| Bookselling | ||||||||
Bookselling News Staff -- 10/23/00 Bookseller to the Great and Infamous Turns 25 NetRead Forms Academic Partnership, Expands Services Rocky Mountain Becomes Publisher's Association | LPC G s Electronic Book Soup: Bookseller to the Great and Infamous Turns 25
Founder and owner Glen Goldman has been the resident guide behind the store since its opening and was during the first few years an actual resident. As a graduate student at UCLA Goldman had noticed a shortage of bookstores in West Hollywood and teamed up with several architect friends to create the original Book Soup several blocks from the current location. When the store fell on hard times--which was almost immediately--its hungry but determined owner took up residence in a small cubicle in the upstairs mezzanine. He was also unable to pay publishers, and the store might have closed if not for the help of Frank Winans, a publisher's rep who helped the store reestablish credit. In 1985 another rep, Rick Raeber, lent money to expand Books Soup to its current 3,000-sq.-ft. location at 8818 Sunset Blvd. According to Goldman, "In my social hierarchy, reps are next to angels." Today the store depends as much on a loyal reading clientele as it d s on its many celebrity customers. A staff of 42 oversees the store as well as the adjoining Book Soup Addendum, where remainders are sold. In 1993 the store added a storefront newsstand, News Mews, which sells thousands of domestic and international periodicals and also serves to attract foot traffic from Sunset. Located equidistant from hip clubs like the Roxie and posh restaurants such as Spago and Le Dome, the store is in one of the few pedestrian areas of Los Angeles. As one might expect, film-related titles constitute a store specialty. "We stock more titles on how to write a screenplay than Eskimos have words for snow," Goldman said. A steady percentage of sales are made to film industry-related projects, including an only-in-Hollywood gift-basket service that includes selections for break ups or "when you just want to say I hate you." A flair for slightly outrageous marketing has served Goldman well. When Margaret Thatcher banned Peter Wright's Spy Catcher (Penguin), which exposed the British intelligence agency MI5, Goldman ran an ad in Private Eye Magazine headlined, "Banned in Britain. Available in America," and sold 3,000 copies in three weeks. A ransom note he wrote to the L.A. Times, defending freedom of speech when Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses was published, drew a letter of praise from Rupert Murdoch. Goldman, who served on the board of ABA in the early '90s, is well regarded by fellow booksellers. Andy Ross, owner of Cody's Books in Berkeley, called Book Soup "a work of genius. There is no way one could create a mass market formula to duplicate this store. Even the name, which commemorates the initials of Goldman's first love, is unique." Though a hint of glitter g s with the territory, it is the many customer-oriented services that have given Book Soup its loyal following. Almost daily author appearances make the store a literary as well as film industry center. Special orders, personal shopping, free delivery for orders over $100 in surrounding areas and free parking are offered. The store is also open every day, holidays included, from 9 a.m. to midnight: hours to serve the stars that come out at night. --Barbara R ther Datafeeds NetRead Forms Academic Partnership, Expands Services
More than 20 university presses and trade publishers, including Barron's and O'Reilly, as well as literary wholesaler Small Press Distribution, have signed on with JacketCaster since it was launched in May. "We're not a comprehensive solution," acknowledged Megan Hanley, v-p, sales and marketing, "but the advantage for a publisher is they can send richer data. It's getting to the right person in the right format." Currently, JacketCaster provides metadata to Amazon.com, Borders.com, bn.com, Fatbrain.com, Ingram, Bowker and Baker & Taylor. "If booksellers want to be a media outlet for JacketCaster, we can set up a data feed," Hanley said. Powell's and Chapters are currently beta-testing the service, as is e-how.com, a consumer site that carries some books. NetRead is continuing to enhance JacketCaster. This month it launched an upgrade to allow publishers to send enriched data to stores that don't have a relationship with NetRead. It also created book announcement templates that participating publishers can use to send e-mail newsletters in rich HTML format to booksellers or others in their database. While the cost to wholesalers and online retailers for JacketCaster is free, publishers pay up to $20 per title per year for the service, depending on the number of titles they list. Currently, NetRead is completing its third round of funding. To date, it has raised more than $1.2 million. --Judith Rosen Name Change Rocky Mountain Becomes Publisher's Association
--Barbara R ther LPC G s Electronic
Eve Seber, director of North American sales, is a former stay-at-home mom who liked Tivola's products so much that she e-mailed Berlin to ask why they didn't have an American office. The response was a request for a business plan followed by tickets to London to meet with the CEO. Seber is pleased with this turn of events that will enable more children here to use Tivola's CDs, which she praised as "gender neutral and nonviolent. They smuggle the learning into the back door." LPC president David Wilk noted, "What Tivola is doing is price protecting everyone by not putting them into the mass market in places that discount." Tivola products will not be sold at software retailers like CompUSA. Other publishers that have also signed on with LPC include Long Wind Publishing in Ft. Pierce, Fla.; Fotonovel Publications in Woodland Hills, Calif.; Noir Publishing in Herefordshire, England; Foggy Windows Books in Scarborough, Maine; and A Thing or Two Media in Westport, Conn. --Judith Rosen | ||||||||
Bookselling News
Oct 23, 2000
A version of this article appeared in the 10/23/2000 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline:
