Book Sense

Due to the July 4th holiday, there will be no new Book Sense national and regional bestseller lists produced during the week of July 2. This week's Bestseller List is dated June 29 and July 6, 2006.

This weekend, booksellers who report their sales through Nielsen BookScan should report as usual; however, those using the ABA Upload or Web Data Form methods need not report.

Regular Book Sense Bestseller List reporting will resume as usual on Saturday, July 8.

Rachel Cohn and David Levithan aren't the sort of authors who need complete silence in order to be creative: they prefer to rock out to the music on their iPods as they write. According to Levithan, "It'd be hard to find either of us without our iPod earphones in. It's a totally constant soundtrack."

Beginning this week, booksellers who use WebPOS to process Book Sense Gift Cards will be able to redeem (accept as a form of payment) multiple gift cards at the same time. The new functionality works in a fashion similar to the way booksellers can activate (sell) multiple gift cards at one time.

For the owners of the 30-year-old Prairie Books & Gifts in Hastings, Nebraska, one can go home again. In 1983, owners Bernie and Jane Tushaus, moved their then seven-year-old store from downtown Hastings to the local mall. The general bookstore was located at the mall for 16 years until the Tushauses finally decided that enough was enough.

For the eight-week period ending June 18, 2006, and based on sales in hundreds of independent bookstores with Book Sense nationwide.

Past Category Bestseller lists are available at www.bookweb.org/read/5677.

Attention Media: Contact Meg Smith at [email protected] for reprint guidelines for your newspaper or magazine.

Before Abigail Friedman moved to Japan she had, like many Americans, "lots of well-founded ignorant views" of haiku.

The Book Sense family of Publisher Partners has two new additions: the University of Georgia Press in Athens, Georgia, and Behler Publications in Lake Forest, California.

There are three upcoming deadlines in July for the Book Sense Picks lists:

The six-year-old I Love A Mystery specialty bookstore in Mission, Kansas, tripled its square footage when owner Karen Spengler purchased a building on a main street and relocated the store earlier this year. The store's move to the new, 2,700-square-foot location on a more traveled street, which was executed without a hitch, has been a positive step for all -- customers, staff, and other local businesses.

The deadline for the August Book Sense Picks is tomorrow, Friday, June 9 ... but there is still time to send in your nominations to [email protected]. Nominations can also be entered through a convenient online nomination form.

BookSense.com recently announced several new features that improve and enhance the entire family of BookSense.com websites, as well as a schedule for maintenance that will result in some minor down time.

Scheduled Down Time

On the first Wednesday of each month, the American Booksellers Association sends an electronic Book Sense Marketing Newsletter to all stores participating in the Book Sense program. The third edition was sent on Wednesday, June 7.

Each issue features information about the different components of the Book Sense program, the Picks and Bestseller lists, practical tips for everyone, and a bookstore display photo.