Book Sense

Starting November 1, BookSense.com Co-op Reimbursement Program participants will be able to take advantage of a special offer from Algonquin Books. The publisher has created a promotion around Marlena de Blasi's A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure.

Current research indicates that electronic gift cards are replacing cash and gift certificates in retail businesses everywhere, and consumers who use gift cards spend more, on average. And now bookstores participating in the Book Sense Gift Card Program offer their own testimonials as to gift cards' advantages -- including increased sales and a high level of customer satisfaction everywhere gift cards are used.

Easy to Use ... in the Store and on the Web

Elizabeth Barden, marketing consultant and New York City native, relocated to Indianapolis about three years ago and recently opened the city's only general interest, independent bookstore.

Based on reporting from hundreds of independent bookstores across the country for the eight week period ended October 17, 2004.

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

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

After the November 2 elections, the most important colors will shift from red and blue to red and green, and another holiday season will begin. Uncertainty about the economic forecast is the only sure thing once again this year -- no one can accurately predict whether or not shoppers will be spending freely or cautiously. However, this year's market research does show a steady increase in the use of electronic gift cards.

The death of actor Christopher Reeve on October 10 adds extra poignancy to the Book Sense and A&E Network partnership that seeks to raise funds for the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation (CRPF). Booksellers were sent a special donation box created by A&E exclusively for Book Sense stores to collect money for CRPF in September's White Box.

A statement on the CRPF Web site, www.ChristopherReeve.org, notes that Reeve's family has requested that donations be made in his honor to the Foundation.

The October Book Sense Red Box is full of useful information, marketing aids, and value-added items for your customers:

Your initial quantity of November Book Sense Picks fliers, along with a pad of the Top Ten Political Title Picks, co-sponsored by the History Channel. If you receive more than 200 Picks fliers each month, the balance will be shipped separately. If you need to adjust the number of fliers or specialty pads you are receiving, please contact Linda Ford at [email protected].

This past June, when Patricia Worth, and her husband, Gary, who works as a graphic designer, opened River Reader Books in Lexington, Missouri, Patricia left a 16-year career as a contractor to become a full-time bookseller, and, since the new bookstore has a cafe, a barista, too. "No sense in learning one new trade when you can learn three or four," she joked.

Based on reporting from hundreds of independent bookstores with Book Sense across the U.S. during the 2004 baseball season (April 2 through October 12).

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

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

Given the bucolic setting, poetic prose, and transcendental themes of The Green Age of Asher Witherow (Unbridled) -- a book that takes place in the late-19th-century coal-mining region of Northern California -- it comes as no surprise to learn that M.

Nationally televised debates; overnight polls; dueling talking heads; partisan Web logs -- the Election Season is in full bloom, and consumers' interest in titles concerned with current politics is rapt. With that in mind, Book Sense and The History Channel present the Autumn 2004 Book Sense Top Ten Political Picks, which focuses on all things presidential and the contemporary political scene.

This Friday, October 8, is the deadline for the December Book Sense Picks list. Dan Cullen, Book Sense Picks editor-in-chief, strongly encourages booksellers to submit nominations for titles that they think they will be enthusiastically handselling during December -- especially titles that will be published from late October to very early December.