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Cooking the Books with Alison Fryer
Alison Fryer is managing partner of Toronto’s Cookbook Store, the only shop of its kind in the city of 2.5 million. She co-founded the 800-square-foot store in the city's Yorkville district with her business partner, Josh Josephson, 26 years ago. Fryer talks to PW about business, which is surprisingly good this year; the changes she’s observed in food culture over nearly three decades; and what books she’s excited about this fall.
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Booksellers Profit from National Bookstore Day
More than 140 independent booksellers participated in the first National Bookstore Day on November 7, an initiative sponsored by PW to get customers to shop at their local bookstores—and many reported a surge in sales on that day. Better World Books, a bookseller with a store in Goshen, Ind., and a robust online business that funds literacy initiatives, raised about $30,000 for its nonpro...
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Andover Turns 200
Other stores may be struggling in today's economy, but Andover Bookstore in Andover, Mass.—the second oldest bookstore in the U.S., after the Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem, Pa.—has successfully ridden out a number of financial lows to reach its 200th birthday this month. Founded in 1809, Andover Bookstore has had an academic component from the start, supplying textbooks for 231-y...
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Red Balloon Celebrates 25th Year
The Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul, Minn. celebrated its 25th anniversary last weekend with a birthday bash that included author signings, story times, and other fun activities that children of all ages enjoyed. And we're sure the adults accompanying their children also celebrated the 20% discount on everything in the store, because store co-manager Justine Stahlmann reported that the store did two to three times the amount of business as it usually does on weekends.
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National Bookstore Day: The View from Southern California
Skylight Books of Los Angeles held a wine and cheese reception that brought together many of the areas independent bookseller who shared stories of the art of bookselling. Diesel Books said National Bookstore Day turned into National Reader Appreciation Day.
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RJ Julia Launches Gift Book Site
Madison, Ct.'s RJ Julia Booksellers has begun the soft launch for the online version of its gift book program.
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Tomorrow Is National Bookstore Day
More than 140 independent bookstores around the country have signed up to participate in National Bookstore Day, a PW-sponsored initiative to get customers into bookstores tomorrow.
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Soapbox: Now More Than Ever
There's been some talk recently about the future of the fall regional association trade shows: GLiBA, MBA, MPIBA, NAIBA, NEIBA, NCIBA, PNBA, SCIBA and SIBA. Every August and September, I curse these shows.
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Barnes & Noble Touts Three-Prong Approach
Try as it might, Barnes & Noble has had a hard time convincing investors and analysts that, as reading moves more and more to e-books, there is a place for retailers that derive most their revenue—and profits—from the sale of print books. In a 90-minute presentation October 27, B&N's management team did its best to persuade analysts that the company's dominant position in th...
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Wal-Mart, Amazon Limiting Discounted Purchases
The big box retailers are limiting the number of copies customers can buy of their deep discounted titles. Some booksellers had hoped to buy large quantities of the books to benefit from the price war.
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Phaidon Opens Temporary Store in Manhattan
Phaidon Press is opening a “pop-up” store in Soho, New York City, next week. The 2,500-square-foot store, at 100 Wooster Street, will be open from November 2 through January 2010. Store hours will be 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Sunday.
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The Gen Z Reader: Finding Profits in an Elusive Market
Kristen McLean, executive director of the Association of Booksellers for Children, presented a detailed outline of the technological challenges facing the teen book market at the fall meeting of the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association on October 24. After commenting on the proliferation of teen Web sites, blogs, and social networks and how they are transforming the way books are read...
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SIBA Launches Collective Ad Program
The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance has launched a new banner ad campaign under which the associaiton will coordinate the promotion of one title across participating stores Web sites.
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ABA Asks for Government Investigation of Price Wars
The American Booksellers Association sent a letter to the Department of Justice asking the government to investigate what it believes is the illegal predatory pricing practices of Amazon, Wal-Mart, and Target in selling hardcovers for as low as $8.98. The ABA said it believes the big box retailers are trying to "win control of the market for hardcover bestsellers."
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Laughter Sets the Scene at NCIBA Children’s Author Breakfast
At a breakfast that was more stand-up comedy than standard presentation, authors James Dashner (l.), Nancy Farmer and Berkeley Breathed charmed the sold-out crowd gathered for the Children’s Author Breakfast at the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association annual trade show in Oakland on October 10. Award-winning YA author Nancy Farmer began her talk with a humorous, detailed description of her recent eye surgery...
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Kids’ Books in the NAIBAhood
Children's books shared the stage with adult titles at the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association conference earlier this month. Longtime Baltimore institution The Children's Bookstore was one of several stops on a DIY bookstore tour that preceded the official opening of the conference, which began with a dinner with children's author Laurie Halse Anderson and adult author Paul Rudnick. Sporting a blue IndieBound T-shirt, Anderson thanked booksellers for fighting the good fight for shopping local.
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NAIBA’s Tween Reader Panel
At a panel on tween readers held at the recent New Atlantic Booksellers Association fall conference, Association of Booksellers for Children executive director Kristen McLean, who got her start selling toys, observed that 15 years ago, the toy business changed its definition of "kids" from age 12 to age eight. Around the same time, she said, publishers and booksellers began breaking out middle-grade fiction...
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Change Makers: Don Barliant
Bookseller brings books to people
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GLiBA Children’s Breakfast a Historical Experience
The booksellers who gathered in Cleveland this past weekend for the Great Lakes Booksellers trade show reflected as much on the past as they did the present and the future, and the children’s authors who spoke at Sunday’s breakfast were no exception. The three authors - Gennifer Choldenko, Candace Fleming and Shaun Tan - each focused on the impact of the past upon themselves personally, as well as upon their work.
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Children’s Books and Author Events Key at NEIBA Show
As children's books have come into their own through series like Harry Potter, Twilight and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, children's programming has become more fully integrated into the New England Independent Booksellers Association annual trade show, held last weekend in Hartford. At the industry lunch that opened the show, not only did Andrew Clements win an award for a children's author's body of work, but this year's NEIBA publisher of the year, Tilbury House in Gardiner, Maine, has a strong children's list.
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