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Bookstore Sales Fall 7.7% in September
Bookstore sales had their worst month of 2010 in September, with sales down 7.7%, to $1.51 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported this morning. The September decline follows a 6.5% drop in August and resulted in a 2.6% decline in bookstore sales, to $12.31 billion, for the first nine months of the year. For the entire retail segment, September sales were up 7.6% and nine month sales increased 6.3%.
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New Book Sales Tumble at Hastings
Comparable store sales of new books declined 9.3% in the third quarter ended October 31 at Hastings Entertainment, the multimedia retailer reported this morning. Hastings said "it is certainly the case that electronic book readers are impacting new book sales," and hinted that it is ready to stock fewer new titles. Sales of used and value books rose 7.8% for the quarter resulting in a 6.2% drop in book sales overall in the quarter.
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The Midwest's Quiet Bookseller
While some of the country's most high-profile regional chain bookstores and national chain bookstores have downsized in response to increased competition, a weak economy, and changes in readers' buying patterns, an independent regional bookstore chain headquartered in central Wisconsin has quietly thrived for almost 35 years.
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Two NYC Kids' Stores Celebrate 70 Years—Combined
This fall two New York City independent children's bookstores are hitting big numbers, at least birthday-wise. Bank Street Bookstore is marking its first four decades, while Books of Wonder just turned 30.
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Joseph-Beth Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection
Following last week's announcement that the Joseph-Beth Booksellers stores in Charlotte, N.C., and Pittsburgh will close by year's end, the Joseph-Beth Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District of Kentucky. The Joseph-Beth store in Cleveland and the Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville will also close.
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Bookazine's Eclectic & Electric Highlights Small Presses
When Bookazine built a mezzanine in its warehouse earlier this year, it was with an eye to expanding its title base by 20,000 titles and going deeper into large publishers' backlist and small press titles. After testing a program to promote small presses earlier this fall at three regional conferences, the Bayonne, N.J.-based wholesaler is rolling out its Eclectic & Electric program.
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Borders and B&N Partner with ShopRunner
With Wal-Mart offering free shipping through the holidays, it's clear that retailers are trying to remove potential impediments to online shopping this holiday season. Both Borders and Barnes & Noble will also provide free two-day shipping, but through ShopRunner.
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Borders Expands Games and Toys
In an interview with PW earlier this fall, Borders CEO Mike Edwards said that as more books are sold in digital formats, retailers need to redeploy the space they have used to sell trade titles. At Borders that has meant adding more educational toys and games and branded books.
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NECBA's Holiday Top 10+
'Tis the season for top 10 lists. But this fall the New England Children's Booksellers Advisory Council just couldn't cut off its biannual selection of the season's best. So it is featuring 11 middle-grade and young-adult fiction titles culled from galleys and ARCs by booksellers throughout the region.
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Indigo Sales Rise Despite Weak Book Results
Indigo Books & Music's strategy of relying less on printed books was evident in the second quarter as Canada's largest bookstore chain reported that it had strong gains in its digital, gift, and toy businesses, while its core book business "experienced a challenging quarter against a very strong line up of titles in the same period last year." Overall, Indigo revenue rose 3.8%, to C$214.8 million, and the company had a net loss of C$1.8 million compared to earnings of C$2.2 million in last year's second quarter.
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Borders Signs with Chegg, Expands Children's Offerings
Borders continues to expand its offerings through strategic partnerships both in-store and online. Today it announced a partnership with Chegg.com, which will serve as the sole provider of textbook rentals through Borders.com. The arrangement, part of the new Borders Textbook Marketplace, complements the company's current offering of 1.4 million new and used textbooks.
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Regional Trade Shows Live for Another Day
Despite the nine regional bookseller organizations continually revamping their fall trade shows/conferences to meet their members' changing needs, bookseller attendance declined at many of this year's shows, or didn't make up for drops in 2009.
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NE Mobile Book Fair For Sale
In the past two years, two of the Boston area's iconic bookstores have changed hands, Harvard Book Store in Cambridge in fall 2008 and Wellesley Booksmith just two months ago. Yesterday, New England Mobile Book Fair in Newton Highlands became the third to go on the shopping block.
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Rainy Day Books Celebrates 35 Years
With Rainy Day Books celebrating its 35th anniversary today, bookseller Geoffrey Jennings, son of store founder and current owner, Vivien Jennings, insisted that the secret to store's longevity is simply that they are doing what they've always done since his mother opened a 450-square-foot used paperback bookstore in Fairway, Kans. in 1975: sell books.
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New Children's Bookstores to Open in Mass., Wash.
At both ends of the country, two new children's bookstores are about to open their doors. Nancy Oliver is just one month away from opening Wit and Whimsy, a children's bookstore in Marblehead, Mass. And The Bookworm Burrow will open in Bellingham, Wash., on November 16, focusing on picture books, both new and used.
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Borders Outsourcing Call Center, Keeping DC
Contrary to some media reports yesterday, Borders said it is not closing its distribution center in Tennessee. A spokesperson said the retailer is in the process of outsourcing its customer call center, located on the same "campus" as the distribution center, a process that should be completed by December 23. The distribution center will remain open.
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Six U.K. Publishers Sign with Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square Publishing in Chicago, the distribution arm of IPG that represents U.K. and Australian presses, has signed six houses from the other side of the pond and will start distributing their titles January 1. Among them is the 10-year-old British subsidiary of Grove/Atlantic, Atlantic Books UK.
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Obituary: John Olsson, Founder of Olsson's Books & Records
Olsson's Books & Records founder John Olsson died last Thursday. A Washington native and graduate of Catholic University, Olsson began working in retail for Discount Records in Washington in 1958 and stayed until 1972 when he opened his own record store. He eventually added books to the mix. At its height, Olsson's had nine book and music stores in the Washington, D.C., metro area with sales over $16 million and 200 employees. Thirty-six years after the independent chain opened, it went into bankruptcy in fall 2008 and closed all of its locations.
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Unchained Tour Barnstorms For Georgia's Indies
George Dawes Green—poet, novelist, and son of Georgia's St. Simon's Island—believes that "everyone's had enough of the Internet." As proof, he can point to the success of the Moth, the storytelling series he founded in New York in 1997, which has spawned franchises in a handful of cities across the country (L.A., Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta) and, just this year, in Berlin, Germany.
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Obry Named MBA Director
Carrie Obry, an acquisitions editor at Llewellyn Worldwide in suburban St. Paul, Minn., has been named the new executive director of the Midwest Booksellers Association. Obry will replace Susan Walker, and will assume her new responsibilities on Dec. 27.
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