BTW News Briefs

Consortium Offers Free Freight Terms

Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, a member of the Perseus Books Group, will begin offering free freight terms to trade accounts on Friday, August 1. The company said that the change, which will bring its terms in line with those of Perseus Books Group and Publishers Group West, was made so that it would "be more competitive with the many large publishing houses that already offer free freight and to support its independent sales representatives."

J.K. Rowling's Children's Charity to Publish The Tales of Beedle the Bard

The Children's High Level Group (CHLG), an English charity co-founded by J.K. Rowling and Emma Nicholson to help children suffering in institutions, will publish The Tales of Beedle the Bard on December 4. The announcement was made on Thursday, July 31, to commemorate Harry Potter's birthday.

The CHLG will publish three editions of the book, to be printed and distributed by Bloomsbury, Scholastic, and Amazon. The Bloomsbury and Scholastic editions ($12.99) will feature additional commentary on each fairy tale from Professor Dumbledore and an introduction by Rowling. Amazon will produce up to a maximum of 100,000 Collector's Edition copies ($100). All three editions will go on sale on December 4, 2008.

Seven copies of the wizarding tales were originally created, handwritten, and illustrated by Rowling to raise money for charities. They were auctioned off last December, with Amazon bidding $4 million for a charity copy.

All net proceeds from sale of the books, expected to be about $8 million, will be donated to CHLG.

"There was understandable disappointment among Harry Potter fans when only one copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard was offered to the public last December," said Rowling in a press release. "I am therefore delighted to announce that ... The Tales of Beedle the Bard will now be widely available to all Harry Potter fans.... The new edition will include the Tales themselves, translated from the original runes by Hermione Granger, and with illustrations by me, but also notes by Professor Albus Dumbledore, which appear by generous permission of the Hogwarts Headmasters' Archive."

MPIBA Announces 2008 Book Award Winners

On July 25, the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association announced the winners of the 2008 regional book awards. The Awards will be presented at a luncheon at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on September 19, 2008.

The 2008 Regional Book Award winners are:

• Adult Fiction: God of Animals by Aryn Kyle (Scribner)
• Adult Nonfiction: Day the World Ended at Little Bighorn by Joseph P. Marshall III (Viking)
• The Arts: Great Ranches of the West by Jim Keen (Keen Media)
• Children's: Wind Rider by Susan Williams (HarperCollins)
• Poetry: Adobe Odes by Pat Mora (University of Arizona Press)

SCIBA Announces Book Award Finalists

The Southern California Independent Booksellers Association has announced the finalists for its 2008 SCIBA Book Awards, which "celebrate the eloquent literary voices who define what it means to be a Southern Californian." The SCIBA Book Awards will be presented at the 2008 Authors Feast & Book Award Dinner Saturday, October 18.

The Fiction Finalists are:

• City of Thieves by David Benioff (Penguin)
• Imagine Me and You by Billy Mernit (Shaye Arehart Books)
• God of War by Marisa Silver (Simon & Schuster)
• Harry, Revised by Mark Sarvas (Bloomsbury)
• Winged Creatures by Roy Freirich (St. Martin's Griffin)

For the complete list of finalists, which include the categories of nonfiction, mystery, children's novel, and children's picture book, visit the SCIBA website.