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Joseph-Beth Surprises: Memphis Store to Van Uum & Settlement with Ingram
This morning's hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky will not only determine whether last week's auction results hold, despite a filing by the Cleveland Clinic to oppose Booksellers Enterprises taking over the Joseph-Beth there, but also whether Joseph-Beth Booksellers founder Neil Van Uum will keep one of his stores. In another twist, the Creditors Committee filed a motion for court approval of a settlement with the Ingram Book Group, which, under the name General Benton Smith, owned a 1% interest in Joseph-Beth.
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Borders Asks for Extension to Review More Store Leases
Borders filed three motions Friday asking the bankruptcy court to extend the deadline to assume or reject leases on 92 stores. According to the motions, Borders is asking that it be given an extension on making a decision on the stores until either the confirmation of a reorganization plan or January 12, 2012, whichever event occurs first.
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Booksellers Enterprises Takes JB & Davis-Kidd Names
When newly formed Booksellers Enterprises, LLC, an affiliate of Langley Properties Co., which manages The Mall at Lexington Green where the Lexington Joseph-Beth Booksellers is located, emerged victorious as the bidder for that store and stores in Cincinnati and the Cleveland Clinic, it bought something almost as important—the Joseph-Beth and the Davis-Kidd names. Now it is working behind the scenes to try to get the Memphis Davis-Kidd, which was awarded to liquidator Gordon Brothers.
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A Conversation With Oren Teicher
With BookExpo America a month away, Oren Teicher, American Booksellers Association CEO, was optimistic about the state of independent bookselling. A realist, Teicher said, "We don't by any stretch minimize the difficulty of operating an independent bookstore in 2011. But there are a number of opportunities that not only allow us to hang in but do well." Among them is that after a decade and a half slide, ABA's membership has stabilized. Teicher expects that by BEA, there will be 1,500 member stores doing business at 2,000 locations. Last year at this time, ABA reported 1,410 members, almost identical to the 2009 figures of 1,401.
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The New York State of Bookselling
Independent booksellers may have dreaded Borders's arrival in New York City in 1996, but it was Barnes & Noble that tried to keep its longtime rival out by leasing every available 40,000-sq.-ft. space on its home turf.
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Buffalo Street Books to Reopen Saturday—as a Co-operative
When Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, N.Y., was about to liquidate its inventory in February, it seemed destined to become one more fatality of today’s economy and e-tailers. Thanks to then events coordinator Bob Proehl, now director of operations, who came up with the idea of selling shares to raise a needed $250,000, when the bookstore reopens on Saturday in the same mall with the famed Moosewood Restaurant, former owner Gary Weissbrot will be general manager and there will be more than 600 new owners, including a nearby church, which passed the hat.
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Fire Closes Brattleboro Bookstore
A six-alarm fire Sunday night at the historic Brooks House on Main Street in Brattleboro, Vt., brought firefighters from three states and closed The Book Cellar, one of several commercial tenants on the ground floor.
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Book Sales Fell 6% at Books-A-Million
Sales of books and magazines fell 6.3% at Books-A-Million, to $385 million, for the year ended January 29, the nation’s third largest bookstore chain reported in its 10-K filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission Friday. While sales of books and magazines fell, sales in the "other" products category that includes music, DVDs, e-books and other products rose 28.6%, to $40.5 million.
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Annie's Book Stop Turns 30
Three decades ago, franchises of independent bookstores created some of the biggest chains in the country. At its height in the late 1980s, Annie's Book Stop, which was headquartered in Westborough, Mass., boasted more than 130 used-book stores in 22 states, making it the seventh largest bookstore chain.
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A Different Light Goes Out
The first week of April brought the news that one of the LGBT community's oldest and most beloved literary institutions, San Francisco's A Different Light Bookstore, was going out of business. Though it follows a trend that has seen the closing of ADL's L.A. and New York locations, the loss of the original Castro district shop, first opened in 1979 by Richard Labonté, hit the shrinking community of LGBT booksellers particularly hard.
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Borders Bonus Plan On Hold Until Next Week
At Thursday’s hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in N.Y., Borders’s motion for lease modifications was quickly approved by Judge Martin Glenn and has already been signed. However, the issue over bonuses remains unresolved.
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Assouline Opens London Boutique
After launching upscale boutiques in Costa Mesa, Calif., and Istanbul, Turkey, late last year, New York-based art book publisher Assouline is invading the U.K. with its first store, located on the ground floor of London's 136-year-old Liberty. The store's soft launch is today. “We’re thrilled to be welcoming Assouline to Liberty,” says managing director Ed Burstell. "It's a fantastic partnership, Assouline as the world leader in publishing quality book titles and retailing collectible objects, and Liberty as the great heritage emporium in London."
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Kate Levinson: Bookstore Owner and Author
After being a bookseller and co-owner of Point Reyes Books in Northern California for nine years, Kate Levinson is adding the term “author” to her resume as she embarks on a lengthy tour to promote Emotional Currency: A Woman’s Guide to Building a Healthy Relationship With Money (Ten Speed/Celestial Arts, $14.99).
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In Motion Defending Bonuses, Borders Sees $1.5 Billion Company
In a motion defending its decision to recommend as much as $8.3 million in bonuses and other payouts to top and key Borders Group executives, a partner with the compensation services firm Mercer said that when Borders emerges from bankruptcy it expects to have annual revenue of $1.5 billion. The projection was used to justify the awards package, with Mercer saying that the cost of the package as a percentage of post-bankruptcy sales for Borders is .56%, just slightly above the median of .47% of comparable companies that have gone through the bankruptcy process.
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Freese Leaves NBN
Friday was the last day for Rich Freese as president of National Book Network. "It's an amicable parting," said Jed Lyons, CEO of NBN and president and CEO of its sister company, the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group. Lyons has no plans to replace Freese. John Groton will continue to handles sales; Jeanne Kramer will run client management.
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Watching and Waiting in California
Because California is losing more Borders stores than any other state in the country, the region's booksellers are uniquely poised to find ways to turn the ramifications of the bankruptcy proceedings to their advantage. "In the long run, the indies will benefit because there will be fewer outlets selling books," says Hut Landon, executive director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association, referring to the possible exodus by former Borders customers from the bankrupt chain to NCIBA member indie stores.
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Taschen to Set Up Shop Inside Chicago Art Institute
Representatives of the Chicago Art Institute and Taschen Publishing confirmed Thursday that they are involved in negotiations to provide the publisher of illustrated art, architecture, design, and lifestyle books with a dedicated retail space within one of the Art Institute’s two museum shops. But contrary to what commissioned publishers’ rep Bruce Miller of Miller Trade, a Chicago-based rep group, wrote Thursday on his blog, they say details have not been worked out.
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All About the Books! NEIBA’s Spring Gathering
There’s only one thing on booksellers’ minds this season: e-books. Or so it seemed from much of the conversation at Wednesday’s day-long All About the Books! author event with educational programming sponsored by the New England Independent Booksellers Association at Springstep in Medford, Mass. After a morning of readings and talks by 10 New England writers, ranging from Melissa Coleman, author of the memoir This Life Is in Your Hands (Harper), to Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks, author of Caleb’s Crossing (Penguin), a hundred booksellers got down to e-business with a panel moderated by American Booksellers Association COO Len Vlahos on How to Sell E-Books.
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Trade Terms Authorized at Borders Hearing;Trustee Opposes Bonuses
There were few surprises at Thursday's omnibus hearing at U.S. District Court in New York for the Borders bankruptcy, except possibly a ballpark figure for unsecured creditors claims: in excess of $500 million, according to Creditors' Committee attorney Bruce Buechler with Lowenstein Sandler.
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