Industry News

ABA is strongly encouraging bookstores to submit their fiscal 2003 financial statement numbers to the "ABACUS Survey - Year 2."

By Robin Whitten

What is the right mix of cassette and CD audiobooks?

By Len Vlahos

On Monday, February 9, ABA Communications Manager Kristen Gilligan and BookSense.com Director Len Vlahos set out on a weeklong tour of East Coast bookstores. Here's a report on their final two days on the road. To read about the first three days of their journey, click here.

Day 4 -- February 12
Triad to Research Triangle

On Tuesday, February 17, organizations representing booksellers, librarians, and writers announced the official launch of the "Campaign for Reader Privacy (CRP)," a nationwide grassroots effort to restore the safeguards for the privacy of bookstore and library records that were eliminated by Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act.

Bookstore sales in December 2003 resumed the upward trend of the second half of the year -- a trend interrupted only in November. Preliminary December sales of $2,036 million were 1.5 percent higher than the $2,005 million figure for December 2002.

While December’s increase was modest, it did ensure that the year 2003 ended up 2.4 percent better than the previous year.

Monday, February 16, is the last day to submit ballots for the Best of Book Sense. By voting, booksellers will automatically be entered into a random drawing to win a grand prize of five nights' accommodations and admission to BookExpo America for the next five years or one of four other prizes. Participation is open to all employees of ABA member bookstores.

On January 29, Ingram Book Group unveiled "pubsource," a new enhancement to its "ipage" Web site that provides booksellers with the ability to check availability and purchase book products directly from three participating publishers: Random House, Holtzbrinck Publishers Group, and HarperCollins.

Scholastic Announces Potter Paperback Pub Date

As Valentine's Day focuses our sights on expressions of fond regard and appreciation, so the February White Box overflows with offerings from Book Sense Publisher Partners, included with those same sentiments in mind -- regard for the passion with which you approach your chosen profession, and appreciation for the attention you pay to each title presented. Here are just some of the highlights:

Galleys, ARCs, and Finished Books:

Passengers on American Airlines flights during the month of February who pick up the airline's publication, American Way, will discover a feature article by Chris Tucker entitled "Book Tour -- The conventional wisdom is wrong: Real bookstores are not dead."

The deadline for vendors to submit information for inclusion in the new Booksellers' Resource Directory has been extended to Monday, February 23.

Vendors of nonbook products and services that would be of interest to independent booksellers may submit data through an online form at www.bookweb.org/docs/brd/. More than 70 categories of products and services are included.

It is expected that the Booksellers' Resource Directory will be online at BookWeb.org this spring.

On Monday, February 9, ABA Communications Manager Kristen Gilligan and BookSense.com Director Len Vlahos set out on a weeklong tour of East Coast bookstores. Here's a report on their adventures to date.

By Len Vlahos

Day 1 -- February 9

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a five-day trip
Leaving from this tropic port,
Aboard this tiny ship

Last week, Amazon.com announced that it would begin to comply with Kansas' new streamlined sales tax law, which requires retailers with remote sales that have an affiliated company in the state to collect sales and use tax. Amazon, which has an automated distribution center in Coffeyville, Kansas, will begin collecting Kansas state sales tax starting April 1.

Rather than hope customers will use and/or buy from their Web sites when they can't get to the bookstore, some booksellers have decided to bring their BookSense.com Web sites to customers by creating Web kiosks in their stores. Booksellers who spoke to BTW about their kiosks have found the axiom made famous in W.P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe on target: Build it, and they will come.

The first annual Booksellers' Retreat, organized by the Southeast Booksellers Association (SEBA), provides a unique opportunity for booksellers to leave behind the daily stress of business and get together with their peers.