The Book Standard Debuts This Week With Special ABA Offer

Today, a new online, book-industry trade publication makes its debut. VNU's The Book Standard (www.thebookstandard.com) aims to be a one-stop information center for book charts, market analysis, news, reviews, community information, and extensive database resources. In an effort to bring its publication to the computer desktops of independent booksellers, VNU is offering ABA bookstore members a free one-year subscription to The Book Standard.

According to Jerome Kramer, editor-in-chief and managing director, U.S. Literary Group for VNU, The Book Standard is the result of a year's work to find the best way to use VNU's rich content and data assets, most notably Nielsen BookScan chart data.

The Standard, which is modeled after Billboard -- long the music industry bible -- will use charts to give professionals in the book industry a "whole different way of looking at the book industry," Kramer explained, and added that it will provide the kind of analysis and editorial coverage that Billboard is famous for, but for the literary, publishing, and bookselling communities.

In addition to the bestseller charts powered by Nielsen BookScan, other Book Standard highlights will include daily commentary about the book publishing and bookselling industries; expert analysis of retail sales data and book-buying trends; book reviews powered by Kirkus, European market coverage and perspective from UK's The Bookseller; and three weekly e-Newsletters that subscribers can have delivered to their e-mail inbox: Chart Alert, Retail Report, and Books-to-Film. There are also plans to launch daily e-newsletters sometime in the future, Kramer noted.

Kramer told BTW that the marketplace was ripe for an industry information center like The Book Standard. "The bookselling business and the book business, in general, has not been covered in the way they deserve, with insightful, analytical reporting," he explained.

Now, ABA bookstore members can take advantage of this useful information with a free one-year subscription to The Book Standard. "ABA worked out a terrific deal with us, providing ABA [bookstore] members [free one-year] access to the site as a benefit of membership," Kramer explained. ABA bookstore members can sign up to receive exclusive, subscriber-only content, including total access to all of The Book Standard chart data, by clicking here. --David Grogan