BTW News Briefs

Amazon to Buy Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books

BusinessWire reported this week that Amazon.com has signed a deal to acquire more than 450 titles of Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books (MCCB), a move that “creates the foundation for Amazon Publishing to further expand into picture books, chapter books, and Young Adult novels.” Amazon Publishing currently includes six imprints: AmazonEncore, AmazonCrossing, Powered by Amazon, Montlake Romance, Thomas & Mercer, 47North, and the New York-based division which MCCB will join.

Study Confirms Bookstore “Showroom” Phenomenon

A New York Times report this week confirms what booksellers have known for a while now: Customers are using their stores as showrooms – they browse and then go online to make their purchases. In a survey conducted in the fall by Codex Group, a book market research and consulting company, 24 percent of people said they had bought books from an online retailer in the last month but had seen the book in a brick-and-mortar bookstore first.

Peter Hildick-Smith, president of the Codex Group, told the Times: “It is a real concern.” Combined with the increasing number of e-readers in circulation, this is “going to put even more pressure on bookstore sales in the new year, unless publishers can do more to support the book retailer just as movie studios have historically done to support the movie theater.”

In a second article on the book industry this week, the Times looked at one of the steps publishers are taking to help foster print book sales: giving print books a makeover. “Many new releases have design elements usually reserved for special occasions — deckle edges, colored endpapers, high-quality paper and exquisite jackets that push the creative boundaries of bookmaking,” said the Times, using an example Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84, which came wrapped in a translucent jacket, and Stephen King’s 11/22/63, which features an intricate book jacket and photos.

“For publishers,” the Times said, “the strategy has a clear payoff: to increase the value of print books and build a healthy, diverse marketplace that includes brick-and-mortar bookstores and is not dominated by Amazon and e-books.”

BISG Issues Best Practices for Identifying Digital Products

The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) has published a new policy statement detailing best practices for assigning ISBNs to digital products. BISG Policy Statement POL-1101 addresses the critical need to reduce product identification confusion in the market place in order to provide the best possible consumer-level purchasing experience.

BISG is encouraging all member companies and other industry stakeholders to download the Policy Statement and work toward adopting the suggested guidelines as soon as practical, with a target for new product introductions of no later than March 2012. The best practices are applicable to content intended for distribution to the general public in North America, but could be applied elsewhere as well.

Justice Department Confirms Investigation of E-Book Pricing

The U.S. Justice Department confirmed this week that it is investigating the pricing of electronic books to determine if there was collusion between Apple and publishers using the agency model for e-book sales. State attorneys general in Texas and Connecticut are also investigating the matter.

The Wall Street Journal reported that at a congressional hearing this week the Justice Department’s Sharis Pozen confirmed the investigation.

On Tuesday, the European Union’s antitrust watchdog said it was investigating Apple and five major publishers: Hachette Livre, HarperCollins Publishers, Simon & Schuster, Penguin, and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holzbrinck.

Wi7 Keynote Speaker Douglas Brinkley Featured at Washington University Celebration of Books

Historian Douglas Brinkley, a keynote speaker on Wednesday afternoon at the upcoming Winter Institute, was featured at a recent celebration of books by Washington University faculty members in St. Louis, Missouri. Brinkley told the crowd: “[S]avings is a steep price to pay in exchange for threatening small, independent book sellers with extinction — particularly when such stores often help local authors by showcasing their works. If you can afford it, keep spending money at independent bookstores,” as reported by the St. Louis Beacon.

Brinkley also said that quality publishing is being threatened in the electronic age. Because of the ubiquitous nature of information to be found on the Internet, publishers have had to slash their staffs, leading to what Brinkley called “slapdash publishing,” both in terms of subject matter and in terms of the quality of their finished product, according to the Beacon.

Canadian Booksellers Association Announces Board Changes

Quill & Quire reported this week on the appointment to the vice presidency of the Canadian Booksellers Association of board member Christopher Smith from Collected Works Bookstore and Coffeebar in Ottawa. Smith replaces Lee Trentadue of Galiano Island Books in British Columbia, who, in her resignation in November, cited dissatisfaction with the way the board had been operating.

Trentadue was in line to succeed Mark Lefebvre of Titles Bookstore in Hamilton, Ontario, who remains CBA president until May 2012.

Ellen Pickle of Tidewater Books in Sackville, New Brunswick, succeeds Smith as CBA treasurer.

Jon Stewart Show Takes on California Sales Tax Fairness

On Monday, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart featured Amazon.com's now-suspended ballot initiative to overturn a tax law designed to reduce California’ s $26 billion deficit. In “California’s Direct Democracy Troubles,” John Oliver interviews state Democratic Chairman John Burton regarding Amazon’s failure to collect sales tax on purchases by California residents and its impact on local schools and state services.

Authors Stand Up for Free Speech in Penguin Video

In a new YouTube video, produced by Penguin Young Readers Group, authors Laurie Halse Anderson, M.T. Anderson, Chris Crutcher, Lev Grossman, Lauren Myracle, Kathy Reichs, and others shares their views on censorship and why attempts at book-banning and curbing free speech should matter to all of us.