Industry News

Book Sense and The History Channel have once again partnered to create an exciting promotion full of materials and ideas to help booksellers create displays in conjunction with a special History Channel presentation. The documentary Lincoln, premiering on The History Channel on Monday, January 16, explores a little-known side of the 16th president, who suffered suicidal urges and called himself "the loneliest man in the world."

Susan Porter's bookstore, Maine Coast Book Shop, is nestled among a wide variety of small shops on the historic Main Street of Damariscotta, Maine. The town -- with a population of approximately 2,000 -- is located some 30 miles south of Augusta on the banks of the river that gave the town its name. Damariscotta's idyllic colonial charm attracts people who want to live in a place that's different, away from suburban sprawl. It's unique, with one-of-a-kind charm, noted Porter.

Story Prize Finalists Announced

On December 6, the Story Prize, an annual award for books of short fiction, announced the finalists for this year's prize: Jim Harrison (The Summer He Didn't Die, Atlantic Monthly Press); Maureen F. McHugh (Mothers & Other Monsters, Small Beer Press); and Patrick O'Keeffe (The Hill Road, Viking).

By Carolyn Said, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer

Last year, Neal Sofman had a eureka moment in response to a wonky economic analysis of locally owned stores compared with chain retailers.

A fraudulent order scheme, which first came to the attention of the American Booksellers Association in October through a discussion on BookWeb's Idea Exchange, continues to plague booksellers from coast-to-coast, with reports coming in from booksellers spanning from the Southeast to the Pacific Northwest. The scam involves a person posing as a teacher of sewing classes who asks the bookstore to order several sewing titles for a class to be held in the area.

While media reports about overall retail sales for the Thanksgiving weekend were mixed, with the New York Times reporting that "consumers mobbed discount chains ... but largely shopped right past other specialty retailers at the mall" and the National Retail Federation calling it a brisk start to the holiday shopping season, a sampling of independent booksellers from across the country found most meeting or slightly exceeding sales of a year ago.

With the U.S. House of Representatives adjourned until Tuesday, December 6, and the Senate not reconvening until Monday, December 12, a vote on the USA Patriot Act conference committee draft is expected to come sometime in mid-December. To ensure Congress accepts a Patriot Act bill that protects readers' right to privacy, the sponsors of the Campaign for Reader Privacy (CRP) are asking supporters to be ready for a final big push in the coming weeks. The 16 sunsetting provisions of the Patriot Act, including Section 215, are set to expire on December 31, 2005.

Debi Echlin, owner of A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland, California, died in her sleep on Thanksgiving Day. She was 52 years old. Echlin was a member of the Board of Directors of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA).

Small Press Fair This Weekend

The 18th Independent and Small Press Book Fair will take place on Saturday, December 3, from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and on Sunday, December 4, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Small Press Center in Manhattan. The fair will host programs on myriad topics including graphic novels, crime fiction, and literary blogging. "How to Find a Literary Agent and Publisher" and "Getting Your Book Published" are some of the workshops available. Approximately 4,000 visitors are expected to attend the fair.

Here's a look at new ABA-member bookstores opening in November, plus several stores that opened over the spring and summer, which were not previously reported in Bookselling This Week. Also listed are several member stores that have recently changed ownership.

Booksellers Nancy Quinn of the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops in Milwaukee and Mary Gay Shipley of That Bookstore in Blytheville (Arkansas) were among the 34 winners of the first annual James Patterson PageTurner Awards.

In celebration of the movie Curious George, opening in theaters nationwide on February 10, 2006, Houghton Mifflin and Book Sense have produced exclusive materials -- including a two-foot high yellow hat (for The Man with the Yellow Hat, of course) and a Curious George-wrapped disposable camera -- to help booksellers create, and capture, displays and special events. The materials are being sent in a special Yellow Box mailing to arrive in stores by December 9.

The American Booksellers Association recently launched the Booksellers Resource Directory (BRD), a listing of vendors of nonbook products and services, open to ABA bookstore, provisional, and publisher members.