BTW Articles

And the Winners Are….

At this year's Celebration of Bookselling at BookExpo America, Leif Enger's Peace Like a River (Atlantic Monthly) won the Book Sense Book of the Year award as best adult fiction title.

The winner for adult nonfiction was Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House), and the winner of the rediscovery award -- presented for the first time this year -- was given to My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett, illustrated by Ruth Chrisman Gannett (Random House).

In the competitive world of publishing, independent presses, as always, face a number of challenges. At this year’s BookExpo America, held May 1-5 at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City, many indies acknowledged this reality, yet were quick to point out the benefits of being independent. Sporting a cheery yellow shirt and tie, and a smile to match, Ten Speed Press CEO Philip Wood noted, "It’s a difficult time, but also a good time, to start and have an independent press. The new technology has democratized the business….

After 24 months of uninterrupted growth, bookstore sales dropped below their performance of a year ago. Preliminary February sales figures of $1,066 million lagged 8.3 percent behind the $1,163 million of February 2001. This decrease is in stark contrast to the nearly 29 percent increase in sales shown in January of this year.

For the same period, overall retail managed a modest increase. Overall sales of $263 billion for February were 3.5 percent over the $254 billion for the previous February.

Shelley Jackson's debut story collection, The Melancholy of Anatomy (an Anchor Books trade paper original), boldly turns the human body inside out, as the visceral becomes visible and takes on a life of its own through her fantastical tales.