Green Apple Named ‘PW’ Bookstore of The Year; Kravtin Takes Rep of the Year Award

Green Apple Books in San Francisco is this year’s PW Bookstore of the Year. The labyrinthine 47-year-old bookstore has earned a name for itself due to its community involvement; the owners founded the San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Alliance and are on the boards of the NCIBA and the Clement Street Merchants Association. For 2014, Teresa Rolfe Kravtin of Southern Territory Associates has taken the PW Rep of the Year Award.

BookCon to Make Debut at BEA

Reed Exhibitions announced that it will launch BookCon, a consumer-oriented event, at this year’s BookExpo America, on Saturday, May 31, at New York’s Javits Center. BookCon will be produced by ReedPOP, which hopes to draw 10,000 book-buying consumers.

Fox Named Phaidon Press CEO

Phaidon Press has named Keith Fox its CEO. He was previously president of McGraw-Hill Financial’s Construction division, and has also served as president of McGraw-Hill Professional.

Diesel eBooks To Close

Just ahead of its 10th anniversary, indie e-book retailer Diesel eBooks announced that it will close at the end of March. Company owners said that Diesel may reappear in another incarnation at a later date.

Hodder Buys Quercus

U.K. publisher Hodder & Stoughton is buying Quercus, a London-based independent publisher, in a cash bid of £12.6 million. The price is some way below Quercus’s annual turnover (which was £20.4 million in 2012), but represents 144.9% of the value of the company’s shares, which were priced at £0.245 each at the close of business on Mar. 24.

Book Comps Fell 10% at Hastings

Comparable store sales of books fell 10.7% at Hastings Entertainment in the most recent fiscal year, which ended Jan. 31, 2014, compared to the previous year’s sales. Sales also fell 8.2% in the fourth quarter. The chain had a total loss of $10.2 million in 2013, compared to a loss of $9.3 million in 2012, and sales fell 5.7%, to $436 million.

XanEdu, SharedBook to Merge

In a move that will combine two privately held firms that specialize in creating custom course materials for higher education, XanEdu and SharedBook (which includes AcademicPub, its self-service course pack division) will merge. The deal is expected to be completed in the next 30 days.