TODAY'S NEWS

Smaller NCIBA Show Produces Positive Buzz
By Wendy Werris
Amid speculation that the nine regional booksellers associations might join forces in the future to accommodate economic challenges, and news that Vroman’s will likely purchase West Hollywood’s Book Soup in the next few weeks, the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association held its annual trade show October 8-12 in Oakland, Calif. In keeping with the recent trend to reduce the size of exhibition space at the regionals, NCIBA’s convention floor was 20% smaller than usual. “We have the same number of exhibitors this year, though,” said Hut Landon, executive director of NCIBA. “With the exception of Wiley, everyone came back this year. We’re thrilled.”

Landon was also pleased with the result of the new schedule for the trade show portion of the annual meeting, which in the past was customarily held on Saturday and Sunday. This year the floor was open for business on Friday and Saturday, with a significant attendance increase on the second day. “Sundays used to be fairly dead in here, but this year both days were busy and very productive,” Landon commented. Read on »

Bloomsbury Hot on Climate Title
By Jim Milliot
On the eve of the Frankfurt Book Fair, Bloomsbury has announced that it is moving up the publication schedule of its recently acquired Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity. Written by James Hansen, a leading climatologist and science advisor to Al Gore, Storms “is a page turning story, one that is shocking, dire, yet tremendously inspiring,” according to Bloomsbury editor Nancy Miller. Read on »

Wiley Announces Successors for Kippur, Swanson, Lieberman
With three of its top executives nearing retirement, John Wiley this morning announced succession plans for Stephen Kippur, Eric Swanson and Bonnie Lieberman. Kippur will retire as president of the professional/trade group July 31, 2010 and will be replaced by Mark Allin; Swanson will step down as senior v-p of the STMS group October 31, 2010, to be replaced by Steven Miron; and Lieberman will retire April 30, 2011 as senior v-p and general manager of the higher education group, to be succeeded by Joseph Heider. The announcement was made by Will Pesce, Wiley president and CEO, and Stephen Smith, executive v-p and COO. Read on »

Gaiman to Launch Crowd-Sourced Story on Twitter
By Lynn Andriani
Fantasy writer Neil Gaiman is writing a new crowd-sourced short story on Twitter. Starting tomorrow at noon EDT, the author—and well-known Twitter fan (@neilhimself)—will Tweet the first line of a new story, and fans can continue it with their own 140-character contributions. BBC Audiobooks America will then compile the contributions—they expect about 1,000—into a short story that will be recorded by a professional narrator. The audiobook will be available for free download at BBCAudiobooksAmerica.com/trade and at iTunes and other audiobook retailers before the end of the year. Read on »

Job Moves
John Freeman has been confirmed as editor of Granta. Freeman had been acting editor for the past few months; prior to that, he was American editor. The former National Book Critics Circle president and author of The Tyranny of E-mail (Scribner) was responsible for the recently published Granta 108, which focused on Chicago and was reprinted a week after publication, making it the fastest-selling issue in the magazine’s 30-year history. Freeman is based in London and New York.

Blogs

MORE STORIES

The PW Morning Report: Monday, October 12, 2009
Wherever there is publishing news (on the Internet), the PW Morning Report will be there: A Woman Who Reads a Book a Day; German Chancellor Against Google; Reassessing Sendak; A Solar E-Reader; Sale of Book Soup Worries Customers; Harvard to Digitize Rare Chinese Books. Read on »

AUTHORS ON THE AIR

Authors on the Air: Barbara Taylor Bradford; Sanjay Gupta; Mike Farrell
Yesterday, CBS Sunday Morning featured Barbara Taylor Bradford, marking the 30th anniversary of her debut novel, A Woman of Substance (St. Martin's Griffin, 978-0312588885, $16.99), which comes out tomorrow in a 30th anniversary edition. Tomorrow’s also the pub date of Bradford's 25th novel, Breaking the Rules (St. Martin's Press, 978-0312578060, $27.99; Macmillan Audio abridged CD, $29.99; unabridged, $44.99). Read on »

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Reps in Oakland
For this past weekend's NCIBA regional trade show, many publisher reps were in Oakland, Calif., to promote titles and talk shop with their colleagues. Pictured, l. to r., are Rob Flynn, Getty marketing director; and reps Will Gawronski of Columbia University Press; Gary Hart of the University of Chicago Press; and Jane Brown of DAP. Submit your pictures here »

JOB OF THE DAY

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