Industry News

A long-simmering dispute between the Authors Guild and Amazon.com returned to the news when the organization e-mailed over 5,000 members encouraging them to remove links from the authors’ Web sites to Amazon.com. The Authors Guild acted after Amazon.com stepped up its marketing efforts for its "Amazon Marketplace" program, where consumers can sell used books, CDs, and other items. The guild has over 8,000 members, and more than 700 of them have Web sites.

So … you’ve already gone and started a café in your bookstore? And you didn’t wait for our advice? Well, no matter. In this final of three articles on bookstores and coffee, BTW talks with booksellers about strategies for improving existing bookstore cafés. [To read the previous articles in our series, click here.

Ohio Governor Bob Taft will publicly sign House Bill 8 on May 6, 2002, almost three months after the bill passed the state’s legislature. The proposed legislation amends Ohio’s sex offense law to include computer-based material that is deemed harmful to minors. There is concern among booksellers and others in the industry that the law could be construed to include material with sexual content sold on their Web sites.

Oprah scales back, while USA Today and The Today Show announce new book clubs

Booksellers planning their meal with BEA authors this year should purchase their tickets to special events now. And, please note, the pre-registration deadline for discounted attendee badges has been extended until April 15.

The Women's National Book Association (WNBA) has announced the winners of this year's Lucile Micheels Pannell Award. This year's Award for a general bookstore goes to Anderson's Bookshops from Naperville, Illinois. The winner in the children's specialty category is Eight Cousins Children's Books from Falmouth, Massachusetts.

Snow Goose Bookstore, "The Goose," of Stanwood, Washington, moved to a larger space on Saturday, March 30 -- and, with help from the community, they were open and ready for business by Monday morning, April 1.

On Monday, April 8, winners of the Pulitzer Prize in literature were announced, recognizing work in fiction, drama, history, biography, poetry, and general nonfiction. The news sent booksellers and publishers to the computers and the phones -- as stores scrambled to fill orders and publishers pulled out the stops to shorten the production cycle of reprints and get additional copies of the winning titles into the inventory pipeline.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on April 8 that Denver's Tattered Cover Book Store does not have to turn over customer records that had been sought by local law enforcement officials, who had argued that the information would assist in a case involving the manufacture of methamphetamines.

Phoebe Storrs Stebbins, owner of the Dartmouth Bookstore in Hanover, New Hampshire, died on Wednesday, March 27, at the age of 83. Stebbins had been ill with brain cancer since last July. "She was an inspiration to everybody," said David Cioffi, Dartmouth Bookstore's store manager, and Stebbins's son-in-law.

On October 4, 2002, the New England Booksellers Association (NEBA) will launch the first-annual Read Around New England/New York (for New York stores) [RANE/NY], a unique, 10-day celebration designed to showcase New England’s rich literary talent and diverse array of independent bookstores. "[RANE/NY] is very ambitious," said Rusty Drugan, executive director of NEBA. "It’s a whole region, not any one town.

Rugged Land Publisher Shawn Coyne wants people to pay attention to books the way they pay attention to music videos. That’s why Rugged Land, a book publishing and film company, created a 40-second commercial trailer for one of its debut novels, Henry’s List of Wrongs, by John Scott Shepherd. The promo is due for release on the Rugged Land Web site on April 16 to coincide with the book’s publication date.

Bookselling This Week is pleased to report that, after our Citywide Book Club list went online March 13, we received many e-mails from both libraries and booksellers detailing their own particular community book-reading efforts. Additionally, the Library of Congress (LOC), www.loc.gov/cfbook/, now has a listing of Citywide Book Clubs, and some community efforts were added or updated using information from LOC’s Web site. The result has seen the list expand from 45 different community-reading initiatives to 65.

Caren Lobo, owner with her husband, Richard, of Sarasota News & Books in Sarasota, Florida, supplied BTW with some possible headlines for the story of the store's massive flood on Wednesday, March 27, "How about 'Sarasota News & Books Gives New Meaning to Waterfront Property,' or 'Sarasota Book Store: Newest Snorkeling Destination'?"

Business was brisk at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) Spring 2002 Trade Show Northwest, held at the Coeur d’Alene Resort, March 23 to March 25, in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The emphasis was on placing orders, according to a number of attending booksellers. Benefiting most from show orders were smaller publishers, said Thom Chambliss, PNBA’s executive director.