PW: News Shorts

Rowman & Littlefield Begins On-Demand Printing Onsite
The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group and its printer, Edwards Brothers, have announced the opening of the first on-demand printing facility to be located at a publisher's distribution center.

Jed Lyons, president of the group, said the facility, which utilizes the Xerox Docutech technology, will be in the same building as R&L's order-fulfillment center in Blue Ridge Summit, Pa. "By the end of July, we will be printing and binding books on demand within 24 hours, and the term 'out of stock' will be dropped from our vocabulary," he declared.

The new facility will be operated by staff from Edwards Brothers, who will scan, print and bind the books just yards away from the R&L picking location.

Lyons noted that the initial purpose of the new operation is to make available R&L's own short-run, specialized academic and reference books, but he hopes to make the same on-demand services available soon to R&L's sister trade company, National Book Network, which currently has about 80 independent trade publishers, all distributed from the same Blue Ridge Summit facility. NBN will also create bound galleys at there.

R&L owns copyright in more than 20,000 titles, and the creation of the print-on-demand facility is part of its strategy to push aggressively into electronic publishing. It expects to announce further such initiatives during the year.

Edwards Brothers president John Edwards, whose Ann Arbor, Mich.- based company has been printing for R&L for more than 20 years, said, "This is the first of many such facilities we intend to operate on behalf of our customers. Print-on-demand is here to stay, and we intend to be a leader in the field."

'NYT' to Debut Kids' Bestseller List
The New York Times has announced that beginning July 23, it will add a children's bestseller list to its Book Review. Due in large part to the number of Harry Potter titles on the Times bestseller list, NYTBR editor Charles McGrath said, "the time has come when we need to clear some room," an idea that is said to have been under consideration for some time. The new list will combine fiction, nonfiction, picture books and chapter books, and will be culled from the same sources as the adult list; for the time being, only hardcover titles will be listed.

Similar to the adult bestseller list, the children's version will consist of 15 spots. It will replace the "Advice, How-to and Miscellaneous" list that is currently located at the bottom of the hardcover page, and the entire two-page Times bestseller list is being redesigned.

Publisher Support for Harlem Book Fair
Time Warner Trade Publishing CEO Larry Kirshbaum joined other corporate sponsors at a press conference held at the Time Warner offices to promote the upcoming second annual Harlem Book Fair, scheduled for Saturday, July 22.

In addition to Time Warner Trade Publishing, sponsors of the fair include the Knopf Publishing Group, Publishers Weekly and the New York Times.

The fair, free to the public, will occupy West 136th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Lenox Avenue, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

For more information, call (212) 348-1681.

Berkeley Publisher Buys the Farm
Berkeley, Calif.-based North Atlantic Books has announced an unusual new publishing acquisition: a 27-acre farm in California's Central Valley. The purchase, according to North Atlantic publisher Richard Grossinger, is the culmination of a long search for a worthy project in which to invest proceeds from the nonprofit publishing venture.

"We made an initial commitment as a nonprofit to support the ideas which our books explore by contributing toward real-world change. Saving farm land from development and promoting organic agriculture are issues related to our books, and to the Bay Area community."

North Atlantic, which moved from Vermont to the Bay Area in 1977, has published nearly 500 titles to date. With its sister company, the for-profit Frog Ltd., it publishes a broad-ranging list that includes titles on the martial arts, ecology, science, anthropology and natural healing. All are distributed by PGW. Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford, first published in 1996, has sold more than 100,000 copies, and remains a lead title for the house.

The land, near Modesto, will be leased at no charge to local farmer Richard Firme, who will raise organic produce. The operation will be staffed in part by workers from Berkeley Youth Alternatives, an organization that serves at-risk youth in Oakland and Berkeley. Grossinger is hopeful that other publishers, nonprofit and for-profit alike, might be interested in joining the effort. Grossinger can be reached at North Atlantic Books in Berkeley or by e-mail at chard@lmi.net.
--Barbara R ther
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