Book Sense

When independent publishing house Newmarket Press and Book Sense partnered to create Book Sense Best Books: 125 Favorite Books Recommended By Independent Booksellers, it was intended to provide booksellers, librarians, and customers with a resource for "'New Classics,' destined to have a long

From About Grace to Waiting for Teddy Williams, 2004 was an auspicious year for great writing. Beginning in January and February, booksellers were selecting such titles as Something Rising (Light and Swift) and Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, and continuing into the fall -- a season that saw an abundance of wonderful titles, such as The Love Wife, The Green Age of Asher Witherow, and Outside Valentine -- independents nationwide were highlighting outstanding titles as Book Sense Picks.

BookSense.com sites will experience significant downtime this weekend as a new production database and server are brought online. When completed, the upgrade will result in increased speed and stability for participants' Web sites. Most of the downtime is expected to occur during the first half of Sunday.

As early holiday shoppers begin hitting the stores, Book Sense reminds booksellers that there is still time to order gift cards for early December in-store arrival. (It takes three weeks for card delivery once all paperwork and a logo, which meets the spec requirements, are received.)

The November 8 issue of The New Yorker, on newsstands last week, featured the latest installment of "Just Kidding," highlighting independent booksellers' title recommendations for children and young adults, from the Book Sense Picks lists. The special insert also includes a full-page ad featuring the top ten titles on the Autumn 2004 Book Sense Kids' Picks. The ad and insert copy direct readers to independent bookstores and www.booksense.com for more book suggestions.

Booksellers are saluting The Polar Express, which chugged into movie theaters on November 10. The eagerly anticipated release of Warner Brothers' animated adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg's The Polar Express (Houghton Mifflin) has generated many promotional activities, as well as altruistic possibilities for booksellers around the country.

Here is a preview of the December "Book Sense Picks." Independent booksellers in the Book Sense program will receive their Picks fliers in the November Red Box.

This week, Book Sense announced that booksellers can now process Book Sense Gift Cards through an enhanced and optional feature of IBID, Version 14. This new way to process gift cards is being offered to complement the other methods already available from Givex. (For more on the different ways to process Book Sense gift cards, click here.)

Over the weekend of November 13, BookSense.com will bring its new production database and servers online. While the result of the upgrade will mean increased speed and stability for BookSense.com participants' Web sites, BookSense.com members should be prepared for significant downtime on Saturday, November 13, and Sunday, November 14.

Over the past year, the number of bookstores participating in the Book Sense Gift Card Program has more than doubled and that number continues to grow as booksellers heed reports from their fellow booksellers and from the media about significant increases in sales when stores begin selling gift cards. Now, Book Sense is making available to booksellers a downloadable PDF listing all the bookstores participating in the gift card program.

Lillian Trujillo opened Sages Pages in Madison, New Jersey, in September with the goal of "connect[ing] people with sources of information and other people's thoughts."

Book Sense has announced the deadlines for the 2005 Book Sense Picks lists. The entire list is available here.

Due to overall increased consumer demand for electronic gift cards and the continued growing popularity of Book Sense Gift Cards in particular, the American Booksellers Association is announcing the discontinuation of the Book Sense Paper Gift Certificate Program.

To ensure a smooth ending for the program, please note the following:

The success of a bookstore's Web site is directly dependent on the bookseller's efforts to market it, stressed Len Vlahos, BookSense.com director. "In some ways, a storefront retailer's Web site functions as an extension of the store, and, in other ways, as an additional location," Vlahos said.