BTW News Briefs

Co-optimize and Co-op Advertising Solutions Announce Merger

On January 21, Co-optimize, LLC and Co-op Advertising Solutions, LLC announced that they were joining forces and merging business operations. The combined company, Co-op Solutions, LLC, will offer co-op services featuring two divisions, Co-optimize Full Service and Co-optimize Online.

Co-op Solutions principals Tracy Adams and Amy Sandberg have more than three decades of publishing and bookselling experience. Adams, a former bookseller and sales representative for Penguin and Harcourt, began Co-op Advertising Solutions in 2001. Sandberg's experience includes nearly four years as events coordinator at Warwick's in La Jolla, California. The Co-optimize Full Service Division will be based in Minneapolis, the Co-optimize Online Division in San Diego, with some crossover of staff and services between the two divisions.

GLIBA Offers Grants for Buy Local Programs

The Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association has created a new Buy Local grants program designed to encourage GLIBA members to be involved in Buy Local initiatives in their local communities. Grant requests may be made at any time during the year, and applications will be evaluated three times a year, on January 31, May 31, and October 31, with awards being announced shortly afterwards.

The grants are open to GLIBA member bookstores. The purpose must be in connection with an existing Buy Local organization or to create a new one, and the grant cannot be just for the benefit of a single bookstore. The maximum amount is $500. The deadline for grant applications for first round is January 31, 2009, and should be submitted to GLIBA.

Real Estate Company Wants Indie Bookstore Tenant

A Santa Monica real estate company that bought the Marin County Larkspur Landing shopping center plans to create an open-air market to feature indie stores, including an independent bookstore, said the San Francisco Chronicle.

High on the list of preferred tenants are a bookstore and toy shop, as well as restaurants and food vendors, reported the Chronicle.

"We want to create wonderful public space, outdoors, unanchored, with independent boutique shops rather than a collection of the usual suspects, which is what I call the chain stores," said James Rosenfield, president of J.S. Rosenfield & Co., which acquired the property. The J.S. Rosenfield company owns several of Southern California retail properties, including the Brentwood Country Mart in Los Angeles, the location of DIESEL Brentwood.

Nominees Announced for the Edgars

Mystery Writers of America has announced the nominees for the 2009 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction, television, and film published or produced in 2008. The awards will be presented to the winners at a banquet on April 30, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City.

Best Novel nominees are:

• Missing by Karin Alvtegen (Felony & Mayhem Press)
• Blue Heaven by C.J. Box (St. Martin's Minotaur)
• Sins of the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno (Simon & Schuster/Scribner)
• The Price of Blood by Declan Hughes (HarperCollins/William Morrow)
• The Night Following by Morag Joss (Random House/Delacorte Press)
• Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster)

The Story Prize Announces Finalists

The Story Prize, an annual award for books of short fiction, has announced the three finalists for outstanding short story collections of 2008:

• Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri (Knopf)
• Demons in the Spring by Joe Meno (Akashic)
• Our Story Begins by Tobias Wolff (Knopf)

The three finalists were selected from among 73 story collections from 56 different publishers or imprints. The Story Prize's annual event will take place at the New School's Tishman Auditorium in New York City at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 4.

BookStream Closing

On Monday, January 19, President and CEO Jack Herr and Executive Vice President and CFO Rich Stone announced that the wholesaler BookStream would close on Friday, January 23. In a letter to the book community, the pair explained, "Over the course of the last year, we have not been able to raise the capital necessary to fund BookStream's inventory in a way that compensates for never having established, after three years of being in business, trade credit commensurate with the inventory needs of a wholesaler."

The letter commended BookStream staff, and announced that the company would take its last orders January 20, and will accept customer returns and process claims for damaged books until Friday, January 23.