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Welcome
to the Vol. 8, No. 2 February 2010Index (scroll down for stories)
1. Buyers demand cheaper books; Spring Book Show provides ‘em
1. Buyers demand cheaper books; Spring Book Show provides ‘em The show comes at an opportune time. Bookstores are still suffering from the economic recession. Further, the public has become accustomed to lower book prices as a result of e-book marketing (most titles are priced at $9.99), free or discounted material on the Internet and best-seller price wars launched by Amazon, Wal-Mart, Target, Sears and other discount retailers (hardback best-sellers are being priced by the competitors at around $9). At a time when the public has fewer dollars to spend on books, and has grown used to cut-rate prices for reading material, remainders - many of which sell in the $1 to $2 range - are a viable product for book retailers. “For a long time the remainder market wasn’t considered a legitimate part of the book trade,” says Larry May, who with his wife Val owns the Spring Book Show and the Great American Bargain Book Show, remainder book trade fairs held in Atlanta in the spring and Boston in the fall respectively. May believes that perception has finally turned around. “Maybe it’s the economy, but retailers have finally realized just how much money they can make in remainders and hurts,” he said. As a result of the economic recession, one of the few burgeoning areas of the book business not in the digital domain is the remainders and hurts market. Bookstore owners have been quick to respond to the changing market for books. In Los Angeles, for example, Eso Won Bookstore co-owner James Fugate says he will shift his inventory mix "to more bargain-priced books when restocking his shelves" since "too much money is tied up in the slow-moving backlist." He says "a lot of the history that we built our store on, that stuff has got to go." The store plans to destock with a sale in January or February and use the cash to pay overdue bills and selectively replenish the shelves. While no overall statistics are tracked for the remainders and hurts segment of the book market - publishers are often reluctant to release details about what they are sending out to be sold on the cheap - anecdotal evidence suggests that the slow holiday sales of the most recent Christmas have pushed larger and larger quantities of higher quality books into this secondary market. May says that in recent years, international participation at his two shows has grown dramatically. As at the 2009 Spring Book Show, a number of international vendors will be selling remainders at the 2010 show in Atlanta, including Caxton and PR Books, as well as Columbia Marketing from the UK and Fairmount Books and Book Depot from Canada. But it’s the overseas buyers that outnumber the sellers. European buyers are already familiar with the market and have been showing up in greater numbers each successive year, says May. “Oddly, the Spanish and Hispanic markets have been relatively weak,” he said, adding, “The real growth is in Asia: the Korean, Japanese and Chinese markets have been pretty strong in the past five years. There’s demand in their countries for English language books, but to buy them new and import them can be extremely expensive. So remainders are a good option.”
2. It doesn't take many downloads to make a Kindle bestseller BelleBooks expects the loss-leader e-books to lead to increased sales of the conventional versions of the titles. What the small independent publisher’s experience illustrates, however, is that it doesn’t take many e-book sales to make a best-seller. In public relations, press releases that exaggerate the importance of a product or service are called “puff pieces,” the art of writing them is called “puffery” and the people who issue them are generally called press or publicity agents.
As Sarah Weinman points out in a recent piece for Daily Finance,
Amazon.com for the past two years has been exciting consumers and frustrating
book industry types with its puffed-up press releases about the strength of
Kindle and e-book sales. The level of self-congratulation appears to have reached
a new high with one recent release, which boldly claims that the Kindle has
become the most gifted item in the company's history, and that on Christmas day,
more Kindle books sold than physical copies. The experience of BelleBooks, a small 10-year-old indie publisher, is typical. BelleBooks placed five of its 40 titles, mostly from its backlist, on Amazon.com free for two weeks starting Dec. 26. "We knew a lot of people were getting Amazon's Kindle reader for Christmas," said the firm’s president, Debra Dixon. "We just hoped they'd be looking for free books to fill up their new e-reader." The four women who own BelleBooks discovered that their free Kindle editions quickly zoomed to the top of the national Kindle bestseller lists, beating out dozens of free titles and thousands of others. Deborah Smith's women's fiction novel, The Crossroads Café, reached No. One. Making the top five were Gayle Trent's cozy mystery Murder Takes the Cake, Kalayna Price's vampire fantasy Once Bitten, the Mossy Creek anthology, and, in the top 25, Carolyn McSparren's women fiction novel, All God’s Creatures. For two weeks, BelleBooks dominated not only the Kindle lists but sub-genre lists in general at Amazon, with some titles continuing to hold their spots even after they went back on full retail pricing. Print sales of the featured books rose dramatically, in some cases 10-fold. BelleBooks was featured twice at the online industry site, Galley Cat. Mystery author Gayle Trent came to the attention of uber agent Robert Gottleib, and signed with him. BelleBooks' marketing director Deb Smith said, "We plan to repeat the promotion in March, offering free downloads of Mark Nykanen's thriller, Primitive and Parker Blue's YA vampire fantasy Bite Me.” Smith, of Dahlonega, Ga., said Amazon did not furnish the company with the number of Kindle downloads. She noted, however, that two of the freebie books sold ten times more print books in the first week of January than they sold for the entire month of December, pre-promo. So, what about the number of paid sales it takes to make Amazon’s best-seller lists for the Kindle? Here’s a hint. In December, literary agent Steven Axelrod said on publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin's blog that Kindle book sales made up 78 percent of one bestselling author's total e-book sales. Sony Reader e-book sales came in a very distant second, at 12 percent. Rounding up the list of e-book sales by format were Palm Reader (five percent), Adobe E-Book Reader (four percent) and Microsoft Reader (two percent). Axelrod subsequently provided additional specifics with respect to the e-book sales for the same NYT bestselling author. For the period Jan. 1-June 30, 2009, Axelrod said, this author - whose most recent hardcover was released earlier in the year and had sold 76,000 copies up until that same date - netted a total of 4,764 e-book sales. That means that Kindle book sales, which comprised 78 percent of total e-book sales, probably translated into 3,723 actual copies sold to Kindle clients.
3. Top 25 book fairs and book festivals of 2010 named
Here are the Southern Review of Books picks for for the top 25 book fairs
and events that are worthy of your attendance. 4. Breaking news from the book barons
John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's Game Change, about the 2008 presidential
election in the U.S., was released in early January to demand that outstripped
availability. After a number of continuous days
in which headline-making tidbits were released by the authors and their
publisher, Ha
5. Most pirated books of 2009 – ‘Kamasutra’ heads the list Paul Biba at the popular (and free) online TeleRead newsletter published a droll story in early January based on an imaginative piece of research by Freakbits. The story has a message for DRM (digital rights management) advocates who fear piracy of best-sellers issued as e-books. BitTorrent, for those unfamiliar with it, is an offshore Web site that is generally blamed as the place that most encourages downloads of pirated reading material. Freakbits looked at BitTorrent and compiled a listing of the 10 most pirated books - those that have been downloaded between 100,000 and 250,000 times. Most of the 10 fall into the “nerdy niche” or porn categories. Dan Brown, Stephen King and J.K. Rowling were the only best-selling authors that made it into the top 25 list of downloads, and Stephenie Meyer was the only best-selling author to make it into the top 10 downloads. J.K. Rowling, who won’t allow e-books of her works to be published, has every single one of her books available digitally - they were either transcribed or scanned by fans. Simon & Schuster’s failure to publish an e-book of Stephen King’s Under the Dome did little to stop its availability as an e-book. It was almost immediately available on the net. The 10 most pirated books:
1. Kamasutra 6. Georgia author ghost-wrote best-seller attributed to Steve Harvey Although her name is not on the cover of Steve Harvey’s Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man, Denene Millner of Snellville, Ga., is the author of the book. That information was first published by Chandra R. Thomas in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Dawn Davis, editorial director of HarperCollins/Amistad, had tremendous success with Harvey's Act Like a Lady, which stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 30 weeks in 2009. The accomplishment was attributed to Harvey’s universal message and ability to reach different audiences through “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” “Good Morning America” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Harvey was on “Oprah” twice in 2009 discussing the book. Oprah’s audience tuned in to hear the Atlanta-based syndicated morning radio show host/comedian/actor give his advice on how to snag - and keep - a man, as outlined in his best-seller What “Oprah” fans didn’t hear was that Millner, an accomplished author and seasoned journalist, actually wrote Harvey’s book, which has been translated into 30 languages.
“It’s made a lot of people rich, but not me,” Millner said. “I was a writer for
hire so I was paid up front, but writing that book has opened up so many doors
for me. I am now a New York Times best-selling author.”
Millner began work on the book in 2008, finishing it in one and a half months. A graduate of Hofstra University, Millner met daily with Harvey after his radio show broadcast or at his home to get his take on the draft she was writing. By October 2008, when she was working on the Harvey book, she had already authored or co-authored 15 books, including her teen series launched in 2008 with Hotlanta and If Only You Knew.
As a contributing editor for Parenting magazine, Millner has provided
witty, engaging, mom-to-mom advice on ethics and etiquette in everything from
child-rearing and marriage to work and friendship. Millner also has been a
contributing editor for Essence; an associate editor for the travel
magazine, Odyssey Couleur; and has contributed articles for Health,
Entertainment Weekly, Money, Heart & Soul and Ebony,
among others. Her extensive television experience includes appearances on the
“The Today Show,” “CBS Early Show,” CNN, MSNBC, VH1, “WABC Eyewitness News” and
“Good Day New York.” Before her stint at the Daily News, she worked for three years as a general assignment and political reporter for The Associated Press.
7. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt parent forced to strip stockholder equity Leveraged to the hilt by an Irish banker and leveraged buyout baron, Education and Media Publishing Group (EMPG), parent company of Boston’s prestigious Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is on the verge of default. EMPG has been straining to meet debt obligations and covenants. According to various sources, it has two plans for dealing with the problem. The first involves refinancing. The second, if the first fails, involves a conventional bankruptcy filing. Either way, the Irish investors in EMPG have their equity wiped out. Investors losing out would include Barry O'Callaghan, who heavily leveraged $9 billion worth of acquisitions to create HMS. His interest in HMH was reduced to about 20 percent of the company last August when, in a first wave of debt reduction, EMPG refinanced to $7 billion in debt at the expense of investors. The Irish investors in EMPG in turn had loans from the Anglo Irish Bank, which is now wholly owned by Irish taxpayers as a result of last year's banking crisis, when the Irish government bailed it out.
As of the last restructuring in August 2009, EMPG was reported to have given
itself an equity value of $2.66 billion.
EMPG has confirmed that it is in "advanced discussions" on a comprehensive
restructuring. 8. News about bookstores, publishing, marketing and promotion In the European Union, copyright protection is the date of the author's death plus 70 years. This year, the works of any European authors who died in 1939 go into public domain. Among the authors whose works will become public in 2010 are Ford Madox Ford, Havelock Ellis, Sigmund Freud, William Butler Yeats and Aylmer & Louise Maude, the translators of Tolstoy... According to Romance Writers of America’s 2009 Reader Statistics, “the heart of the U.S. romance novel readership is women aged 31-49 who are currently in a romantic relationship.”
9. Graphic novels publisher Top Shelf announces investment deal
Co-Publishers Chris Staros and Brett Warnock of independent graphic novel and
comic book publisher Top Shelf Productions of Marietta, Ga., have entered into
a capital investment deal with new media entreprene Johnson, and Likely Story, Bregman's film production company, have purchased a 33 percent interest in Top Shelf Productions, Inc. Johnson will join the board of Top Shelf, and Likely Story will get a first-look deal for all new Top Shelf publications for possible film and TV development. Among other hits, Top Shelf is the publisher of Bob Venditti/Brett Weldele’s graphic novel The Surrogates, which was the basis for a recently released movie of the same name starring Bruce Willis. Top Shelf has produced over two hundred graphic novels and comics. Included are Alan Moore's From Hell, Lost Girls and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; Craig Thompson's Blankets; Andy Runton's Owly; Jeff Lemire's Essex County; and Jeffrey Brown's Clumsy & Unlikely. The deal leaves Chris Staros and Brett Warnock as majority stockholders and firmly in control of the company, but also brings to bear the resources, skills and connections of Johnson and Bregman in helping the company expand and grow over time. The first project slated for development by Likely Story is Alex Robinson's critically acclaimed Too Cool to Be Forgotten, named one of Amazon.com's Top Ten Graphic Novels of the Year and considered his best work to date. Too Cool To Be Forgotten tells the story of a 40-something father of two who undergoes hypnosis therapy to quit smoking, only to transport back to 1985 and his formative years as a gangly, awkward teenager. Forced to live through his high school years with all the knowledge of his later life; uncertain whether he is destined to relive the mistakes of his past or if he has been given a second chance to get things right. 10. E-books through October 2009 posted $130 million in sales Book sales tracked by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) for the month of October increased by 10.2 percent at $725.8 million and were up by 4.1 percent for the year. The Adult Hardcover category rose 6.3 percent in October with sales of $259.9 million; year-to-date sales were up by 3.9 percent. Adult Paperback sales jumped up 37.5 percent for the month ($130.4 million) but were down by 4.8 percent for the year. The Adult Mass Market category was down 1.8 percent for October with sales totaling $61.2 million; sales were down by 0.4 percent year-to-date. The Children’s/YA Hardcover category declined by 0.5 percent for the month with sales of $87.9 million, but sales for year-to-date increased 4.4 percent. The Children’s/YA Paperback category was up by 20.2 percent in October with sales totaling $52.7 million, reflecting a 4.1 percent increase for the year. Publishers’ net sales for e-books for the month of October reached $18.5 million for the month, compared to $5.2 million in the same month last year. Year-to-date e-book sales in aggregate for the period January-October 2009, reached $130.7 million, compared to $46.6 million in 2008 for the same period, reflecting a 180.7 percent increase. Currently trade market e-books, according to AAP reports, account for three percent of total trade sales. Audio Book sales posted a decrease of 1.8 percent in October with sales totaling $19.7 million; sales to-date decreased by 18.8 percent. Religious Books saw a decrease of 8.5 percent for the month with sales totaling $60.3 million; sales were down by 10.7 percent for the year. Sales of university press hardcover books reflected a 1.5 percent decrease in October with sales of $5.3 million; sales decreased by 6.4 percent for the year. University press paperback sales posted a decrease of 1.4 percent for the month with sales totaling $3.6 million; sales were down 2.6 percent for the year. Sales in the professional and scholarly category were up by 3.5 percent in October ($48.0 million) but decreased by 3.9 percent for the year. Higher education publishing sales rose by 6.9 percent for the month ($23.4 million) and increased 13.1 percent for the year. The net el-hi (elementary/high school) basal and supplemental K-12 category posted an increase of 29.6 percent in October with sales of $190.6 million; the category was down by 16.8 percent for the year.
11. Books to movies: Sony buys rights to ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ Sony Pictures has optioned English-language screen rights to the late Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Steve Zaillian is in talks to write the script, which would be produced by Scott Rudin with Ole Sondberg and Soren Staermose of Yellow Bird Films.
Variety
reported that the "deal hasn't closed yet; it's been gestating for six months
because of a rights dispute between Larsson's parents and his longtime partner
Eva Gabrielsson." The Swedish version was acquired by Music Box Films in the U.S., according to Variety. Music Box plans to release the first film based on the trilogy in the U.S. in March, and screened it in Los Angeles in December. 12. How bad is it – and what is the book business doing to cope? All 45 Borders UK and Books Etc. stores closed to the public on Dec. 22 and were emptied out by Dec. 24, when the entire staff of approximately 1,100 people lost their jobs. With no buyer for the business, administrator MCR is still trying to sell off individual store leases and other assets. MCR promised employees that they will be paid what they are owed… Of the 200 or so Waldenbooks stores slated for 2010 closure by Borders in the U.S., some 20 or so have been granted reprieves. Among them are the Walden stores in Lufkin, Texas, and Easton, Pa.
13. Nielsen shuts down ‘Kirkus Reviews,’ ‘Editor & Publisher’ Kirkus Reviews, which has covered book publishing since 1933, closed down at the end of December 2009. Nielsen Business Media announced the pending closure earlier in the month. While rumor had it that a “white knight” was going to buy and resurrect the magazine, no firm news had appeared of a deal before this edition of the Southern Review was published. On Jan. 14, the following notice, published in early January, continued to appear on the Kirkus Web site” “Kirkus is working toward an arrangement with an acquiring company to continue the publication of the magazine. More details will be forthcoming in the next 2-3 weeks, but for now we will publish a second issue in January, and then reassess the situation and hopefully continue publication in February and beyond. Stay tuned...”
Nielsen also announced that it was killing Editor & Publisher at the end
of December. Kirkus Reviews offered pre-publication reviews of new books. It suffered from the proliferation of cheap opinion sites and online classified ads. Nielsen apparently will not close The Bookseller, a sister publication to Kirkus, which covers books in the United Kingdom. With the closure of E&P and Kirkus, if they remain closed, 18 people will lose jobs.
Kirkus
was founded in 1933 and was published biweekly. It relied on a small staff and
an army of freelancers who reviewed about 5,000 books a year three months before
their publication dates. Authors looked to Kirkus reviews to test how
their books would be received; libraries and independent bookstores turned to
them to decide what to buy. 14. The publishing revolution: News of e-books and other new media
The Book Industry Study Group has published Digital Book Printing for Dummies
with the help of Wiley and the sponsorship of CreateSpace, Hewlett-Packard,
the Independent Book Publishers Association and Lightning Source.
Featuring case studies, the book aims to "de-mystify the short-run, ultra short
run and on-demand printing process for publishers." The book draws on the
expertise of Barnes & Noble, Blurb, CreateSpace, Harvard University Press,
Hewlett-Packard, IBT, On Demand Books, Xerox and the Independent Book Publishers
Association, among others.
15. The next big thing in e-book readers: Blio or Apple tablet? The next big thing in e-books could be Baker & Taylor's Blio. Or, it could be the much touted Apple Tablet. Let’s take Blio first. According to Mike Shatzkin's blog, wholesaler B&T has been developing a proprietary e-book platform "that can work on 'any device with an operating system,' which means computers and iPhones, but not Kindles." Publishers deliver PDFs, which B&T converts for free to the new format. The type is described as crisp and sharp, it has full multiple-media functionality. Among other options, you can see on a PC screen many pages of a book at a time dealt out like a deck of cards. Then you find the ones you want and hone in on them. “There are many ways to use that capability, particularly for an illustrated how-to book or a textbook," says Shatkin.
In partnership with K-NFB Reading Technology, Baker & Taylor officially unveiled
Blio, which uses color and sophisticated audio, at the International Consumer
Electronics Show in Las Vegas. While Apple is expected to launch its tablet computer at the end of January, several exhibitors at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas wanted to show off their own designs first so that they won’t look like copycats. Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer showed off three tablets in his presentation, including Hewlett-Packard’s model. All the foundations were there at CES: touchscreens, swipe controls, content such as e-books, and chips from companies such as Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom and Marvell. Tablets have been around for a while, but the new ones should be much more responsive to touch commands. HP will likely be the best challenger to Apple, says Richard Doherty, analyst at the Envisioneering Group. That’s because HP has decades of experience with touchscreens, has a lot of TouchSmart computers already on the market and has a big collection of touchscreen patents as well. 16. First comic book offered for Kindle – Schism beats out DC, Marvel According to a Dec. 1 news release from Schism Comics, Amazon has begun offering traditional comic books on its Kindle platform
The largest comic book players, Marvel and DC (publishers of Spider-Man and
Batman, respectively), were beat o One comic that just became available is “Bru-Hed’s Guide To Getting’ Girls Now!” by Mike Pascale and his Schism Comics imprint, currently celebrating its 10th anniversary of last publication. The black-and-white, 28-page (including covers) comic books, first published in paper form in 1997 (volume 1) and 1999 (volume 2), are now uploadable to the Kindle for 99 cents each. (They were originally $2.50). “Since the big mainstream publishers’ titles are in color, they’re probably waiting for a color version of the Kindle,” said Padcale. “But for independent black-and-white comic creators like myself, this is an ideal way to get my characters and comics to the masses on a level playing field at an affordable price. Since my first published book, the ‘Test-Market Ashcan Edition’ of Bru-Hed back in 1993 was the first U.S. comic book with a fully digitally-painted cover, being ‘first’ in another digital domain seemed natural.” The comics like Bru-Hed will play on any Kindle, PC or supported wireless device such as Apple’s iPhone. 17. Guild challenges Random House claim that it owns e-book rights
The Authors Guild has disputed Random House's assertion that it holds e-rights
to many backlist titles, saying that the publisher "quite famously changed its
standard contract to include e-book rights in 1994… Random House felt the need
to change its contract, quite plainly, because its authors did not grant those
rights to it under Random House's standard contracts prior to 1994." 18. Racy new bios of Warren Beatty and Elvis Presley published Biographies of two of the 20th century’s most prominent ladies men - Warren Beatty and Elvis Presley – have just been published. Of the two, the Beatty profile is likely to generate the most prurient interest. Titled Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America, it is a semi-sanctioned work written by film writer Peter Biskind. The book has received tabloid attention for its claim that Beatty slept with “12,775 women, give or take, a figure that does not include daytime quickies… casual gropings, stolen kisses, and so on” The Elvis book, Baby, Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him by Alanna Nash, discusses Elvis’ busy and complex love life. Beatty's private life has been the subject of gossip for decades, and Star confirms his status as Hollywood's leading man in the bedroom, describing his affairs with Joan Collins, Natalie Wood, Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Michelle Phillips, Diane Keaton and Madonna, among many others. According to one-time lover Joan Collins, Beatty “could not pass a girl without trying to seduce her.” The actor/filmmaker was a notorious cheat, and allegedly never broke up with a paramour - they usually left him. Elvis, on the other hand, according to his latest biographer, never emotionally matured beyond the age of 14. Consequently, he was forever attracted to girls rather than women, and his bedroom technique involved rough-housing and teasing. Elvis also formed such a deep childhood attachment to his mother, Gladys, that he was incapable of commiting to another woman. Natalie Wood and Beatty were co-stars in 1961’s “Splendor in the Grass,” and became lovers afterward. The two parted on friendly terms in 1963, with Wood noting: “Warren goes through women on an industrial scale, (but) he does it with charm.” Baby, Let's Play House takes its title from the 1955 song that was Elvis’ first to hit the national charts, and his mother's favorite recording. It presents Elvis in a new light - as a charming but wounded Lothario who bedded scores of women but seemed unable to maintain a lasting romantic relationship. Based largely on exclusive interviews with the many women who knew him in various roles - lover, sweetheart, friend, costar, and family member -Baby, Let's Play House explores Presley's love affairs with, among others, Ann-Margret, Linda Thompson, Sheila Ryan Caan, June Juanico, Joyce Bova, Barbara Leigh, Cybill Shepherd, and Priscilla Beaulieu, as well as his friendships with actresses Raquel Welch, Barbara Eden, Mary Ann Mobley, Yvonne Craig, and Celeste Yarnall. Among those who loved Elvis tender were Ann-Margret and Cybill Shepherd. Those who turned him down include Cher and Karen Carpenter. As evidence of his stunted sexual maturation, Elvis installed a two-way mirror in the pool cabana at his Bel Air home to watch female guests as they changed into swimwear. When one of Elvis’ friends told him a lot of women would let him look at them without sneaking, the King replied, “Yeah, but it’s a lot more fun this way.” Most people are aware of the torrid love affair between Elvis and actress Ann-Margret that began when they co-starred in “Viva Las Vegas.” Elvis was torn between Ann-Margret and girlfriend Priscilla Beaulieu, choosing the latter because he wanted a wife who wasn’t in show business. But Elvis sent Ann-Margret flowers every time she played Vegas for the rest of his life. 19. Alleged Tiger Woods mistress trying to peddle book for $1 million According to an item in the New York Daily News, Loredana Jolie Ferriolo is attempting to sell a tell-all book on her alleged trysts with Tiger Woods. According to her, Woods is right-handed on the golf course, but off the course, he swings both ways. RadarOnline.com reports that the Italian model, who is attempting to sell a tell-all book on her alleged trysts with the pro golf star, claims to have witnessed Woods participating in gay encounters. Ferriolo told the Web site that the book would dish details on the golfer's "healthy appetite for arranged sex, threesomes, girls next door, girl-girl, and an answer to all the rumors surrounding Woods' sexuality." One of Ferriolo's representatives confirmed to Radar that "she is in talks with a number of publishing companies regarding a tell-all book deal." Ferriolo presumably hopes this round of bidding goes better than the last. The Sicilian model tried to sell a salacious tome on Wood's sexual proclivities for $1 million, but found no buyers. 20. News about self-publishing and vanity presses Lulu.com, a hybrid “pay to play” vanity press based in Raleigh, N.C., is set to launch an initial public offering. The IPO is planned for Canada, and Lulu hopes to raise $48.25 million. Why Canada? Once established on the Canadian stock market, Lulu could transfer over to an American-based listing, moving to the Nasdaq exchange. Because Lulu is listing its stock in Canada, it "will likely pay less in costs than an IPO on a U.S. exchange, and Lulu won't have to submit to the same rigorous regulatory scrutiny," according to one IPO analyst. And while Lulu.com has offices in Bangalore and London, its more significant foreign presence is in Toronto. Owner Bob Young, co-founder of open-source software company Red Hat, grew up in Canada and owns the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League. Lulu says it has published more than half a million titles in 2009 and that it has 15,000 new authors from 80 different countries signing on each week. It reports that revenue rose 37 percent from 2007 to 2008. 21. Marketing books: Sarah Palin caps book tour on ‘Tonight Show’ Sarah Palin made a surprise appearance on “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” on Dec. 11 to cap her book tour which ended Dec. 10 – and in the process, turned the tables on actor William Shatner. In prior appearances on O’Brien’s television show, Shatner had adopted a serious pose and recited some of Palin’s less serious observations. He was brought out again on Dec. 11 to read passages from Palin’s blockbuster Going Rogue. The carefully selected passages included prose about rapper Kid Rock and stalking sheep. Afterward, it was Palin’s turn to come out and do a surprise read from Shatner’s autobiography, Up Till Now. The former Alaska governor’s selections included one in which Shatner talks about visiting an African elephant “in my underwear.” The O’Brien appearance capped an extremely successful book tour for the former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate, whose Going Rogue sold more than a million copies in the first two weeks of its release. The Oprah Show and a session with Barbara Walters were the major media appearances Palin made as part of her tour. The core of the promotional strategy was a "bus tour" of the heartland, where Palin and her advisers knew they would get the best reception. The HarperCollins Web site listed the schedule, which started in Michigan and included stops in Wisconsin, Ohio, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Minnesota, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Virginia, South Dakota, and Idaho. Palin and her entourage flew on a chartered jet to most stops. For others, her tour bus bounced from place to place. The scale of Palin's tour meant that extraordinary efforts had to be made on logistics. Palin has a fan base, but they still would have to be turned out to buy the book. Logistically, enough books had to be made available at every signing. 22. Milestones: Records and news of note in book publishing Bestseller lists originated with Harvey Thurston Peck in Bookman in 1895. Peck concerned himself only with fiction works. Publishers Weekly started a bestseller list in 1912 that included non-fiction works along with fiction. Today, bestseller lists are published by many major newspapers including USA Today and The New York Times. A.C. Nielsen scans book sales at about 70 percent of retail outlets, and Amazon.com provides intelligence on book sales made at its online sites…Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System--And Themselves by Andrew Ross Sorkin (Viking) has won the Best Business Book of the Year award, sponsored by 800-CEO-READ. In addition, winners and runners up have been chosen in 11 categories. The winners will receive their awards at a celebration in New York City on Jan. 25… Ardath Harter Rodale, 81, of Allentown, Pa., former chairwoman of Rodale Inc., died recently at her home. In 1942, Mrs. Rodale's father-in-law, J.I. Rodale, started Organic Farming and Gardening magazine, and in 1951 the company introduced Prevention. After he died in 1971, his son, Bob, succeeded him, and expanded the company into a publisher of books and magazines focused on health and fitness. In 1990, Bob Rodale died in an auto accident while on a trip to Russia. After her husband's death, Mrs. Rodale became chairwoman. One of her first acts was to push ahead plans for a new day-care center for employees' children. During her tenure, Rodale published The Doctors Book of Home Remedies, which has sold 20 million copies; expanded internationally; and launched Men's Health and New Farmer, the Russian magazine that was her husband's last project. In 2007, when her daughter, Maria, became chairwoman, Mrs. Rodale took the title of "chief inspiration officer." Rodale's mission, she said on the company Web site, is to show people how they can use the power of their bodies and minds to improve their lives:." 23. CBA asks Justice Department to investigate predatory book pricing While it was considerably late to the party, CBA, which represents retailers of Christian books and specialty merchandise, has requested the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate predatory-pricing practices of Wal-Mart, Amazon.com and Target in the pre-release of hard-cover books as well as the sales and pricing of e-books. The request seeks “to stop monopolization of the publishing industry through predatory pricing that would limit the sale of existing books to only a few retailers. Such practices will damage the entire publishing industry by promoting an unsustainable economic model,” says CBA. Rick Christian (yes, that’s really his name), president of the Colorado Springs-based literary agency Alive Communications, commented for CBA’s letter, saying, “The predatory pricing of Amazon, Target, and Wal-Mart threatens the entire publishing industry…. These retailers can sell hyper-reduced books as ‘loss leaders’ for a time, but it’s an unsustainable model that, without intervention, will shutter hundreds of book stores, force many publishers out of business, gut trade associations and significantly reduce the number of self-sustaining authors.” Christian said such practices eventually will limit titles available to consumers and raise prices. “It’s a scenario in which everybody loses in the long run, unless decisive action is taken immediately,” he said. He and his agency have represented very popular authors and titles, such as the “Left Behind” series (65 million unit sales), The Message Bible (10 million sales), and Karen Kingsbury novels (15 million sales). 24. Joseph Conrad classic republished as ‘The N-Word of the Narcissus’ A classic turn-of-the-century English novelist whose works have been read by countless millions of people is having his work sanitized for a new generation of readers. Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski), whose Heart of Darkness (the basis for Francis Ford Coppola’s movie “Apocalypse Now”),and Lord Jim (the basis for an award-winning movie starring Peter O’Toole) have been scrutinized by English students for decades, wrote a lesser known novel in 1897 called The Nigger of the Narcissus. Now, in what critics are calling a blatant act of censorship in an attempt to be politically correct, a Netherlands-based publisher has reprinted the novel under a new name: The N-word of the Narcissus. Some critics say updating a Conrad novel by replacing all mentions of the offensive term "nigger" with "n-word" is just as offensive as the word itself. "It's outrageous," said Niger Innis, spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality, a New York-based civil rights organization. "Are they going to go to Mark Twain as well and take out all of those references? "It's censorship, and to blacken over a word does not mean that you can blacken over the history." Innis said it would be equally inappropriate for Alex Haley's "Roots" to be re-released with instances of the racial slur replaced with a more innocuous term. 25. News from trade shows, book fairs and book festivals BEA show manager Lance Fensterman has been promoted to group vice president and will focus exclusively on the company's pop culture business. With no replacement for BEA in place yet, Fensterman "will remain on BEA through the transition." Fensterman's boss, one-time BEA show manager Courtney Muller, has also been promoted. She is now a senior vice president. Her responsibilities continue to include oversight of BEA. 26. Upcoming seminars for authors, publishers and micropresses Oconee Arts Foundation plans workshop for writers on Jan. 30 in Watkinsville, Ga. Do-it-yourself publishing, working with literary agents and freelancing in hard times are among the topics to be covered at the “Winter Wake-Up for Writers.” Other panels will cover marketing a book once it’s published and the essentials of an effective writers critique group. The panelists will include published and aspiring writers. The five panels will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Lunch is included in the $70 registration fee, which is discounted for OCAF members. Detailed program information and a registration form is at www.myocaf.com. Click on Education, then Literary Arts. A pdf Adult Registration Form is at the top of the page. Registration deadline is Jan. 23. For questions, e-mail wbe1955@aol.com or Cindy Farley at info@ocaf.com. 27. Major upcoming trade shows, book fairs and book festivals 2010 January Jan. 15-19. The American Library Association's Midwinter Conference - Philadelphia, PA. www.ala.org March
March 8-10. “Publishing at a Tipping Point” publishing business conference
keynoted by Steve Forbes. New York Marriott Marquis.
www.publishingbusiness.com. April
April 19-21. London Book Fair - www.londonbookfair.co.uk May
May 17-20. The Museum Store Association's
Retail Conference & Expo June The Australian Booksellers Association's - Melbourne. The American Library Association - Anaheim, CA. The International New Age Trade Show West - Denver, Colo. June 24-29. American Library Association's Annual Conference. Some 2,000 seminars and events as well as a huge trade show. June 27-30. CBA/The International Christian Retail Show, St. Louis, Mo. www.christianretailshow.com June. The National Association of College Stores Conference. www.nacs.org August August 20-21 (tentative). The Great American Bargain Book Show (GABBS) - Boston. Hynes Convention Center. www.gabbs.net August. The New York International Gift Fair – www.nyigf.com August. New Orleans-Gulf South Booksellers Association. October Oct. 6-10. Frankfurt Book Fair 2010. This is the Big Daddy of all book shows. Argentina is the Guest of Honor. October. Litquake, San Francisco’s Literary Festival. Event was held Oct. 9-17 in 2009. We’ll post the 2010 dates when we get ‘em. Meanwhile, visit http://www.litquake.org. Louisiana Book Festival, Baton Rouge, http://lbf.state.lib.la.us. Event was held Oct. 16-17 in 2009. We’ll post the 2010 dates when we get ‘em. Meanwhile, visit http://www.litquake.org.
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we're offering z beginners and an advanced seminar. Both seminars will be held in
classrooms at the Cobb Galleria Centre in north Atlanta. Attend either,
and you get free admission to the Spring Book Show, a $75 value.
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erstocks,
your titles need to be represented. More than 50,000 bargain-priced titles
represented by 100-plus dealers will be up for sale.
