Industry News

The October issue of The Atlantic Monthly will include two bookmark-style ads featuring Book Sense 76 recommendations from booksellers with Book Sense.

Left to right: Panelists Zachary Marcus, Trina Magi, Rep. Bernie Sanders, Edward Morrow, and Ben Scotch.

On Sunday, August 17, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) sponsored a Congressional Town Meeting on the "USA Patriot Act and Our Civil Liberties," co-hosted by the Northshire Bookstore of Manchester Center, Vermont.

Each new season brings changes in hemlines, baby names, and books being published … and shoplifted. Many New England booksellers are finding that blockbuster bestsellers are very high on the lists of books most stolen from independent stores. The problem of shoplifting is a constant one for retailers, but some New England Booksellers Association (NEBA) members have recently noticed changes in the quantity and types of books stolen from their stores.

Blogs, short for Web logs, are rapidly becoming ways for individuals to share information about their lives and work. Teenagers love them, authors communicate with readers, even politicians are chronicling their activities and philosophies through blogs. Some booksellers are experimenting with blogs to pass on information of interest to dedicated customers.

Maybe somebody up there likes independent booksellers. Or maybe it was simply a coincidence that the majority of Northeastern booksellers who spoke to BTW about last Thursday's blackout explained that -- while all around them other business owners fumbled through the dark -- for reasons sometimes unknown, their lights never went out. And for one night, these independent bookstores were not only a symbolic, but also a literal, beacon of light in their communities.

In a month featuring the release of two new blockbusters, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's Living History, and the first pick of Oprah's revived book club -- East of Eden, bookstore sales came in slightly ahead of last year's figure. June is the first month this year to show a gain over 2002.

Retail sales in bookstores in June of $1,178 million were 1.9 percent better than last June’s $1,156 million.

On August 13, ABA announced that an agreement and order forms to sign up for the Book Sense Electronic Gift Card Program are now available online, at www.BookWeb.org/read/6372. Booksellers participating in the Book Sense marketing program are encouraged to sign the agreement and to order gift cards immediately to have them available for sale by October 1.

Within the next few weeks, ABA will begin producing the print-on-demand edition of the 2003-2004 edition of the ABA Book Buyer's Handbook. The price for this edition has been set at $55.

Simplified Online Sales Tax Initiative Making Progress

On Wednesday, August 13, the Wall Street Journal reported that states are making progress with a program intended to simplify how sales tax is collected from out-of-state retailers. The Streamlined Sales Tax Project, which includes 20 states that have passed legislation to simply their sales tax laws, would make it easier to collect an estimated $13 billion in sales taxes from online purchases. The initiative is not expected to be in place until late 2004, at the earliest.

This summer, Book Sense and The History Channel joined to launch Hardcover History, a monthly in-store promotion that pairs special History Channel shows with suggested reading. With publisher support, each month Book Sense creates a unique bookmark to be placed in the Hardcover History easelback. Hardcover History entices customers to return to bookstores each month for reading recommendations that compliment meaningful History Channel programs.

The following editorial appeared in the August 8 edition of the Los Angeles Times.

Barring the Book Snoops

In December, a St. Louis library user whispered that a Middle Eastern-looking man using the public computers seemed suspicious. The librarian called the FBI, but the man left before agents arrived. In an effort to identify him, the agents asked for and got a thick stack of papers listing everyone who had used the library's computers in the previous week.

The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA) Fall Trade Show will be held on Sunday and Monday, September 21 - 22, in the Events Center at the Borgata Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The two-day event offers booksellers a wealth of educational programming on Sunday, and, on Monday, over 500 publishers at 275 display tables will be represented on the trade show floor, and 100 authors will be on hand to autograph books.

Kim Dickie, the new owner of Hobbit Hall Children's Bookstore in Roswell, Georgia, sees plenty of room for growth in an arena small booksellers have largely left to others -- school book fairs. When Dickie took over the reins of the 12-year-old bookstore from Anne Ginkle in March 2003, the school book fair division was a growing component of the store.

Online retail book sales will nearly double over the next five years, according to "U.S. eCommerce Overview: 2003 to 2008," a report recently released by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Forrester Research. Overall, the study predicted, e-commerce will experience a 19 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years, from $95.7 billion to just under $230 billion and will account for 10 percent of total U.S. retail sales by 2008.