Industry News

Random House CEO Peter W. Olson's annual end-of-the-year letter to the company's employees has caused some consternation among booksellers and drawn the attention of the media. For the most part, Olson's letter was a review of the company's key accomplishments in 2004, but one of Random House's potential initiatives, Olson said, was "direct sales online." The brief mention of the publisher selling direct via the Web spurred news articles in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, among others.

The Bookseller in Ardmore, Oklahoma.

After 32 years in the same location with the same owner, Ardmore, Oklahoma's The Bookseller is changing hands. Owner E.

Recently, both Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster announced that they would be testing a new mass market format in hopes that it will give paperbacks a needed sales boost.

The sixth title in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series -- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince -- has been scheduled for release on Saturday, July 16, 2005, in the U.S., Britain, Canada, and Australia. The announcement was made on Tuesday, December 21, by Rowling's publishers, Scholastic and Bloomsbury.

The American Booksellers Association will kick off its 2005 Winter/Spring Booksellers Forum season and 2005 Education Program on Saturday, January 8, in Salt Lake City. The program, held in conjunction with the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association (MPBA), will take place from 9:00 a.m. - 3:15 p.m. at The King's English Bookstore's Fresco Restaurant. All MPBA and ABA member booksellers are invited to attend.

Friday, December 17, is the deadline to nominate candidates for the American Booksellers Association's Board of Directors. Any ABA member may submit nominations to the Nominating Committee, chaired by Suzanne Staubach of UConn Co-op in Storrs, Connecticut. All nominations will be held in the strictest confidence.

Google to Create Online Library

On December 9, Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary reported that "for the first time since they began circulating in the 1990s, those little plastic gift cards will replace apparel as the top gift," according to the 19th Annual Consumer Survey of Holiday Retail Spending Plans and Trends, commissioned by Deloitte & Touche.

University Book Store, founded in 1900, opened its 10th location in Washington state on December 3. CEO Bryan Pearce told BTW that the store's management had been looking for a location in South Snohomish County for nearly a decade.

Like local merchants in many towns across the country, independent businesses in Raleigh, North Carolina, are facing an intimidating and rather daunting retail landscape -- one that is peppered with chain stores for seemingly every imaginable niche. "Raleigh is inundated with chains," said Nancy Olson of Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh. "There's not one business not being threatened by a chain."

In early November, Books & Books of Coral Gables and Miami Beach, Florida, opened a 1,000-square-foot store inside the Delray Beach headquarters and showroom of Levenger, Inc., a catalog and Internet seller of high-quality tools for reading and writing.

As a partner in Civic Economics, Dan Houston is emerging as a leading proponent of progressive economic development. The firm, which he founded with Matt Cunningham, provides "businesses, communities, and civic organizations with creative tools to achieve sustainable prosperity."

October bookstore sales continued the downward slide that began in the spring. Sales have now been lower than last year's for seven straight months. October 2004 bookstore sales of $1,056 million were 4.8 percent below the $1,109 million recorded in October 2003.

Overall retail sales continue to outperform bookstore sales. Overall retail sales of $338 billion for October 2004 were 6.3 percent better than the $318 billion reported in October 2003.

The encouraging number of new independent bookstores increased by three this past week with the openings of stores by two veteran booksellers and one newcomer to the industry.

Arundel Books at Seattle's Alexis Hotel.

Arundel Books, which includes a store in Los Angeles and one in Seattle, just moved the Seattle locatio