The Credit Crunch Intensifies

On the surface, there may seem to be little new about booksellers facing a credit crunch. But what has changed over the past six months is a further clamping down by publishers. Credit reps have started calling to demand check information days before payments are due. Booksellers like Susan Weis-Bohlen, owner of breathe books in Baltimore, who hasn’t missed a payment in seven years, but accidentally skipped an invoice for $248, are put on credit hold or threatened with it. And a New York bookseller who asked for another week to pay off an invoice for a couple hundred dollars was advised to pull returns. With publishers acting more aggressively plus a difficult first quarter along with a dip in frontlist hardcover sales attributable to e-books, credit has emerged as a serious concern for independent booksellers.

The Drama Book Shop—Award Winner

And the winner of this year’s Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre is... the Drama Book Shop, an independent New York City bookstore dating to 1917, 30 years older than the Tony Awards.

MFA Bookstore to Close, Temporarily

Barnes & Noble Amends Lending Agreement

Barnes & Noble has reached an agreement with a group of lenders that the retailer said will lower its annual interest costs and give it more financial flexibility. The amended $1 billion revolving credit facility also extends the previous maturity date from September 29, 2013 to April 29, 2016.

As Losses Mount, Borders Ponders Path

As it struggles to find a way to become a profitable business, Borders released its 10-K filing late Friday and its first monthly reports on how the company is faring under Chapter 11.

BookMan/BookWoman Adds Something New

In a time when bookstores are adding used-book sections to bolster their diminishing numbers of new book sales (see, for example, Anderson's Books, PW's 2011 Bookstore of the Year, PW, Apr. 25), Nashville's BookMan/BookWoman used-book store has recently broadened its selection to include new titles—specifically, current bestsellers and "what we think should be bestsellers," all for sale at 20% off the cover price.

DK Booksellers Opens Tomorrow

On Friday Joseph-Beth Booksellers founder Neil Van Uum will close on the Memphis store, which will reopen as DK Booksellers, the name he chose for his new book company. In a phone conversation, Van Uum says that he is planning a complete remodel of the store and a major refresh of the inventory. He also thanked the community. "The outpouring of support in Memphis has been unbelievable," he says.

Joseph-Beth Surprises: Memphis Store to Van Uum & Settlement with Ingram

This morning's hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky will not only determine whether last week's auction results hold, despite a filing by the Cleveland Clinic to oppose Booksellers Enterprises taking over the Joseph-Beth there, but also whether Joseph-Beth Booksellers founder Neil Van Uum will keep one of his stores. In another twist, the Creditors Committee filed a motion for court approval of a settlement with the Ingram Book Group, which, under the name General Benton Smith, owned a 1% interest in Joseph-Beth.

Borders Asks for Extension to Review More Store Leases

Borders filed three motions Friday asking the bankruptcy court to extend the deadline to assume or reject leases on 92 stores. According to the motions, Borders is asking that it be given an extension on making a decision on the stores until either the confirmation of a reorganization plan or January 12, 2012, whichever event occurs first.

Booksellers Enterprises Takes JB & Davis-Kidd Names

When newly formed Booksellers Enterprises, LLC, an affiliate of Langley Properties Co., which manages The Mall at Lexington Green where the Lexington Joseph-Beth Booksellers is located, emerged victorious as the bidder for that store and stores in Cincinnati and the Cleveland Clinic, it bought something almost as important—the Joseph-Beth and the Davis-Kidd names. Now it is working behind the scenes to try to get the Memphis Davis-Kidd, which was awarded to liquidator Gordon Brothers.

A Conversation With Oren Teicher

With BookExpo America a month away, Oren Teicher, American Booksellers Association CEO, was optimistic about the state of independent bookselling. A realist, Teicher said, "We don't by any stretch minimize the difficulty of operating an independent bookstore in 2011. But there are a number of opportunities that not only allow us to hang in but do well." Among them is that after a decade and a half slide, ABA's membership has stabilized. Teicher expects that by BEA, there will be 1,500 member stores doing business at 2,000 locations. Last year at this time, ABA reported 1,410 members, almost identical to the 2009 figures of 1,401.

The New York State of Bookselling

Independent booksellers may have dreaded Borders's arrival in New York City in 1996, but it was Barnes & Noble that tried to keep its longtime rival out by leasing every available 40,000-sq.-ft. space on its home turf.

Buffalo Street Books to Reopen Saturday—as a Co-operative

When Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, N.Y., was about to liquidate its inventory in February, it seemed destined to become one more fatality of today’s economy and e-tailers. Thanks to then events coordinator Bob Proehl, now director of operations, who came up with the idea of selling shares to raise a needed $250,000, when the bookstore reopens on Saturday in the same mall with the famed Moosewood Restaurant, former owner Gary Weissbrot will be general manager and there will be more than 600 new owners, including a nearby church, which passed the hat.

Fire Closes Brattleboro Bookstore

A six-alarm fire Sunday night at the historic Brooks House on Main Street in Brattleboro, Vt., brought firefighters from three states and closed The Book Cellar, one of several commercial tenants on the ground floor.

Book Sales Fell 6% at Books-A-Million

Sales of books and magazines fell 6.3% at Books-A-Million, to $385 million, for the year ended January 29, the nation’s third largest bookstore chain reported in its 10-K filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission Friday. While sales of books and magazines fell, sales in the "other" products category that includes music, DVDs, e-books and other products rose 28.6%, to $40.5 million.

Annie's Book Stop Turns 30

Three decades ago, franchises of independent bookstores created some of the biggest chains in the country. At its height in the late 1980s, Annie's Book Stop, which was headquartered in Westborough, Mass., boasted more than 130 used-book stores in 22 states, making it the seventh largest bookstore chain.

A Different Light Goes Out

The first week of April brought the news that one of the LGBT community's oldest and most beloved literary institutions, San Francisco's A Different Light Bookstore, was going out of business. Though it follows a trend that has seen the closing of ADL's L.A. and New York locations, the loss of the original Castro district shop, first opened in 1979 by Richard Labonté, hit the shrinking community of LGBT booksellers particularly hard.

Borders Bonus Plan On Hold Until Next Week

At Thursday’s hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in N.Y., Borders’s motion for lease modifications was quickly approved by Judge Martin Glenn and has already been signed. However, the issue over bonuses remains unresolved.

Assouline Opens London Boutique

After launching upscale boutiques in Costa Mesa, Calif., and Istanbul, Turkey, late last year, New York-based art book publisher Assouline is invading the U.K. with its first store, located on the ground floor of London's 136-year-old Liberty. The store's soft launch is today. “We’re thrilled to be welcoming Assouline to Liberty,” says managing director Ed Burstell. "It's a fantastic partnership, Assouline as the world leader in publishing quality book titles and retailing collectible objects, and Liberty as the great heritage emporium in London."