sellers by authors such as Philip Roth and Vladimir Nabokov.

Random House, which had previously staked a claim for the e-book rights to most of the books now being sold by Wylie’s imprint, has issued a forceful response. It will stop doing business with the Wylie Agency. But it won’t go so far as to sue Wylie. That would involve also suing the authors or the estates of the authors involved. To most publishers, suing authors or their estates is anathema.

“The Wylie Agency’s decision to sell e-books exclusively to Amazon for titles which are subject to active Random House agreements undermines our longstanding commitments to and investments in our authors, and it establishes this agency as our direct competitor,” said Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman for Random House, in a news release. “Therefore, regrettably, Random House on a worldwide basis will not be entering into any new English-language business agreements with the Wylie Agency until this situation is resolved.”

The announcement threatened to affect the agency’s more than 700 clients, who include Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie, as well as the estates of Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer.

Wylie said he was taken by surprise by Random House’s move and was not sure how he would respond. “I’m going to think about it a little bit,” he said.

The dispute is partly about who owns the rights to publish the e-book versions of older books, whose contracts were negotiated before e-books existed.

It is also a dispute over how much digital royalty rates for authors are worth. Traditional publishers have typically offered 25 percent of net proceeds. Authors and agents have said they should receive closer to 50 percent.

The wrath of Random House is understandable. Up until 2000, publishers didn’t have electronic rights. So anything in a publisher’s backlist before that is probably the property of the author, who is free to sell the e-book rights. Between 30 to 40 percent of publisher income comes from backlist sales, and between now and 2015, 50 to 60 percent of book sales are expected to migrate to e-books. Publishers will not be able to afford to stay in business if they lose their backlists. Random House recognizes this, and has its own big e-book operation going.

Other publishers responded coolly to the news of Wylie’s venture. John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, posted a response on his company’s Web site, criticizing Wylie for cutting an exclusive deal with Amazon for the 20 e-books, which include Nabokov’s Lolita, Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and John Updike’s “Rabbit” books.

“It is an extraordinarily bad deal for writers, illustrators, publishers, other booksellers and for anyone who believes that books should be as widely available as possible,” Sargent said.

Independent bookstores had their own reasons for being opposed to Wylie’s exclusive arrangement with Amazon. Primarily, the indies were upset about being shut out of the deal. And Amazon is far from being a favorite of the Indies.

Square Books of Oxford, Miss., made its point by posting signs in its windows saying "this book not for sale," and underneath, displaying the books covered by the Wylie deal. Since the Wylie e-books can only be read on a Kindle (or with Kindle software), the store called the exclusivity deal "a bit like our selling you books that you could read only using the bedside lamp you must also purchase from us."

The Authors Guild, meanwhile, sent a mixed message to its members. The Guild, which represents 8,000 published writers, sent an email to its members on July 26 in which it defended the Wylie Agency's right to sell e-books of older works without the publisher's permission, but also criticized excluding Amazon's competitors and worried about "serious potential conflicts of interest" when an agent becomes a publisher. "The most obvious of these (conflicts) is the possibility of self-dealing to the detriment of the agency's client, the author," the Guild's message said. "A major agency starting a publishing company is weird, no matter how you look at it." On the other hand, the Guild estimated that the authors represented by Wylie in the e-books deal with Amazon would make three times the amount in royalties that traditional publishers were offering.

3. Breaking news from the book barons

The late Stieg Larsson has become the first member of Amazon’s "Kindle Million Club," honoring authors whose entire body of work has produced more than one million sales for the Amazon e-reader. The club is open only to paid books, not the out-of-copyright books available for free. Larsson, who died of a heart attack in 2004, is best known for the "Millennium Trilogy" crime novels, comprised of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest… While many events and experiences shaped Steig Larsson as a novelist, one of his closest friends says the event that most shaped his anti-chauvinistic viewpoint occurred when Larsson was 15. On that day, he watched three friends rape a girl called Lisbeth, who was the same age as him and someone he knew. “Her screams were heartrending, but he didn't intervene. His loyalty to his friends was too strong. He was too young, too insecure. It was inevitable that he would realize afterwards that he could have acted and possibly prevented the rape,” says the friend. Haunted by feelings of guilt, he contacted the girl a few days later. When he begged her to forgive him for his cowardice and passivity, she told him bitterly that she could not accept his explanations. 'I shall never forgive you,' she said... Abrams has announced the previously undisclosed title of Jeff Kinney's fifth “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” book that the title of Jeff Kinney's fifth Diary will be The Ugly Truth. The book is scheduled for a Nov. 9 release, and will get a first printing of five million copies. Abrams says 35 million copies of Wimpy Kid books are in print already in the U.S. Last fall's Dog Days had an announced four-million-copy first printing and the publisher went back to press for another 500,000, with an estimated first-week sale in excess of 750,000 units.

4. Amazon announces that Kindle e-book sales outpace sales of hardback p-books

On July 6, Hachette announced that James Patterson had sold 1.14 million e-books to date, the first author to top the one million e-book sales list. Of those, 867,881 were Kindle books.

Five authors - Charlaine Harris, Stieg Larsson, Stephenie Meyer, James Patterson and Nora Roberts - have each sold more than 500,000 Kindle books.

"Over the past three months,” crowed Amazon, “for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle books. Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books."

The numbers are across Amazon's entire U.S. book business and include sales of hardcover books where there is no Kindle edition. They do not include free Kindle books.

As of July, there were 630,000 titles in the Kindle Store and 510,000 of those were priced at $9.99 or less, which means that only about 20 percent of total Kindle books available for sale were priced higher than $10. Over 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are also available to read on Kindle.

"We've reached a tipping point with the new price of Kindle - the growth rate of Kindle device unit sales has tripled since we lowered the price from $259 to $189," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "In addition, even while our hardcover sales continue to grow, the Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format. Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books - astonishing when you consider that we've been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months."

Still, the hardback comparison figure doesn't necessarily mean the end is near for paper books. Amazon said its hardback book unit sales also continued to increase. Moreover, while Amazon has become one of the largest booksellers in the U.S., it still attracts an online audience that is more inclined to be early adopters of new reading technology.

As for the effect on paperbacks, Madeline McIntosh, president, sales, operations and digital at Bertelsmann AG's Random House Inc., said: "Our conclusion is that there's no data to prove any connection - good or bad - between growth in e-books and the growth or decline, in trade paperback sales.

However, a Publishers Weekly article reports interviews with several major trade houses, all acknowledging that they were selling at least as many e-books as hardcovers through Amazon, with one major publisher reporting that in the last few weeks the ratio had been higher than the 143 e-books to 100 hardcovers Amazon reported for the second quarter.

5. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor to publish memoir with Knopf

Recently confirmed Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is going to write her memoir - to be published simultaneously in English and Spanish.

The publishing house Alfred A. Knopf announced the deal on July 12, saying the book will cover Sotomayor’s rise from a Bronx, N.Y., housing project to Princeton, Yale Law School and the federal bench.

“Sonia Sotomayor has lived a remarkable life and her achievements will prove an inspiration to readers around the world,” Sonny Mehta, chairman and editor-in-chief of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, said in a statement. “Hers is a triumph of the Latino experience in America.”

“I am honored to be working with the distinguished publishing house of Alfred A. Knopf on the publication of my memoir,” said Justice Sotomayor, according to the Knopf press release. A collaborator will aid Sotomayor in completing the project.

Knopf declined to say how much Sotomayor would be paid, and the Supreme Court spokeswoman said the justice deferred all questions about the book to the publisher. But annual financial disclosure rules mean that eventually Sotomayor’s earnings will become public knowledge.

According to such records, Justice Clarence Thomas has earned more than $1 million for his 2007 memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, Thomas’s take on his own journey from Pin Point, Ga., to the Supreme Court.

6. News about bookstores, publishing, marketing and promotion

Negotiations between Janet Evanovich and St. Martin's Press, which has published every Stephanie Plum novel since 1996 and just released the newest No. 1 New York Times bestseller, Sizzling Sixteen, by the popular author, are tenuous at best. According to Deadline.com, St. Martin’s turned down Evanovich's hoped-for contract renewal of $50 million for her next four books. As a result of the breakdown, alleges the Web site, her son Peter - now acting as her agent and manager - "is expected to shop the deal to other publishers shortly." Evanovich is rumored to have received $40-plus million for the four books on her most recent SMP contract, signed in October 2007 and up this year. Evanovich parted ways with her longtime agent Robert Gottlieb in 2008. (See story 11 below for the actual deal Evanovich accepted.)

7. GABBS announces Boston training for bargain book buyers, sellers

One of the largest bargain book shows in the U.S., has announced two training tracks for buyers and sellers of bargain books.

The training will be presented at the Great American Bargain Book Show (GABBS) slated for the Hynes Convention Center in Boston on Aug. 19-20.

Track One training is for owners and buyers of independent bookstores. The independent bookstore organizations involved in hosting the sessions are the New England Independent Booksellers Association (NEIBA, Steve Fischer, executive director), the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA, Eileen Dengler, executive director) and the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA, Wanda Jewell, executive director).

The Track One session on Aug. 19 is titled “Remainder Buying – Plain, Simple and Profitable.” Industry insiders will discuss how booksellers can sell more books and earn more money by adding remainders to their inventory. Retailers can generally buy remainders for much less than conventional books and sell them at higher markups.

The Aug. 19 session is being moderated by Larry May, co-owner of the Great American Bargain Book Show and a national authority on bargain books. Panelists will include:

o   Susan Little, owner of Jabberwocky Bookshop at the Tannery, located in Newburyport, Mass. Ms. Little opened Jabberwocky (originally the Little Bookshop) 37 years ago. Today, it’s the largest independent bookstore on the Massachusetts Northshore.

o   Sean Concannon of Parson Weems Publishers, White Plains, N.Y. Concannon joined Parson Weems in 1996. Prior to that, he was the general manager at Tower Books headquarters in Philadelphia. In addition to overseeing a staff of 15 at Tower, he opened and renovated Tower stores in Tel Aviv, Buenos Aires and Mexico City.

o   Alie Hess, the books and remainders buyer for the Brookline Booksmith of Brookline, Mass., which will be 50 years old next year. Alie has been the buyer for 10 years. Before that, she worked at Waterstone’s.

The Track One training session on Aug. 20 is titled “EESY CHIT – Easy, Effective Strategies You Can Happily Implement Today.” The session is being presented by Karin Wilson, owner of the Page & Palette, an independent bookstore with a long and successful history of serving book lovers in Fairhope, Ala.

Track Two training is aimed at providing a perspective on the revolutionary changes currently affecting the book business The changes are the result of the digital age – the introduction of e-books, e-book readers, e-book apps and print on demand control of inventory.

Serving as panelists for the 9:00 a.m. session on Aug. 19 are Michael Friedman, publishing industry consultant and long-time publishing executive with Barnes & Noble and Friedman/Fairfax Publishing Co.; and Charles Nurnberg, president and publisher at Imagine Publishing. The session will look at how the market for books has evolved, and where both independent and larger publishers are seeing the opportunities for books in the coming years.

The Track Two session at 9:00 a.m. on Aug. 20 will provide a book buyer’s perspective on the industry. Panelists include David Strymish of New England Mobile Book Fair and eCookbooks in Newton, Mass.; and Barbara Seibert of Purple Turtle Productions, a successful independent online bookseller. The buyers will discuss how their world has evolved and changed with new channels opening and product lifecycles moving faster.

8. Books to Movies Department

Last month, we mentioned that the movie version starring Julia Roberts of Eat Pray Love was opening on Aug. 13. The book is by Elizabeth Gilbert and about what she did in the aftermath of a divorce. USA Today reported that sales of Gilbert's memoir were spiking again as the film release date neared. The book rose to number two on the bestseller list. Gilbert told USA Today that "Julia Roberts completely commands the movie, making the story her own…” Unfortunately, the other side of the divorce story, by Michael Cooper, Gilbert’s ex-husband, won’t make it into a book – at least not for a while. Cooper had a deal with Hyperion to write Displaced, his version of the divorce, but the New York Post reports the project has been scuttled. Hyperion spokeswoman Marie Coolman confirms that the book has been canceled. The Post said Hyperion wanted to “push the book in a more controversial direction,” which he said he was not willing to do. Stay tuned.

9. How bad is it – and what is the book business doing to cope?

May bookstore sales fell and have been down slightly for the year, but publishers' sales rose nearly 10 percent in May. That’s largely because publisher sales were led by digital- and Internet-related sales, while bookstores are benefiting little from e-books and other digital media. Sales of e-books rose 162.8 percent in May, and sales of downloaded audiobooks climbed 72.9 percent. May bookstore sales slipped 2.6 percent to $1.1 billion compared to May 2009, according to preliminary estimates from the Census Bureau. For the year to date, total bookstore sales have slipped 0.4 percent to $6.325 billion. Total publisher net sales during May in the U.S. rose 9.8 percent to $715.3 million, as reported by 86 publishers to the Association of American Publishers. For the year to date, net sales are up 11.6 percent to $3.125 billion… Sales at Pearson imprint Penguin, which is celebrating its 75^th anniversary this year, rose nine percent in the first half of 2009, to 493 million pounds. Pearson attributed the rise to "a series of organizational changes made in 2009 at Penguin UK and Dorling Kindersley to strengthen publishing, accelerate the transition to digital, reduce costs and shift design and production to lower-cost markets." Penguin says it has a 12.4 percent share of the U.S. book market based on Nielsen BookScan data, and grew market share "fairly significantly" in the past six months.

10. Publishers’ May book sales increase 9.8 percent

Publishers' book sales tracked by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) for the month of May (released July 14) increased by 9.8 percent over the prior year to $715.3 million and were up by 11.6 percent for the year-to-date.

The Adult Hardcover category was up 43.2 percent in May with sales of $138.5 million; sales for the year-to-date are up by 21.7percent. Adult Paperback sales decreased 2.2 percent for the month ($110.7 million) but increased by 15.7 percent for the year so far. Adult Mass Market sales decreased 14.6 percent for May with sales totaling $54.6 million; sales were down by 7.3 percent year-to-date. Hardcover Children’s/YA sales declined 1.3 percent for the month with sales of $58.1 million in May; year-to-date sales are down by 23.3 percent. Children’s/YA Paperback sales decreased 8.1 percent in May with sales totaling $39.9 million; sales fell 6.6 percent for the year-to-date.

Physical Audio Book sales posted an increase of 5.1 percent in May with sales totaling $12.9 million; sales for the to-date are up by 13.1 percent. Downloaded Audio Books increased 72.9 percent on last year, with sales of $5.9 million this May; the category was also up 33.3 percent year-to-date. E-book sales grew 162.8 percent for the month ($29.3 million), year-to-date e-book sales are up 207.4 percent. Year-To-Date E-book sales of the 13 submitting publishers to that category currently comprise 8.48 percent of the total trade books market, compared to 2.89 percent for the same period last year:

Religious Books were up 8.2 percent for the month with sales totaling $40.1 million; sales were up by 2.6 percent year to date.

Sales of University Press Hardcover books increased 13.9 percent in May to $4.1 million; sales increased by one percent year to date. University Press Paperback posted a gain of 4.9 percent for the month with sales totaling $2.8 million; sales were down 0.1 percent for the year. Sales of Professional books rose by 6.7 percent to $56.9 million and were up by 13.2 percent for the year-to-date.

Higher Education publishing sales increased 6.3 percent for the month ($160.0 million) and increased 21.4 percent for the year. Finally, the K-12 El-Hi (elementary/high school) category posted total net sales of $267.3 million, down 0.4 percent on the prior year, in May, and year-to-date sales of $756.6 million, a 5.3 percent increase on 2009.

11. Update journalism: Latest skinny on past Southern Review stories

Uberauthor Janet Evanovich, represented by her son, has jumped publishers in search of a better financial deal. The author of the multimillion-selling "Stephanie Plum" series and other popular mystery novels, with more than 75 million copies in print worldwide, has left her longtime publisher, St. Martin's Press, and joined the Random House Publishing Group. Random House announced that Evanovich has agreed to write four new novels, including two Stephanie Plum releases. She will publish through the Random House imprint Ballantine Bantam Dell. "I started my career as a Bantam author, and I'm very excited to be returning," Evanovich, 67, said in a news release. Financial terms were not disclosed, although Evanovich's book deal is likely worth upwards of $40 million approaching or exceeding $50 million.

12. The publishing revolution: News of e-books and other new media

Sales of e-books at Random House in the U.S. represent eight percent of revenue and should hit 10 percent next year, CEO Markus Dohle told Der Spiegel. He predicted that e-books sales in the U.S. will be between 25-50 percent in the next five years, but not overtake printed books in that time… According to a review by Joel Friedlander at http://tinyurl.com/25qdax2, Liz Castro's EPUB Straight to the Point  “demystifies the EPUB format and how to make an EPUB book that actually looks good.” Detailed step-by-step instructions and lots of screenshots show you exactly what to do. And the author shows you how to make EPUB from Word or Indesign. EPUB is the format publishers need to publish to the iBookstore and for the Nook and Sony Reader. The print book won't be out until Aug. 8, but the EPUB version is available now.
 

13. Pete Hamill's book on immigration goes straight to e-book

When Pete Hamill wrote a book, They Are Us,  about a hot topic, immigration, he decided to go straight to e-book rather than wait for a traditional p-book to be published.

Hamill is a prominent American journalist, columnist, novelist and short story writer. He is one of four men who disarmed Sirhan Sirhan of his gun in the aftermath of the Robert F. Kennedy Assassination.

A New York Times story says Hamill wanted to write a book that dealt largely with the politics of immigration, and with the midterm elections coming up in November, it hardly made sense to abide by a traditional, slower publishing schedule. Putting the book out in digital form saved at least six to eight weeks for typesetting, printing and distribution, not to mention the cost of paper. The book could be out before the midterms, so that it could influence the debate, not follow it.

14. FTC, DOJ, states looking into e-book pricing with eye to price-fixing

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal in late July announced a preliminary inquiry into the pricing agreements between five of the country’s largest book publishers and two leading digital retailers, Apple and Amazon.com.

A similar examination was opened in June by the attorney general of Texas.

Blumenthal said he has sent letters to Amazon and Apple asking them to “meet with his office” to address his concerns that agreements may restrict rivals from offering cheaper e-books.

Apple, Amazon and five publishers have agreed to an “agency pricing” model. Under the agency model, publishers set their own retail prices. They receive 70 percent of the consumer price, with the retailers taking 30 percent.

“These agreements among publishers, Amazon and Apple appear to have already resulted in uniform prices for many of the most popular e-books -potentially depriving consumers of competitive prices,” said Blumenthal.

According to a story by Jeffrey Trachtenberg in the Wall Street Journal, both the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department are looking at Amazon and Apple’s e-book publishing practices as well.

Apple, CBS Corp.’s Simon & Schuster; News Corp.’s HarperCollins Publishers; Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group; Pearson PLC’s Penguin Group (USA) and Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH all declined to comment on the Connecticut inquiry.

Blumenthal says that when Amazon and Apple insist that publishers offer them their lowest rates that’s known in commerce as a "most favored nation" agreement. And those arrangements "may block competitors from offering cheaper e-book prices."

Although most favored nation agreements "are not per se illegal under our antitrust laws," Blumenthal said, they also "are not per se legal either."

15. Starz, Penguin launch vook version of ‘Pillars of the Earth’

Penguin has launched a multimedia electronic book with video.

Penguin Group Inc. and Liberty Media's Starz Media began selling the version for Apple's iPad in mid-July.

Priced at $12.99, Penguin's iPad-iPhone-iPod Touch version of Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth is set in 12^th-century England. The e-book lets users read the novel and watch scenes from the mini-series which began airing on Starz on July 23.

When Follett wrote the book in the late 1980s, he could hardly have imagined his novel, about cathedral building in the Middle Ages, would become a first-of-its kind "Amplified Edition" electronic book.

Follett's novel is not the first e-book to incorporate video. Vooks, hybrid works that blend books and videos, have been around for a while.

But Pillars goes further. For one thing, there's the promotional tie-in to the miniseries that started two days after the e-book launched. Embedded videos are digitally time-coded or locked so that you can't watch them until that particular episode airs.

Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst with Forrester Research, said Forrester forecasts U.S. consumers will spend $966 million on e-books in 2010, swelling to $2.8 billion by 2015.

"This is a combined effort of a video company and publishing company. Penguin felt this deserved a higher price point with the integration of video," said Marc DeBevoise, senior vice president of digital media business development for Starz.

"It's another way to bring more readers to Ken Follett. We're looking at other appropriate books for this kind of experiment and innovation," said Molly Barton, director of business development for Penguin Group USA.

Follett's 1989 book has already sold more than 14 million copies worldwide, gaining popularity after Oprah Winfrey selected it for the Oprah Book Club in 2007.

In addition to clips from the $40 million Starz mini-series, the e-book edition will offer videos of Follett discussing his writing process, and a character tree that helps readers navigate the book's many personalities.

Updates to the application will occur throughout the airing of the TV series. (Source: Sue Zeidler, Reuters, and Edward C. Baig, USA Today, July 21, 2010)

16. TeleRead sidebar provides details on Wylie deal with Amazon

According to Paul Biba, the eclectic editor of Teleread newsletter, the Wylie Agency’a Odyssey Editionsimprint  will sell the following e-book-only backlist editions for its high-end clientele.

The deal with Amazon will run for two years and be exclusive. The books will sell for two years and the titles have not been in electronic format before.

Some of the titles include: The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow, The Stories of John Cheever, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, John Updike’s Rabbit series and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter Thompson.

Wylie told the New York Times “The fact remains that backlist digital rights were not conveyed to publishers, and so there’s an opportunity to do something with those rights.” He added that the terms reached with Amazon were “more favorable” than terms most other larger publishers are offering for e-book rights.

17. Comics news: Digital comics find new home on Apple’s iPad

The best-selling "Scott Pilgrim" graphic novel series, released as the "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" movie on Aug. 13, has been simultaneously released as a ComiXology iPad app.

The iPad's size, portability and color screen make it a good fit for reading comics. Before the tablet computer, fans could read digital comics in several ways, none of them ideal: on a desktop or laptop computer, or via a smartphone's tiny screen, panel by panel.

"The iPad is much better suited for comics, and on that platform, comics are expanding very rapidly," said Milton Griepp, president and publisher of the trend-watching magazine ICv2, which reported between $500,000 and $1 million in digital comic sales on mobile apps in 2009.

Publisher Marvel Comics released many older titles for the iPad as soon as the tablet was available, followed soon after by "day-and-date" releases - issuing digital versions of comic books at the same time as print versions.

IDW Comics was also an early adapter to the iPad, and currently has more than 400 issues available through multiple apps.

In June, DC Comics - owned by Time Warner -  jumped on board, offering hundreds of issues such as "Superman/Batman," "Sandman" and "God of War," as well as a day-and-date release of "Justice League: Generation Lost."

Kyle Putkammer, owner of Galactic Quest, a mini-chain of comic book retailers in Atlanta, Ga., said digital comics haven't really affected sales one way or another so far, and in fact, big changes such as the new Wonder Woman costume have had more of an effect.

18. Books in bad taste, and books that taste bad

For $US75,000, you can buy a piece of Indian cricket star Sachin Tendulkar. Luxury publisher Kraken Opus mixed in a pint of Tendulkar's blood with paper pulp to create the signature page for a book celebrating the renowned batsman's career. The 10 limited-edition copies of the book, which comes out in February 2011, cost $75,000 each and have already sold out.

19. Freebies: Barnes & Noble offers free e-classics

Barnes & Noble Inc. is offering the latest freebie in the electronic book reader wars, free classic books to owners of its Nook e-reader or its free e-book reader software.

The company said it will offer 10 different classics - from its own publishing label - weekly for a limited time only through the summer, as free downloads.

In June, Barnes & Noble gave out $50 gift cards with each Nook. Borders, which launched its e-bookstore recently, offered five free books to readers who downloaded their free e-reader application in a deal that has expired.

B&N’s free offerings include Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Grimm's Fairy Tales and Louisa May Alcott's Little Women.

Books will vary by theme each week, including fantasy, romance and books that inspired movies.

Barnes & Noble's free e-book reading software is available for a variety of devices including computers and smartphones. Its Nook e-reader retails for $149.

20. Marketing books: what’s new, what works and what doesn’t

Lori Hettler of Tobyhanna, Pa., runs one of the largest book clubs on Goodreads, with nearly 7,000 members. Discussions of her selections can go on for hundreds of messages, with readers passionately championing - or dissing - the club's latest pick. A recommendation by Hettler can help little-known authors find an audience. Her recent picks include M. Clifford's The Book and D.H. Haney's Banned for Life, both self-published efforts… Sales of Kitty Kelley’s unauthorized, tell-all biography of Oprah Winfrey has sold only about 115,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan. That’s way below the million-copy sales of her biograhies of Frank Sinatra and Nancy Reagan. Word is that sales of celebrity biographies are declining because of so much information about the celebrities on the Internet… The Los Angeles Times has named Jon Thurber as its new Books Editor. He spent the past year as managing editor, print, and was previously obituaries editor for 11 years.

21. Powell's uses Facebook for virtual author chat

Pulitzer Prize-winner Jonathan Weiner in July held a virtual conversation with readers about his new book, Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality, on the Powell's Books Facebook page. It was the Portland, Ore., based bookstore's first live author chat on Facebook.
Marketing Coordinator Megan Zabel moderated the chat. "After doing some research, it seemed like Facebook was the way to go, since we have a built-in audience there of more than 60,000 fans and the technology is free," she said.

The event was promoted through Facebook, Twitter and the store's blog on Powells.com.

Weiner's publisher, Ecco, also promoted the author chat via Twitter.
During the chat, Weiner answered questions such as what brought him to the subject of immortality. He also asked the participants for their opinions. "It truly was a discussion and not just an author talking to a group," said Zabel, "which is a really interesting twist on the traditional author event."

22. Check out these book publisher pages on Facebook

Jason Boog has created a Facebook page at Galleycat. Ji Hyun Park helped assemble this directory.
The page will be used for event listings, literary contests and publishing debate.

Boog is calling the new site a “reader-curated directory” of the best publisher pages on Facebook. Some might call it a new wiki. Either way, users will help Boog and Galleycat build out its Facebook network and help readers find the best Facebook content.

To launch the site, Boog released the list below - a directory that barely scratches the surface of the publishing scene on Facebook. Users are invited to add their favorite publishers to the comments section, and he'll keep updating the directory.

Alfred A. Knopf: "one of America's foremost book publishers--known for both the quality of its authors and for the high level of its book design and production."

Algonquin Books: "Independent publisher of literary fiction and narrative nonfiction."

Allworth Press: "Business books for creative professionals."

Archipelago Books: "A not-for-profit press devoted to publishing exceptional translations of classic and contemporary world literature. In our first six years, we have brought out 60 books, translated from twenty languages."

Arte Publico Press: "the nation's largest and most established publisher of contemporary and recovered literature by U.S. Hispanic authors."

Avon: "Avon has been publishing award-winning books since 1941. It is recognized for having pioneered the historical romance category and continues to bring the best of commercial literature to the broadest possible audience."

Back Bay Books: "We are the paperback imprint of Little, Brown and Company."

Beacon Press: "An independent publisher of serious non-fiction and fiction."

Black Sparrow Books: "Sought out the great and astounding statements of America's literary outsiders, writers whose kinship is with the red blood of Whitman not the blue blood of Longfellow, with the dirty hands of Dreiser not the kid gloves of Edith Wharton."

Canonbridge LLC: "a second-tier independent publisher located in Iowa. It was established in 2007 to encourage and publish new writers who demonstrate talent and the potential for solid growth."

Carina Press: "Publishes a broad range of fiction with an emphasis on romance and its subgenres."

Chelsea Green Publishing: "Publishers of renewable energy, sustainable living, organic gardening, and progressive books since 1984."

Chicken Soup for the Soul: "Home to the largest catalog of user-generated, life-changing stories."

Chronicle Books: "An independent publisher located in San Francisco, we have an award-winning history of innovation in both subject matter and format for our distinctive books and gifts."

City Lights Publishers: "a landmark independent bookstore and publisher that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics."

Columbia University Press: "OVER 160 NEW TITLES annually in the fields of Asian studies and literature, biological sciences, business, culinary history, current affairs, economics, environmental sciences, film and media studies, finance, history, international affairs, literary studies, Middle Eastern studies, New York City history, philosophy, neuroscience, paleontology, political theory, religion, and social work."

Dalkey Archive Press: "A nonprofit publisher at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign"

David R. Godine, Publisher: "An independent general trade press that publishes fiction, poetry, nonfiction, children's, and art & photography titles."

Duke University Press: "Disseminating knowledge, through the publication of printed books, periodicals, and electronic files, beyond the confines of the University's campus."

Dutton: "Dutton is an adult hardcover fiction and non-fiction imprint of Penguin Group."

Dzanc Books: "Dzanc Books is a nonprofit publishing company."

Egmont USA: "A children’s book publisher."

ENC Press: "ENC PRESS is the intelligent alternative to traditional publishing: a small but fiercely independent boutique press, whose specialty is social satire."

Farrar, Straus and Giroux: "renowned for its international list of literary fiction, nonfiction, poetry and children's books. Farrar, Straus and Giroux authors have won extraordinary acclaim over the years."

Free Press: "Free Press is one of six imprints that comprise the Adult Trade Division of Simon & Schuster. Free Press publishes approximately 70 new titles per year"

Graywolf Press: "Graywolf publishes about thirty books a year and works with Farrar, Straus & Giroux to distribute those titles to bookstores and media outlets across the country."

Hachette Book Group: "Hachette Book Group (HBG) is a leading trade publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre, the second-largest publisher in the world."

HarperCollins Canada: "a prestigious and award-winning company with strengths in literary and commercial fiction, non-fiction, children's books, cookbooks, and reference and spiritual books."

HarperCollins Children's Books: "Respected worldwide for its tradition of publishing quality books for children, HarperCollins Children's Books is home to many of the classics of children's literature."

HarperOne: "publishing influential books on personal growth, religion, spirituality, and wellness."

Harper Perennial: "Good Books for Cool People."

HarperTeen: "the home of the most exciting teen publishing anywhere."

Invisible Publishing: "We find contemporary voices who reflect the real Canadian diaspora."

Lee & Low Books: "an independent children's book publisher specializing in diversity."

Melville House Publishing: "An independent publisher of literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. The company was founded in 2001 and was named winner of the 2007 Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing"

A Midsummer Night's Press: "Publishing affordable poetry titles in elegant little packages."

Moon Travel Guides: "Expert writers delivering a mix of honest insight, first-rate strategic advice, and an essential dose of humor, Moon ensures that travelers have an uncommon and entirely satisfying experience--and a few new stories to tell."

Murdoch Books: "An independent, international book publishing company, under private Australian ownership."

Museyon Guides: "Indie publisher of guidebooks."

New York Review Books: "An innovative list of fiction and nonfiction for discerning and adventurous readers"

Nicholas Brealey Publishing: "The world's smallest publishing multinational."

North Atlantic Books: "North Atlantic has become a leading publisher of alternative health, martial arts, raw foods, and spiritual titles."

Other Press: "We publish novels, short stories, poetry, and essays from America and around the world that represent literature at its best. Our nonfiction books--should they be history, current events, popular culture or memoir--explore how psychic, cultural, historical, and literary shifts inform our vision of the world and of each other."

Overlook Press: "An independent general-interest publisher, founded in 1971. The publishing program consists of nearly 100 new books per year, evenly divided between hardcovers and trade paperbacks."

Oxford University Press: "The largest university press in the world."

Palgrave Macmillan: "A cross-market publisher, specializing in cutting edge non-fiction, student texts, research and reference.
Peachtree Publishers: "Independent Children's Book Publisher in Atlanta, GA."

Pantheon Books: "An American imprint with editorial independence that is part of the Knopf Publishing Group, which was acquired by Random House in 1960."

Peachpit Books: "We publish super-cool, best-selling books and videos on the latest in graphic design, Web design and development, digital video and more."

Pearson Education: "Leading global education company, dedicated to helping students learn and achieve success."

Penguin Books: "Penguin Books publishes blockbusting, prize-winning, celebrated, controversial, heart-warming, thought-provoking and inspiring books."

Picador Paperbacks: "One of the leading literary trade paperback imprints in the country."

Potomac Books: "Building on our strong roots in military history, we have expanded our editorial focus to include general history, world and national affairs, foreign policy, defense and national security, terrorism, intelligence, memoirs and biographies, and sports"

Princeton Architectural Press: "World leader in architecture and design publishing, both in market share and in editorial and design excellence."

Putnam Books: "one of the oldest and most prestigious imprints in the publishing industry."

Raincoast Books: "Books, glorious books."

Random House: "We publish books."

Random House Canada: "Random House of Canada was established in 1944 as the Canadian distributor of Random House Books. In 1986 the company established its own indigenous Canadian publishing program that has become one of the most successful in Canadian history."
Riverhead Books: "dedicated to publishing extraordinary, ground-breaking, unique fiction and non-fiction writers."

Regnery Publishing: "Publishing great conservative books since 1947."

Scholastic: "World's largest publisher and distributor of children's books and a leader in educational technology and children's media."

Seal Press: "founded in 1976 to provide a forum for women writers and feminist issues. Since then, Seal has published groundbreaking books that represent the diverse voices and interests of women"

Simon & Schuster: "Simon & Schuster is the home of bestselling authors such as Stephen King, Frank McCourt, Jodi Picoult, Mary Higgins Clark, John Lithgow and Vince Flynn."

Soft Skull Press: "Pugnacious indie press who wants to be your friend."

Soho Press: "an independent book publisher based in New York City. Since 1986, we have been publishing literary fiction, narrative nonfiction, and mysteries set in exotic locations."

Tantor Audio: "a leading independent publisher of over 2000 unabridged audiobooks, in a wide variety of genres."

Tarcher Books-Penguin: "one of the premier publishers of mind, body, and spirit titles."

Tundra Books: "Books for children, young adults, and those young at heart!"

Two Dollar Radio Books: "Two Dollar Radio is a mom and pop's book publishing outfit founded in 2005, with the tagline: Books too loud to ignore."

Uncial Press: "[We] publish finely crafted and well-written e-books. Fiction titles will feature strong character development, coherent plots, and engaging story lines, and will be both line and content edited.

University of Chicago Press: "has been publishing books and journals for discriminating readers since 1892. The Press also distributes a wide variety of books for over 50 international publishers."

University of Minnesota Press: "Publisher of groundbreaking work in social & cultural theory, race & ethnic studies, urbanism, feminist criticism, and media studies."

University of North Carolina Press: "explore[s] important questions, spark lively debates, generate ideas, and move fields of inquiry forward."

University of Texas Press: "a focal point where the life experiences, insights, and specialized knowledge of writers converge to be disseminated in print."

Welcome Books: "A publisher of fine illustrated books on subjects ranging from art and photography to history, travel, and food."

Word Riot Press: "online literary magazine and small press celebrating the forceful voices of up and coming writers."

Writer's Digest: "Writer's Digest is the No. 1 resource for writing better and getting published. It is a division of F+W Media."

Your It List: "To discover what ‘It’ is now in Style, Music, Art, Movies, Sports, Comedy and Celebrity."

23. Milestones: 17,000 NPR listeners vote on 600 top thrillers, pick top 10

NPR's radio audience nominated 600 novels to its Killer Thrillers poll of the best all-time mystery novels, and then cast more than 17,000 votes to reach the final top 100 list of "fast-moving tales of suspense and adventure" and unexpected darkness.
The top 10 Killer Thrillers selected by the listeners:

The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Kiss the Girls by James Patterson
The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
The Shining by Stephen King
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

24. News of chicanery, dishonesty and tort-feasing in the book business

According to various tabloid blogs, "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis is suing over a book written by one of his former cameramen. The book allegedly details incidents involving drugs, sex and jail. Flash! Bars, Boobs, And Busted: 5 Years On The Road With Girls Gone Wild is a tell-all about the experiences of cameraman Ryan Simkin while traveling with the series. Simkin began videotaping naked, drunk women for Francis in 2002. In his lawsuit, Francis claims Simkin, like all of his employees, was required to sign a non-disclosure agreement that strictly prohibited him from "writing and publishing any tell-all books about (his) work." When Francis heard that Simkin had a book on the way, he filed a breach of contract lawsuit. Francis is also suing the publishers, 4th Street Media, LLC and 4 Park Publishing for “intentional interference” in Simkin’s contract. “Radar Online” reports Simkin shot photos for Francis for five years beginning in 2002. He also worked for the Girls Gone Wild magazine earlier this year. The amount of the punitive and compensatory damages being sought by Francis were not specified in the lawsuit filing... Meanwhile, one of New York’s finest hookers, Ashley Dupré, is suing Francis and his Girls Gone Wild franchise for more than $10 million, claiming Francis exploited her name and image for profit. Dupré alleges that Girls Gone Wild representatives approached her while she was vacationing in Florida in 2003, offered her alcohol and cajoled her into exposing her breasts for their cameras when she was just 17, and not old enough to sign a release form allowing her to be filmed. Since then, the suit claims, Girls Gone Wild has illegally exploited Dupré’s name, picture, voice and likeness in a number of “deceptive” ad campaigns and on Web sites.

25. John Densmore of ‘The Doors’ sues over book publication

John Densmore of The Doors has filed suit against Transit Publishing, alleging it published his manuscript without his permission.

Densmore approached Transit in February 2010 with to his book, entitled The Doors: Unhinged. Rock and Roll Goes Up On Trial. His intent was to discuss a possible publishing deal with Transit. After several discussions, the defendant sent an “offer” for the right to publish the book. Densmore did not accept the offer, made on March 4, 2010.

On June 24, 2010, Transit began advertising Densmore’s book for pre-sale, without his consent, he contends. He  sent a cease and desist letter to Transit, to which they replied by sending him a copy of a 21-page publishing agreement.

The 21-page agreement contains a description of the book as “an authorized biography of Charles Manson, with his collaboration.”

The Densmore book continues to be advertised for pre-sale in English and French, appearing in the defendant’s catalogue, and on Amazon.

The book is for sale at $16.95 in the U.S. and $17.96 in Canada, with release dates scheduled for later this year.

After several attempts to stop the pre-sale, Densmore filed suit for copyright infringement and false designation of origin.  He wants the court to award him his actual damages, plus any profits that Transit makes from the wrongful sale of his book. He also wants an order stopping defendants from any further sale of the books, and for the destruction of any books already in existence.

26. Antiques dealer sentenced in theft of rare Shakespeare folio

An antiques dealer who tried to sell a stolen copy of a rare first collection of Shakespeare's plays was jailed for eight years on Aug. 2.

Raymond Scott, 53, took the 387-year-old book, which was stolen from Durham University in 1988, to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., where he asked to have it verified and valued, claiming he had found it in Cuba.

The book had been damaged in an apparent attempt to make it look like a different copy than the one that had been taken from Durham. But staff at the library recognized the book and notified the FBI, the British Embassy and British police.

Passing sentence, Judge Richard Lowden said Scott - who drove a Ferrari and posed as an international playboy, despite being £90,000 in debt - was a "fantasist" and had attempted to make money from the book in order to fund a lavish lifestyle to impress a woman he had met in Cuba.

The judge said the harm to the first folio, of which only 228 still exist, amounted to the "cultural vandalization" of a "quintessentially English treasure.” He said that Scott, an alcoholic who has 25 previous convictions, had either deliberately damaged the book or was party to the damage.

The first folio involved contained 36 Shakespeare plays. Copies of the book in mint condition are worth about £3 million.

The first folio is one of the most-catalogued books in the history of publishing and each individual copy has every blemish, typographical error and stain recorded. When independent expert Stephen Massey examined the book he confirmed that, mainly due to its measurements, he was sure that it was the stolen Durham copy. Massey said the book, even in its damaged state, was worth about £1 million. (Source: Mark Hughes, crime correspondent, The Independent [UK], Aug. 3, 2010)

27. Chuckles: Finding humor amid the stacks and shelves

For all those men who have claimed over the years that they only read Playboy for the articles, there’s an Apple app that will permit you to tell the truth. A Playboy iPad app has been launched with no nudity, but sold at the same price as the print version. Steve Jobs’s has prohibited the use of nudity and naughty words in Apple apps.  The sanitized Playboy  sells for $4.99, the same as a buyer would pay for the uncensored print version.  But the iPhone version only costs 99 cents.

28. Trade shows: International vendors line up for bargain book show

When the fourth annual Great American Bargain Book Show opens at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston for its Aug. 19-20 run, a strong contingent of international vendors will once again be present.
At the show, more than 40 vendors will be selling some 50,000 book titles to U.S. and foreign buyers. Of the international vendors, the more prominent come from Canada and the United Kingdom.

Making a market for U.S. bargain books in the English-speaking world outside the United States are Entertainment Liquidators, Fairmount Books and Readon Publications, all of Canada, and Caxton Publishing Group, Columbia Marketing, Fanshaw Books, PR Books and Symposium Books Wholesale, all with offices in the UK near London.

While international vendors who wholesale bargain books come mainly from Canada and the UK, buyers who attend GABBS and its sister show, the Spring Book Show in Atlanta, come from a number of other countries including  Australia, Pakistan, Korea, Japan, Nigeria, Ireland, France, Canada, the Philippines, the People’s Republic of China, India and Holland.

“While the majority of the vendors and bargain book buyers come from the United States, there’s strong interest in remainders and other bargain books in the rest of the world,” said Larry May, co-owner of the Great American Bargain Book Show. “It costs more for the international buyers and sellers to travel to the show, and they would not come if they were not making money by attending.”

That point is confirmed by David Crane of Columbia Marketing, located in the London area. A regular attendee at both the Spring Book Show in Atlanta and GABBS in Boston, Crane says that coming from Great Britain to the shows is well worth the expense.

The stagnant U.S. economy has made bargain books a mainstay for booksellers. “Because of the Internet and the current tight economy, people have gotten used to paying discounted prices for books,” May noted. “If a bookseller can buy stock for $1 per copy, and then sell it for $5, that’s a 400 percent profit, much higher than that enjoyed when the bookseller pays $15.00  at wholesale for a book that retails for $24.95. That’s only a 40 percent profit.”

The Great American Bargain Book Show caters to buyers who purchase 25 or more copies of individual titles from dealers who specialize in bargain books. The show is not open to the general public.

29. ComicCon draws 125,000 to San Diego

According to Comic-con spokesperson David Glanzer, while official numbers were still to be determined, attendance at this year’s event in San Diego over the July 23 weekend will likely be about 125,000 or 126,000. 

For those unable to attend, cable channel G4 provided four hours of live coverage from the convention floor on July 24.

Most of the TV interviews, and most of the buzz, was over comics and graphic novels being made into big-budget movies. As Calvin Reid of Publishers Weekly put it in a July 26 post, “It’s become a kind of broken record, but this year’s San Diego Comic-con, like last year’s Comic-con, was dominated by the hype and marketing machines of the Hollywood film and TV studios. From the buzz generating around the release of Universal’s Scott Pilgrim film next month and, later this year, AMC’s Walking Dead, to a bulked-up lineup of superhero movies coming next year - DC’s Green Lantern and Marvel’s Thor and Captain America films - Comic-con has become the ultimate platform for hyping big budget film and TV projects, whether they’re based on comics or not.”

30. ICRS attracts 4,647 Christian booksters to St. Louis show

Professional attendance at the 2010 International Christian Retail Show in St. Louis was 1,593, or flat, as compared to 1,605 in professional attendance in 2009, according to audited numbers reported by CBA (formerly the Christian Booksellers Association).

Professional attendance represents active buyers and is a standard metric developed by event planners to gauge show performance for exhibitors.

Total attendance was down by two percent from 2009. However, this is calculated from a corrected attendance number for 2009 that was incorrectly reported a year ago. Total 2010 ICRS attendance, after an audit by CBA’s registration service provider Showcare, was 4,647, compared to the audited 2009 attendance of 4,744. International attendance was up 4.5 percent with 371 attendees, compared to 354 in 2009.

The 2009 reporting error was discovered at this year’s ICRS during routine analysis by CBA staff. The mistake was attributed to human error caused by a number transposition last year. The 2009 ICRS attendance report of down 20 percent from 2008 should have been reported as down an even greater 36 percent. The corrected decline is more in line with overall trade show performance in 2009, when a severe recession was under way.

Curtis Riskey, new CBA executive director, said the year-to-year discrepancy discovered this year has been corrected and that CBA is implementing a new policy of not reporting ICRS attendance numbers until after a complete audit. This typically takes a few days after the show closes and all registrations are verified. The audit includes removing all duplicates, and other factors that affect reporting.

Riskey said that ICRS overall total attendance was still ahead of the curve when considered within the context of the recent report by the Center for Exhibition Research (CEIR) that found the Consumer Goods and Retail Trade sector had an average overall decrease in total show performance of 16 percent. As the trade-show industry changes, it is apparent that buyers and exhibitors are being more conservative in who is sent to the event. “Even though total numbers are down compared to a few years ago, it is apparent that the people attending are serious about their show investment and work hard to create a return.”

31. 17th annual Tokyo International Book Fair attracts 75,000

The 17^th annual Tokyo International Book fair, one of the leading publishing trade events in Asia, ran July 8-11. The number of exhibitors reached 1,000, hitting a record high in the fair's history. About 75,000 attended the event.

Publishers from some 30 countries and regions including China, Egypt and the United participated.

Shen Lijun, vice president of the Beijing-based Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, said in this year's fair, in addition to the traditional books, the new trend of publishing and related technologies were on display, and his company was paying special attention to the leading technologies, such as online distribution and digital publishing.

In 2009, 776 exhibitors from 29 countries and regions participated in the business event. (Source: Zhang Xiang, Xinhua, July 8, 2010)

32. Hong Kong Book Fair pushes electronic publishing, attracts 900,000

The Hong Kong Book Fair, which draws as many as 900,000 visitors annually, opened July 14 with a new element: a section on electronic publishing.

The weeklong event, the largest of its kind in the Chinese-speaking market, is still largely about selling print books, which are carted away in canvas sacks and rolling suitcases. But companies dealing in e-books and related media are trying to change that.

There were booths from more than 20 companies in the new “digital reading interactive zone.”

Hanvon, a Chinese company, was showing black-and-white devices similar to Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader. Retailing for 2,550 to 2,900 Hong Kong dollars (about $330 to $370), each comes with some free titles in English or Chinese.

Jecomtech, a Hong Kong company, was showing a U.S.-made product called Onyx Boox that can operate in English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and a dozen other languages. Retailing for 2,980 Hong Kong dollars, it comes with 1,000 titles.

Kiwa Media, a New Zealand company, was showing QBook, an iPad application that converts children’s print books into multilingual, interactive digital versions.

Rhonda Kite, a company representative, clicked a screen with colorful cartoon characters to gain access to a pull-down menu offering English, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and other languages. The text is automatically translated.

Readers can point at a written word and have the machine pronounce it. They can also use their fingers to color in the books’ illustrations. (Source: Joyce Hor-Chung Lau, July 21, 2010)

33. Major upcoming trade shows, book fairs and book festivals

August

August 19-20. Great American Bargain Book Show, Hynes Convention center, Boston, Mass.

Aug. 30-31.  Beijing International Book Fair, Beijing, China   

August. The New York International Gift Fair – www.nyigf.com

August. New Orleans-Gulf South Booksellers Association.

August. The New York International Gift Fair – www.nyigf.com

August. New Orleans-Gulf South Booksellers Association. betbooks@aol.com

September

Sept. 4-5. Decatur Book Festival, Decatur (Atlanta), Ga.,  http://www.decaturbookfestival.com/Community/index.php. Held Labor Day weekend, claims to attract over 50,000 book fans.

Sept. 12-13. Ciana, The Business Design Centre, London http://www.ciana.co.uk

Sept. 21-22. New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association , Trump Marina, Atlantic City, N.J. www.newatlanticbooks.com 

Sept. 23-25. Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association, Denver, Colo. www.mountainsplains.org

Sept. 24-26.  Baltimore Book Festival, attracts more than 100 authors, http://www.baltimorookfestival.com.

Sept. 24-26. Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, Daytona, Fla. www.sibaweb.com

Sept. 30 - Oct. 2. New England Independent Booksellers Alliance, Providence, R.I.  http://www.newenglandbooks.org/  

October

Oct. 1-2. Midwest Booksellers Association, Saint Paul, Minn. www.midwestbooksellers.org 

Oct. 6-10. Frankfurt Book Fair 2010. This is the Big Daddy of all book shows, the biggest in the world. Argentina is the Guest of Honor. Held in Frankfurt, Germany. www.book-fair.com

Oct. 7-9. Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, Portland, Ore. www.pnba.org 

Oct. 8-10. Southern Festival of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word, http://tn-humanities.org/festival/index.php, Nashville, Tenn., attracts more than 200 authors from throughout the U.S.

Oct. 14-16. Northern California Independent Booksellers Association.  www.nciba.com

Oct. 28-31. CIROBE, Chicago Hilton. www.cirobe.com

Oct. 30. Louisiana Book Festival, Baton Rouge, http://lbf.state.lib.la.us.

October. Great Lakes Booksellers Association.  www.books-glba.org

October. Litquake, San Francisco’s Literary Festival.  Event was held Oct. 9-17 in 2009. We’ll post the 2010 dates when we get ‘em. Meanwhile, visit http://www.litquake.org.

October. Southern California Independent Booksellers Association – www.scbabooks.org

October. Oklahoma Independent Booksellers Association – info@stevessundrybooksmags.com 

November

Nov. 3-7. Vegas Valley Book Festival, Las Vegas, Nevada. http://vegasvalleybookfestival.org.

Nov. 4-6. PubWest 2009, Tucson, Ariz.  www.pubwest.org.

Nov. 14-21. Miami Book Fair International, Miami Dade College, draws hundreds of thousands of people. http://www.miamibookfair.com.

2010 Dates uncertain – check hyperlink for Show Web site

Litquake, San Francisco’s Literary Festival, http://www.litquake.org

Ann Arbor Book Festival, http://www.aabookfestival.org/, Ann Arbor MI

National Book Festival, http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/ sponsored by the Library of Congress on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Held on Sept. 26 in 2009.

Kentucky Book Fair, http://www.kybookfair.com. Frankfort Convention Center, attended by up to 5,000 people including 150 authors.

Texas Book Fair, http://www.texasbookfestival.org. Established in 1995 by First Lady Laura Bush, a former librarian, more than 45,000 attend.

Delaware Book Fair & Authors Day, http://heritage.delaware.gov/book_fair.shtml

January 2011

Jan. 7 -11. American Library Association's Midwinter Conference.  www.ala.org 

Jan. 11-13. Inspirational Value Book Show (IVBS).  www.ivbshow.com  

Jan. 16-17. Ciana Remainder Book Show, London.  http://www.ciana.co.uk    

February

Feb. 25-March 1. The National Association of College Stores Conference. www.nacs.org 

Nineth Hispanic Book Festival.  www.hispanicbookfestival.com or call Andres Puello, Festival Director, 281-558-3052

South Carolina Book Festival. http://www.scbookfestival.org

March

March 25-27. Spring Book Show, Cobb Galleria/Renaissance-Waverly Hotel, Atlanta, Ga. SBS is one of the largest remainder and bargain book shows in the world. www.springbookshow.com

National Association of College Stores (CAMEX). www.nacs.org

Bologna Children’s Book Fair.  www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com 

April

April 11-13. London Book Fair . www.londonbookfair.co.uk

April 30- May 2. Museum Store Association’s Retail Conference & Expo 

May

May 23-26. BookExpo America, New York.  www.bookexpoamerica.com  

National Stationery Show,  New York.

June

June 24-29. American Library Association, Washington, DC. www.ala.org

June 27 – 30. ICRS - International Christian Retail Show,  St. Louis, Mo www.christianretailshow.com

Printers Row Book Fair, Chicago. http://www.chicagotribune.com/about/events/printersrow  

The Australian Booksellers Association's, Melbourne. The International New Age Trade Show West 

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Contact Information

Telephone:

770-938-0289

 

Fax:

770-493-7232

 

Postal address:

P.O. Box 2694, Tucker, GA 30085-2694

 

Ground Delivery and Mail Address:

Anvil Publishers, 3852 Allsborough Drive, Tucker, GA 30084

 

Electronic mail:

General Information: custserv@anvilpub.com

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Last modified: 03/28/11