BTW News Briefs

Prospective Booksellers Complete Paz “Bookstore Boot Camp”

New and prospective independent bookstore owners received a crash course in retail management training at last week’s workshop retreat “Owning A Bookstore: The Business Essentials“ (often referred to as “Bookstore Boot Camp”) on Amelia Island, Florida.

At the workshop, facilitated by The Bookstore Training Group of Paz & Associates and co-sponsored by the American Booksellers Association, 13 book industry trainers shared ideas and best practices with bookselling trainees hailing from New Hampshire to California, and as far away as El Salvador. 

The next “Bookstore Boot Camp” course is scheduled for August 27–30, 2017, in Nashville, Tennessee, where trainees will tour Parnassus Books and Ingram’s LaVergne facility. For more details, visit the Paz website.

NAIBA Offers Grants for Independent Bookstore Day Projects

The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA) has created a fund to assist bookstore communities in the region that are promoting Independent Bookstore Day (IBD), April 29, through group projects.

Projects can include a store locator map, a bookmark, a gift card prize, and more. Stores should submit a record of the expenses and an explanation of the project to NAIBA; the fund is limited to $100 per community project.

“The NAIBA board wants to encourage and support any efforts to promote groups of stores in geographic areas,” said NAIBA Executive Director Eileen Dengler. “IBD is a great event and a great day to educate consumers to the many stores in our communities. We want to see more of it!”

Booksellers can send their documents to Dengler via e-mail at [email protected].

BolognaFiere to Launch Copyright/Licensing Show in NYC

BolognaFiere, the organizer of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, is set to launch a new copyright trade and licensing show in New York City in May 2018, The Bookseller reported.

The inaugural show will take place from May 30 to June 1, 2018, in a midtown Manhattan location not yet announced. Publishers Weekly and marketing company Combined Book Exhibit will partner with BolognaFiere on the event, which will be open only to trade exhibitors. The Bookseller noted that this could mean a clash with BookExpo, which is also usually held in New York at the end of May.

BolognaFiere, which manages three exhibition centers in Italy and organizes more than 80 trade shows nationally and abroad, is currently bidding to attract U.S. publishers and agents from the adult and children’s markets, and their global business partners, as well as booksellers and librarians, The Bookseller reported.

In a press conference during this week’s Bologna Book Fair, BolognaFiere’s commercial director Marco Momoli said the company wants to expand internationally and into the adult sphere. He also said prices will be kept as low as possible to allow all types of publishers to attend.

Nominations Open for PW Star Watch

Nominations are now open for the PW Star Watch program. Now in its third year, Star Watch celebrates up-and-coming members of the U.S. publishing community on a global stage.

Supported by Publishers Weekly and Frankfurter Buchmesse (the Frankfurt Book Fair), the contest identifies 40 “stars” of American publishing. Five top honorees will be selected from the longlist, and a single “Superstar” will be announced in September at the PW Star Watch event in New York. The winner will be awarded an all-expenses-paid trip to the Frankfurt Book Fair in October.

All 40 stars on the longlist will be featured in PW this September and will be honored at events in New York this fall and at the Frankfurt Book Fair. 

Learn about the PW Star Watch nomination process here.

Isla Fisher Added to BookExpo Children’s Author Breakfast

Actress and comedian Isla Fisher will be the final speaker at BookExpo 2017’s Children’s Book & Author Breakfast on Friday, June 2, ReedPOP announced Tuesday.

Fisher will be speaking about her new middle grade book Marge in Charge (Piccadilly Press), the first in a three-book series, and the importance of helping children learn through storytelling. She has worked in TV and film for 25 years, including roles in The Great Gatsby, Wedding Crashers, Scooby Doo, and Arrested Development, and, most recently, in Nocturnal Animals.

The other author/celebrity panelists will be Jason Reynolds, author of Miles Morales (Marvel Press), Patina (Simon & Schuster), and Long Way Down (Caitlyn Dlouhy Books/Atheneum Books for Young Readers); Marieke Nijkamp, author of Before I Let Go (Sourcebooks Fire); and Jennifer Weiner, author of Little Bigfoot, Big City (Aladdin).

For more information or to register, visit the BookExpo website. BookExpo attendees are required to purchase a separate ticket for the breakfast.

HarperCollins Launches Two Anniversary Projects

HarperCollins has launched two new projects as part of its yearlong global campaign commemorating the company’s 200th anniversary.

The first is a new audio tour of New York City, which takes book lovers on a virtual journey to the homes of some of the publisher’s most beloved authors, including Harper Lee, Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain, and Zora Neale Hurston. The HarperCollins 200th anniversary website includes an interactive map pinpointing key addresses in the authors’ lives, and each location features its own seven-minute recording detailing its historical and literary significance.

The second project is the exhibition “Harper & Brothers to HarperCollins Publishers: A Bicentennial Exhibition,” at the Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library, open now through July 21. The exhibition draws on the archives of Harper & Brothers and Harper & Row held by the library to highlight the publisher’s early history. More about the exhibit can be found on the university’s website. For more information about HarperCollins’ 200th anniversary, visit the anniversary website.

Bookmasters to Distribute Three New Publishers

Bookmasters has signed new agreements with three publishers — Bitmap Books, KiCam Projects, and Dalton Windsor — to distribute their titles in the United States and abroad.

Bookmasters is owned by Follett Corporation and is a strategic partner with Baker & Taylor.

May Buzz Books Monthly Out Now From Publishers Lunch

Publishers Lunch’s new May Buzz Books Monthly e-book includes substantial excerpts from seven titles and a comprehensive preview highlighting hundreds of notable forthcoming titles for the month.

The Buzz Books Monthly series is a spin-off of Publishers Lunch’s free, twice-a-year Buzz Books publication. May Buzz Books Monthly is available to download on the NetGalley homepage.

NCIBA 2017 Book of the Year Award Winners Announced

The bookstore members of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) have selected the winners of NCIBA’s 2017 Book of the Year Awards, which honor titles published in 2016 by Northern California authors. Prize committee chairs included booksellers from Copperfield’s Books, Book Passage, Books Inc., Green Apple Books, and Kepler’s Books.

This year’s winners are:

• Fiction: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Knopf)
• Nonfiction: We Gon’ Be Alright by Jeff Chang (Picador USA)
• Poetry: Dated Emcees by Chinaka Hodge (City Lights)
• Special Honor: Collected Poems 1950-2012 by Adrienne Rich (W.W. Norton & Co.)
• Food: The Forest Feast Gatherings by Erin Gleeson (Abrams)
• Regional Interest: The Sea Forager’s Guide to the Northern California Coast by Kirk Lombard (Heyday)
• Picture Book: Airport Book by Lisa Brown (Roaring Brook Press)
• Middle Grade: Cloud and Wallfish by Anne Nesbet (Candlewick Press)
• Young Adult: A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir (Razorbill)

Jenny Xie Named Winner of 2017 Walt Whitman Award

Jenny Xie is the 2017 recipient of the Academy of American Poets’ Walt Whitman Award, the country’s most valuable first-book prize for a poet. Established in 1975, the award was designed to encourage the work of emerging poets.

U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera selected Xie as this year’s winner. Xie’s manuscript, Eye Level, will be published by Graywolf Press in 2018; the Academy will also purchase and send copies of the book to its members.

Xie will receive a six-week residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Umbria, Italy, and a prize of $5,000; she will also be featured on Poets.org and in American Poets magazine.

2017 Baileys Prize Shortlist Announced

The 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist was announced at Waterstones’ Tottenham Court Road location (London) on Monday, April 3. The shortlist, which includes six titles by authors from four nations and five publishers, is as follows:

• Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀̀, from Nigeria: Stay With Me (Canongate)
• Naomi Alderman, from the U.K.: The Power (Viking)
• Linda Grant, from the U.K.: The Dark Circle (Virago)
• C.E. Morgan, from the United States: The Sport of Kings (4th Estate)
• Gwendoline Riley, from the U.K.: First Love (Granta)
• Madeleine Thein, from Canada: Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Granta)

The winner, who will be announced on June 7 at Royal Festival Hall in London, will receive a check for £30,000 (US$37,400) and a limited edition copy of the bronze “Bessie” award.