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Simply Audiobooks Cofounder Buys Books for Business
In his first foray into the book business in 2003, Sean Neville applied the Netflix model to audio rental and cofounded Simply Audiobooks, which he sold last year. Now he’s moving into traditional bookselling with last week’s purchase of niche business bookstore, Books for Business, in downtown Toronto, the large dedicated business bookstore, founded two decades ago by Jane Cooney.
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Assouline Adds More Outlets
Assouline is upping its presence on bookstore shelves this holiday season, but not in the usual way. Rather than push out more books through traditional bookstores, it is adding more outlets under its own brand.
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Visits to Dom Knigi, Bookvoed
St. Petersburg, Russia, is among the most beautiful cities in the world. Befitting its home city, Dom Knigi, or, the House of Books, is an outstanding architectural treat and home to one of the oldest bookstores still operating in Europe.
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ABC Booksellers Overwhelmingly Approve Merger With ABA
By a vote of 105 to 23, Association of Booksellers for Children members approved a merger with the American Booksellers Association. This marks the culmination of a process set in motion nearly two years ago when the ABC board, concerned about the organization's long-term survival given that nearly two thirds of its budget is funded by publishers, initiated possible merger discussions with ABA.
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DBD's Liang Finds Graphic Novel Growth Abroad
Just back from a tour of International book fairs in Frankfurt and the Middle East, Kuo-Yu Liang, v-p, sales and marketing at Diamond Book Distributors, is upbeat about the graphic novel market at home and abroad. Despite a tough economy, overall declines in manga sales and the loss of Marvel Comics as a distribution client, Liang says DBD's business is up for the year and he’s even more excited about the growing popularity of graphic novels around the world.
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BookPeople Celebrates 40 Years in Austin
Austin, Tex.'s BookPeople reached a milestone so big this month they had to celebrate it twice. On November 11, the store turned 40 years old, and took the next weekend to make it official with a family-friendly cake-and-balloons blowout on Saturday, and a business-casual party for publishers, authors, partners, and other industry friends on Sunday.
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Green Steps
Even before the eat local/shop local movement hit its stride, booksellers around the country were looking for ways to green their businesses—from recycling to energy-efficient electricity, and, in a few cases, transforming their entire buildings to make them green.
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Disappointing Quarter For Books-A-Million
Books-A-Million, the first of the three major bookstore chains to report third quarter results, said revenue for the period ended October 30 fell 5.5%, to $104.8 million, with comparable store sales off 5.8%. CEO Clyde Anderson called the comp sales performance “disappointing.”
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Toy Story at the Chains
It's not only Borders that is dedicating more space to educational toys. Late last week Barnes & Noble announced that it has begun testing what it calls "the ultimate play room," or 3,000 sq. ft. toy and game boutiques, in five New York-area stores. In addition, the retailer expanded the Toys & Games departments in all its stores nationwide.
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Globe Corner for Sale
Globe Corner Bookstore in Cambridge, Mass., is the latest Boston-area bookstore to go on the market due to the illness of one of its owners. Earlier this month New England Mobile Book Fair in Newton Highlands announced that it is selling its bookstore as well, in part because of health issues.
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B&N Shareholders Support Rights Plan
Barnes & Noble announced today that a special meeting of its shareholders has resulted in a vote to approve a shareholders rights plan. The vote, which ratified the poison pill provision adopted by B&N's board, saw roughly 72% of shares voting and 61% of shares outstanding supporting the measure.
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Canadian Book Sales Down In Q3
BookNet Canada is reporting that Canadian book sales in the third quarter of 2010 were down in both unit sales and dollar value when compared with third quarter results in 2009. Overall, the market is down 3.3% in the number of books sold and by 4.3% in value (unit sales multiplied by list price). Every category was down from 2009 levels.
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Borders Launches Revamped Web Site with More Discounted Titles & Free Shipping
Borders,after announcing a partnership with ShopRunner, an online shopping program that gives members free two-day shipping, and making free shipping a centerpiece of its Borders Rewards and Borders Rewards Plus programs, on Sunday it launched a revamped Web site with more products and more discounted books.
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Bookstore Sales Fall 7.7% in September
Bookstore sales had their worst month of 2010 in September, with sales down 7.7%, to $1.51 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported this morning. The September decline follows a 6.5% drop in August and resulted in a 2.6% decline in bookstore sales, to $12.31 billion, for the first nine months of the year. For the entire retail segment, September sales were up 7.6% and nine month sales increased 6.3%.
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New Book Sales Tumble at Hastings
Comparable store sales of new books declined 9.3% in the third quarter ended October 31 at Hastings Entertainment, the multimedia retailer reported this morning. Hastings said "it is certainly the case that electronic book readers are impacting new book sales," and hinted that it is ready to stock fewer new titles. Sales of used and value books rose 7.8% for the quarter resulting in a 6.2% drop in book sales overall in the quarter.
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The Midwest's Quiet Bookseller
While some of the country's most high-profile regional chain bookstores and national chain bookstores have downsized in response to increased competition, a weak economy, and changes in readers' buying patterns, an independent regional bookstore chain headquartered in central Wisconsin has quietly thrived for almost 35 years.
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Two NYC Kids' Stores Celebrate 70 Years—Combined
This fall two New York City independent children's bookstores are hitting big numbers, at least birthday-wise. Bank Street Bookstore is marking its first four decades, while Books of Wonder just turned 30.
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Joseph-Beth Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection
Following last week's announcement that the Joseph-Beth Booksellers stores in Charlotte, N.C., and Pittsburgh will close by year's end, the Joseph-Beth Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District of Kentucky. The Joseph-Beth store in Cleveland and the Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville will also close.
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Bookazine's Eclectic & Electric Highlights Small Presses
When Bookazine built a mezzanine in its warehouse earlier this year, it was with an eye to expanding its title base by 20,000 titles and going deeper into large publishers' backlist and small press titles. After testing a program to promote small presses earlier this fall at three regional conferences, the Bayonne, N.J.-based wholesaler is rolling out its Eclectic & Electric program.
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Borders and B&N Partner with ShopRunner
With Wal-Mart offering free shipping through the holidays, it's clear that retailers are trying to remove potential impediments to online shopping this holiday season. Both Borders and Barnes & Noble will also provide free two-day shipping, but through ShopRunner.
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