BTW Articles

Last week, Visa USA Inc. and MasterCard International Inc. agreed to settle a federal antitrust lawsuit brought by U.S. merchants that argued that the banks were unfairly charging high transaction fees for their Visa Check and Master Money debit cards when consumers signed for transactions. The settlements will ultimately mean lower transaction fees for retailers, according to J. Craig Shearman, senior director of media relations for the National Federation of Retailers (NRF), one of the plaintiffs in the federal antitrust lawsuit.

While the story of last year's adult trade sales does not have a particularly happy ending for the nation's bookstores, the news was not uniformly bad for independents, according to Ipsos BookTrends. In the April/May issue of the Ipsos Ideas' newsletter, Ipsos' Barrie Rappaport wrote that "the U.S. Book market is flat. Annual growth for general trade print books has been barely keeping pace with population growth rates." While growth was somewhat better between 1992 - 1996, she noted that "[it] has trailed off over the past five years."

BookExpo America has announced that the 2006 trade show will be held May 19 - 21 in Washington, D.C., the weekend before Memorial Day and after Mother's Day.