Category Archives: Bookselling

Bookselling, Publishing

Price War

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“Amazon is in conflict with the Hachette Group, Britain’s largest publisher, over terms and discounts and is refusing to sell its titles,” reports the Times Online. Amazon usually buys books at half the cover price, but it is pushing for more, apparently at the expense of author royalties.

Another Times reporter comments, “If [the price war] continued, it would not be long before Amazon got virtually all of the revenue that is presently shared between author, publisher, retailer, printer and other parties.”

Bookselling, Fiction

Television Killed the Literary Snob

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A popular British TV couple started a book club four years ago, and now “the R&J Book Club accounts for 26% of the sales of the top 100 books in the UK, and Amanda Ross, the club’s creator and book selector, is the most powerful player in British publishing.” Anyone heard of this R&J pick for the summer? It looks interesting.

The Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson (Headline Review). A multi-generational story based on the extraordinary true story of Errol Flynn‘s arrival in 1940s Jamaica. The Pirate’s Daughter follows Ida, a girl who falls for Flynn’s charms. Through the eyes of Ida and her daughter, May, it also tells the story of their home, Jamaica, before and after independence.

(By way of Books, Inq.)

Bookselling

New Law in Oregon Against Distributing Sexual Material

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Since January 1 in Oregon, giving sexually explicit material to anyone under 13 or material which intends to arouse the reader to anyone under 18 is a criminal act. The ACLU of Oregon and a group of bookseller and advocacies are suing to get it stopped. They say the law is too broadly written and could be abused by “overzealous police and prosecutors.”

Rep. Andy Olson (R-Albany), said, “This law was carefully written to respect Oregonians’ First Amendment rights. It is clearly targeted at individuals who use pornography to lure and harm Oregon’s kids. No adult and no bookstore should be in the business of providing kids with the kind of content that is specifically listed in this law.”

Bookselling, Religion

Responsible Bookselling or Promotion?

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What would you do with a press release like this:

In Persecution, Privilege & Power, Green has collected the sharpest commentaries and analyses from 30 different writers as they critically examine the role that Zionism plays in shaping U.S. policies abroad as well as cultural transformations at home. This riveting volume provides a broad and exhilarating inspection of Zionist machinations as well as the entrenched taboos and covert alliances that sustain them. . . . Persecution, Privilege & Power unearths the unchecked malfeasance within the political wing of organized Jewry, specifically examining that international lobby’s political excesses from a multiplicity of perspectives.

Yuval Levin believes the publicity manager of Booksurge, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, should be more responsible with the books it promotes. “You have to wonder if anyone at Amazon realizes they are now the publishers of conspiracy theories about the ‘Zionist machinations’ of ‘organized Jewry,’ and that BookSurge is actively promoting the book in their name,” he states.

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Bookselling, Publishing

Book Industry News

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The publisher of Wired magazine is taking up the publishing role for The Atlantic magazine. Jay Lauf is moving from great success at Wired to “a smaller, less prosperous” magazine.

Scott Powers reports: “Borders books and Disney Publishing Worldwide are looking for a new fairy character — and the child who creates the fairy can win a stay in the exclusive Cinderella Suite in Walt Disney World’s Cinderella’s Castle.” Have you seen photos of that suite?! Wow. But who am I to talk? I’m sure you’ve stayed in nicer places.

Britain’s Orwell Prize for political writing has released its shortlist. Apparently, the judges are debating the question “Has the Left Stopped Thinking?”

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Bookselling

Quirky Charms

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“Quirky charms” is one way to describe books with weird titles, like “Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues” and “Cheese Problems Solved.” Of course, weird is in the ear of the reader. I mean if you want a straight-talking book on women’s relationships with men, would you pick up something called “Straight Talk for Women on Men” over a bold book like “If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs?” No contest, don’t you think? The follow up to the second book is “How to Duck a Suckah: A Guide to Living a Drama-Free Life,” both written by a bodyguard and former pimp.

I’m going to think about something else now.