Industry News

Tuesday, September 30, is the last day for stores participating in the Bacardi Mixers/Book Sense Book Club Sweepstakes to accept entries deposited in their store displays. At the end of the business day, stores must take down the ballot box.

Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2003 Shortlist Taps Two 76 Picks

Monica Ali, Margaret Atwood, Damon Galgut, Zoe Heller, Clare Morrall, and D.B.C. Pierre are the six authors shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2003, the UK's best known literary award. Two of the six books chosen were also Book Sense 76 picks. The shortlist was announced in London on Tuesday, September 16. The winner will be announced on Tuesday 14 October at an awards ceremony in the Great Court of the British Museum, London.

Last May, Margie Ghiz, owner of the Santa Monica, California's Midnight Special, told BTW that, after finally securing a new location for her bookstore less than a half-mile from her previous location, she hoped to reopen by the end of June. However, four months later, Midnight Special's new location remains closed, with Ghiz citing financial woes and unexpected delays. On September 12, Ghiz sent out an e-mail to her mailing list, appealing to her customers for help. "The response to our e-mail has been great," she said.

If advance hotel reservations are any indication, this year's New England Booksellers Association Annual Meeting & Trade Show will boast very robust attendance. The show, NEBA's 30th, will be held in Providence, Rhode Island, at the Rhode Island Convention Center from October 24 - 26. The trade show floor will be open from 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. on Saturday and 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. on Sunday.

The Royal Albert Hall may have featured J.K. Rowling at one of the most heavily attended author readings in history, but booksellers stateside can have an all-star lineup of Gertrude Stein, Charlotte Brontë, Langston Hughes, and Edgar Allan Poe, without a Ouija board and for less than a latté. Literary Luminaries, a new sidelines series celebrating great authors, playwrights, and poets, has become a quick favorite of booksellers.

Bookstores participating in the Book Sense marketing program were recently sent an e-mail requesting a response to ABA's semi-annual sales revenue survey. Responses to the survey, which was sent on September 10, provide the association with a picture of how its members are performing and enables ABA to answer questions from the press and other interested parties about the performance of independent bookstores.

ABA is asking booksellers to respond to the survey by September 24.

All responses are kept confidential.

On September 9, BookExpo America (BEA) issued an invitation to the book industry to submit proposals regarding authors and other speakers to participate in special events and education programs at next year's show. BEA 2004 will be held from Wednesday, June 2, to Sunday, June 6, at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago.

This is the second of four articles looking at the results of the recently released 2002 Consumer Research Study on Book Purchasing, conducted by Ipsos BookTrends and published by the Book Industry Study Group (BISG). This week's focus is the children's book market (13 years old and under).

There is still time to nominate candidates to serve on the American Booksellers Association Board of Directors. Any ABA member may submit nominations to the Nominating Committee, and all nominations will be held in the strictest confidence by the committee, which is chaired by Neal Coonerty of Bookshop Santa Cruz. Nominations must be received by October 6.

GLBA Announces Winners of "Get Caught Reading" Contest

On September 5, the Great Lakes Booksellers Association announced that Betsy Pangle, who shops at Schuler Books & Music in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was the winner of its first "Get Caught Reading" Photo Contest. Laurie Rivard, a customer of Butterfly Books in DePere, Wisconsin, was named the runner-up.

On Tuesday, September 9, an estimated 1,200 to 2,000 people gathered outside Boston's Faneuil Hall to voice their concerns about the USA Patriot Act. The gathering was in response to Attorney General John Ashcroft's stop in Boston during his nationwide tour to drum up support for the controversial act, which allows delayed notification of the execution of search warrants and authorizes no-knock searches of private residences, either physically or electronically.

The third and final installment of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Return of the King, will be in theaters this December, and once again Book Sense has joined with Houghton Mifflin and New Line Cinema to create a unique customer promotion for stores with Book Sense to mark the event.

On Wednesday, September 10, the following e-mail announcement was sent to BookSense.com members from Len Vlahos, BookSense.com director.

Greeting BookSense.com Bookseller,

Starting September 15, BookSense.com Co-op Reimbursement Program participants will be able to take advantage of a special offer from Algonquin Books. Booksellers who feature a special theme on their Web site based around titles culled from Esmé Raji Codell's new book, How to Get Your Child to Love Reading, and display the new book in their stores will be eligible to receive newsletter co-op from Algonquin.

As booksellers ready to celebrate Banned Books Week, which begins on September 20, some are putting money where their love of reading is, by sponsoring fundraisers for the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE).