Industry News

The following column by Amy Stewart, author of The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms, forthcoming from Algonquin Books (January 2004), originally appeared in the May 8 edition of Humboldt County, California's North Coast Journal.

Bookstores with Book Sense should be on the lookout for June's white box, which is bursting with goodies from Book Sense Publishing Partners. Included in this month's mailing will be easelbacks, posters, fliers, special offers, postcards, buying guides, shelf talkers, brochures, excerpt booklets, coasters, catalogs, housewarming invitations, and more.

This fall, Southeasterners will be able to tune into author readings hosted at independent bookstores all over the region. Starting October 1, the Southeast Booksellers Association (SEBA) will be the presenting sponsor of The Spoken Word, a series broadcast by Atlanta's public radio station, WABE. The Spoken Word features author readings and talks and performances about literature and the arts that are recorded around the Southeast.

Here's a roundup of recent news related to the upcoming release of Scholastic's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Now that the June 21 release date of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is just days away, booksellers are making their last preparations for the industry's equivalent of grabbing a chamber full of golden snitches. Here's our final report on booksellers' plans to celebrate J.K. Rowling's latest, including story-writing contests, owl adoptions, goblets of butterbeer, and a midnight bazaar.

On Saturday, May 31, at BookExpo America in Los Angeles, the session "Economic Impact of Locally Owned Businesses" attracted a large crowd of independent booksellers who came to hear about a recent study that documented how local retailers contribute more to the local economy than do national retailers. The panel featured Steve Bercu, CEO of BookPeople in Austin, Texas, and Dan Houston of Civic Economics, who discussed the report "Economic Impact Analysis -- A Case Study: Local Merchants vs.

Writing is a solitary endeavor, it's said. But for those writing children's books, there are all sorts of collaborators -- before, during, and after a work is done -- to help a writer produce a book.

The Dayton Board of Education's purchase of an office building in downtown Dayton will cause the permanent closing of Wilkie's Bookstore and Café, Ohio's oldest independent bookstore. Wilkie's occupies 3,800 square feet in the corner of the building owned by Reynold & Reynolds. According to press accounts in the Dayton Daily News, school officials want to use that space as a public meeting room when they consolidate the Board's offices there in a $15.5 million transaction.

Booksellers looking to print out a copy of Bookselling This Week will find a new sub-heading called "Marketplace," which features both classified ads and the advertising found in BTW's weekly e-mail. When you choose to print the whole issue, Marketplace will automatically be printed with the issue; if you choose to create your own issue of BTW, you have the option of including Marketplace -- simply click the box that says, "Include BTW Marketplace?"

Below is an outline of the most recent changes to the data in the ABA Book Buyer's Handbook online.

Publishers can update their online listings and add special offers at any time using the Publisher Editing Tools at http://handbook.bookweb.org/pubhome.jsp. Questions about access to the editing features of the Handbook online should be e-mailed to [email protected] or call (800) 637-0037, ext. 1263 or 1261.

Once again, ABA's Town Hall and Annual Membership meetings provided ABA members an opportunity to offer comments and share feedback as well as get an update on the association's activities during the past year.

ABA Town Hall Meeting

BookExpo America recently released attendance figures from this year's BEA, held May 28 - June 1 in Los Angeles. And, despite concerns that this year's show attendance might suffer due to the war in Iraq and the nation's ongoing economic woes, attendance figures were strong.

The total figure for all industry professionals attending BEA 2003 in Los Angeles was 27,143. The total number of book buyers attending BEA in '03 was 6,684.

Ingram Distribution Joins Group of Over 30 Book-Related Organizations Supporting H.R. 1157

Media and publishing giant AOL Time Warner (AOLTW) has decided to drop the sale of its book publishing division after the company failed to find an attractive bid, as reported by Reuters. "Frankly, we didn't receive an offer that reflected the true value of the asset," AOLTW spokeswoman Tricia Primrose told Reuters. The news was announced to company employees on Thursday, June 5.