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SBA Offers EMV Card Webinar

The U.S. Small Business Administration and mobile payment company Square are teaming up to present a free webinar on October 14 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. entitled “EMV 101: What Small Businesses Need to Know About the Switch to Chip Card Technology.”

At the EMV 101 webinar, participants will learn: what the transition to EMV chip card technology means for small businesses; what EMV chip card technology is and why it’s more secure; and what the new fraud liability rules that take effect October 1st mean for merchants.

Booksellers can register for the webinar here.

Schumacher Wins Thurber Prize for American Humor

Julie Schumacher was announced as the winner of the 2015 Thurber Prize for American Humor for her book Dear Committee Members (Doubleday) during a ceremony on Monday at Carolines on Broadway in New York City. This is the first time in its history that the Thurber Prize has gone to a woman.

Schumacher grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, and graduated from Oberlin College and Cornell University. Her first novel, The Body Is Water, was published by Soho Press in 1995 and was an ALA Notable Book of the Year and a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. She teaches creative writing at the University of Minnesota.

We Need Diverse Books to Present First Walter Dean Myers Award

We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) will present the first annual Walter Dean Myers Award on March 18, 2016, the organization announced Tuesday. The new award, also known as “The Walter,” will be given to “a diverse author whose work features a diverse main character or addresses diversity in a meaningful way.” The award is named for the late children’s and young adult author Walter Dean Myers, who spent his life advocating for diversity in children’s and YA books, and served as a National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

A ceremony will take place at 10:00 a.m. at the Library of Congress in collaboration with the Center for the Book and the Young Readers Center. Myers’ son Christopher Myers will serve as Master of Ceremonies and Jon Scieszka, Inaugural Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, will speak about Myers’ legacy

As part of its promotional campaign for the award, WNDB will purchase several thousand copies of the award-winning book and will work with the book’s author and publisher to provide Skype and in-person visits at schools and libraries.

23 Publishers Sign Deals With IPG

Independent Publishers Group (IPG) has inked agreements with 23 publishers who will be distributed under its various distribution arms, including Trafalgar Square Publishing, Art Stock Books, and IPG Spanish Books.

Beginning November 1, 2015, IPG will distribute Central Avenue Publishing, a fiction publisher based in British Columbia, Canada. Other IPG publisher clients, whose distribution arrangements go into effect on January 1, 2016, include At Bay Press, Bedazzled Ink Publishing, Cardinal Rule Press, Doodles Ave, Holland House, Just World Books, Meteoor Publishing, NSTA Kids, Oddint Media, Phonic Monic, PublikumArt, Starfish Bay Children’s Books, Strauss House Publications, and Peek-A-Boo Publishing.

IPG’s Trafalgar Square will begin distributing Filbert Press on January 1, 2016.

Art Stock Books has added two new publishers to its distribution list: Verlag Anton Pustet, with distribution beginning October 1, 2015, and Triplekite Publishing, beginning in fall 2016.

IPG Spanish Books has already begun distributing Vaso Roto Ediciones and will now distribute Del Nuevo Extremo starting October 1, 2016, as well as EDHASA, Ediciones Lea, and Diabolo Ediciones, beginning January 1, 2016.

National Book Foundation Announces 2015 “5 Under 35” Honorees

The National Book Foundation announced its 2015 5 Under 35 Honorees on Wednesday. In recognition of the program’s 10th anniversary, five writers who previously received the 5 Under 35 Honor made this year’s selections.

This year’s honorees are:

  • Colin Barrett, author of Young Skins (Black Cat/Grove Atlantic), selected by Paul Yoon
  • Angela Flournoy, author of The Turner House (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), selected by ZZ Packer
  • Megan Kruse, author of Call Me Home (Hawthorne Books), selected by Phil Klay
  • Tracy O’Neill, author of The Hopeful (Ig Publishing), selected by Fiona Maazel
  • Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, author of Fra Keeler (Dorothy, a publishing project), selected by Dinaw Mengestu

This year’s honorees will be feted at a ceremony hosted by LeVar Burton, curator-in-chief and host of Reading Rainbow, on November 16 at powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn, New York.

Each honoree will receive a prize of $1,000 and will be invited to appear at a special event in the spring of 2016 co-presented by Miami Book Fair International.

2015 Kirkus Prize Finalists Announced

Kirkus Review announced the finalists on Wednesday for the second annual Kirkus Prizes, which award $50,000 to each winner in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers’ literature.

The finalists were chosen from 1,032 titles with publication dates between November 1, 2014, and October 31, 2015, that received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews.

A panel of judges, composed of librarians, Kirkus critics, writers, and booksellers, including Nicole Magistro, owner of The Bookworm of Edwards, in Edwards, Colorado, picked the finalists. The winners will be announced at a special ceremony in Austin, Texas, on October 15.

The finalists for the 2015 Kirkus Prize are:

Fiction:

  • The Incarnations by Susan Barker (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster)
  • A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
  • Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (Riverhead Books)
  • The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli; translated by Christina MacSweeney (Coffee House Press)
  • The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard (Alfred A. Knopf)
  • A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (Doubleday)

Nonfiction:

  • Between the World and Me: Notes on the First 150 Years in America by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Spiegel & Grau)
  • Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It by John Ferling (Bloomsbury)
  • H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (Grove Press)
  • The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 by Adam Tooze (Viking)
  • Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World’s Superpowers by Simon Winchester (Harper)
  • The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf (Knopf)

Young Readers’ Literature:

Picture Books

  • The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus by Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet (Eerdmans)
  • Aviary Wonders Inc.: Spring Catalog and Instruction Manual by Kate Samworth (Clarion)

Middle Grade

  • El Deafo by Cece Bell (Amulet/Abrams)
  • The Key That Swallowed Joey Pigza by Jack Gantos (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Young Adult

  • The Story of Owen, Dragon Slayer of Trondheim by E.K. Johnston (Carolrhoda Lab)
  • The Freedom Summer Murders by Don Mitchell (Scholastic)

NetGalley Introduces “Wish Granting”

NetGalley announced its new “wish granting” feature on Tuesday, which will allow publishers to facilitate digital book giveaways and generate reviews from readers using the NetGalley platform.

NetGalley, which has long allowed publishers to set request availability by member type and date, will now allow its members to “wish” for a title if it cannot be requested, by clicking the wishbone icon as they browse titles. Publishers will then “grant wishes” to randomly selected NetGalley members, who can then read, review, and recommend the book. While members are not required to provide or share reviews, those who “demonstrate influence” will receive access to new books earlier and more frequently.

Reviewers can register for free at www.netgalley.com, or be invited to view titles directly by publishers.

Edelweiss Partners With DOGObooks

The Edelweiss catalog platform now includes a DOGObooks popularity index in all children’s title entries.

DOGO, a site for kids’ book reviews, has more than 190,000 books being followed and 90,000 online book reviews.

“Providing book buyers and librarians with feedback on what kids think of a title adds another key piece of information to the Edelweiss platform…We’re thrilled to share this feedback with our user community to support marketing efforts and buying decisions for children’s books,” said John Rubin, president and CEO of Above the Treeline, which runs Edelweiss.

Booksellers can view a current DOGO-rated book on Edelweiss here.

HarperCollins Forms HarperCollins Italia

On Wednesday, HarperCollins announced the formation of HarperCollins Italia, a move that continues the expansion of the company’s Global Publishing Program.

Italy’s 34-year-old Harlequin Mondadori S.p.A, formerly a joint venture with Harlequin Enterprises and Mondadori Libri, will now be fully owned by HarperCollins. HarperCollins Italia will continue to publish romance under the Harmony imprint, only now with more titles from HarperCollins and Harlequin, as well as titles by local authors.