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E-books and More at Winter Institute 6
Despite pressure coming from a number of different areas on bricks-and-mortar bookstores, the American Booksellers Association's sixth annual Winter Institute, which took place January 18–21 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va., was surprisingly upbeat.
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Borders Delays January Payments
Borders announced Sunday evening that it was delaying January payments to vendors and landlords in a move to conserve cash. The action will almost certainly end any hope Borders has of winning approval from publishers of its proposal to exchange missed December payments for notes.
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Borders Gets Tentative Financing Commitment, But Has Lots of Hurdles
Borders announced Thursday evening that GE Capital has agreed to provide the company with $550 million in new financing, but the deal is subject to a number of conditions, including receiving $125 million in financing from publishers and other vendors.
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Records Fall at Amazon as Kindles, E-books Rise
Amazon released more mind-numbing results for 2010, announcing a number of records and new milestones along with difficult-to-understand statistics. The top line was stellar with total sales for the year up 40%, to $34.2 billion, while net income rose 28%, to $1.15 billion.
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Publishers Remain Cool to Borders Deal
Unless publishers undergo a change of heart, it appears likely that many will reject Borders’ proposal to exchange missed payments for notes. According to several sources, Borders wanted another meeting with publishers this week, but was turned down.
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Winter Institute: Ideas That Work
At a presentation called Ideas That Work at last week's sixth annual Winter Institute for booksellers, which took place from Jan. 18-21 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va., former Association of Booksellers for Children executive director Kristen McLean, founder and CEO of tech venture Bookigee.com, and Cynthia Compton, owner of 4 Kids Books and Toys in Indianapolis, offered lots of suggestions for getting creative when it comes to displays and events.
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Winter Institute: Leveraging Relationships
At last week’s ABA Winter Institute in Arlington, Va., maximizing relationships was a key theme, whether it was Chuck Robinson, co-owner of Village Books in Bellingham, Wa., speaking about a kiosk a local Apple dealer is building in his store to sell iPads—for which Village Books would provide e-reading—or Cynthia Compton, owner of 4 Kids Books in Indianapolis, describing how she partners with a local nonprofit on every store event. "What we’re doing on the frontline is extremely valuable. You should be able to leverage it," said Mitchell Kaplan, owner of several Books & Books stores in Southern Florida and the Cayman Islands.
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Indie Presses Brace for Less Shelf Space
With publishers large and small fixated on what will happen to Borders, the news last week that Barnes & Noble had reorganized its buying group and in the process laid off a number of veteran booksellers, including v-p of merchandising Bob Wietrak and Marcella Smith, director of small press and vendor relations, came as a surprise.
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Amazon Ups Its Edge
Apple caused a stir last week when it announced that it sold 7.3 million iPads in the quarter ended December 25, bringing the number of devices it has sold since it released the iPad last April to nearly 15 million.
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Target Keeps Book Buyers in Its Sights
While all the big box stores carry books and all offer discounted bestsellers, Target competes most directly for those consumers who might otherwise make their purchases at bookstores.
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Winter Institute: Children’s Books in a Digital Age
Children's books are a secure category in the marketplace and bookstores will continue to play a key role as a driver of sales were among the chief findings of a joint study undertaken by Bowker/PubTrack and the Association of Booksellers for Children, which was unveiled yesterday at Winter Institute. Sponsored by Random House, Little, Brown, Macmillan, Penguin, and Scholastic, the survey examined consumer attitudes toward purchasing children’s books in three categories: adults buying for children ages 0-6, adults buying for children ages 7-12, and teen consumers ages 13-17.
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Borders Offer Worth Considering, Pubs Told
After a meeting between publishers and their financial advisor earlier this week, publishers were told that the Borders offer was at least worth considering.
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ABA Winter Institute Kicks Off
If there was one thread woven through yesterday’s Legislative Day at the American Bookseller Association's Winter Institute, it was "the resurgent vitality in independent bookselling," which ABA president Michael Tucker, co-owner and CEO of San Francisco’s Books Inc., referred to at the opening session.
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Barnes & Noble Reorganizes Buying, Merch Operations
Barnes & Noble has confirmed what it is calling "a small number of organizational changes" that the retailer said were "designed to better align our resources with our business."
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Study Finds E-book Opportunity for Indie Booksellers
Independent booksellers may be getting into the e-book market a little late, but a study conducted by Verso Digital and Digital Book World found that consumers are willing to buy e-books from indies. According to the report, nearly 81% of book buyers said they would buy an e-book from an independent bookstore if the titles are competitively priced.
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More College Stores Renting Textbooks
There was a huge jump from last year in the number of college bookstores offering book rental programs to students. According to OnCampus Research, a division of the National Association of College Stores, in fall 2010 2,200 college stores reported having rental programs, compared with only 300 in 2009. Through the rental programs, students usually pay between 33% and 55% of the full price of a textbook.
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More Cuts at Borders
The downsizing of Borders continued yesterday with the news that it laid off 45 employees--40 at corporate headquarters and five in its distribution centers. According to employee message boards, Borders CEO Michael Edwards is expected to make an announcement Wednesday, although a company spokesperson said nothing is scheduled.
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Time to Change Co-op?
After several stark years in which stores like Cody's in San Francisco and Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville closed and the nation's second largest chain is teetering more than ever, publishers and booksellers are looking for new ways to work together.
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Bookstore Sales Up in November
Bookstore sales posted their first monthly increase since January in November, with the U.S. Census Bureau reporting that preliminary November sales rose 5.3%, to $1.09 billion. Results include all sales reported by bookstores and November numbers could reflect the increase in digital reading devices sold by bookstores, especially at Barnes & Noble. The numbers also reinforce reports that the Thanksgiving weekend was a good one for many bookstores, including independents. For the first 11 months of 2010, bookstore sales were still down 1.9%, to $14.41 billion. For the retail segment in general, November sales were up 9.0% and year-to-date sales ahead 6.5%.
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Weightless Books: An e-Bookstore for Indie Presses
"How do publishers survive if Barnes & Noble cuts half its stores, Borders closes, and more independent bookstores close?," asks Gavin Grant, publisher of Small Beer Press in Easthampton, Mass. "It worries me.” And that was before Borders revealed the depth of its financial woes. In order to insure that there would still be a home for small press books and literary journals, Grant and Michael J. DeLuca started Weightless Books (www.weightlessbooks.com), an e-store devoted to e-books and e-subscriptions for independent presses.
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