PW Announces Finalists for Bookseller and Rep of the Year Awards

At the final breakfast plenary at Winter Institute 12, on Monday, January 30, Publishers Weekly’s Judith Rosen announced the shortlist for the 2017 PW Bookstore and Sales Rep of the Year awards, which single out outstanding contributors to the bookselling industry.

This year’s finalists are:

2017 PW Bookstore of the Year Shortlist

• Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
• The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah
• Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee
• Prairie Lights in Iowa City, Iowa
• Wild Rumpus Books in Minneapolis, Minnesota

2017 PW Rep of the Year Shortlist

• Anne DeCourcey at HarperCollins
• Christine Foye at Simon & Schuster
• Jon Mayes at Publishers Group West
• Jen Medina at Macmillan
• John Mesjak at Abraham Associates

This year’s winners will be named in March and will be featured in the pre-BookExpo edition of Publishers Weekly magazine on May 15. The awards will be presented at the American Booksellers Association’s Celebration of Bookselling at BookExpo in New York City.

SIBA to Offer Discount to Publishers to Promote Books by Persons of Color

Starting February 1, the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) will offer a 35 percent discount to publishers [10] that wish to promote authors and illustrators of color through SIBA promotions in 2017. 

Any book written or illustrated by a person of color is eligible for the discount, which applies to all SIBA promotions except for the annual holiday catalog. SIBA executive director Wanda Jewell said she hopes the initiative will inspire publishers to send more diverse authors to SIBA territory.

For more information about the program, contact Jewell at [email protected] [11].

Gene Luen Yang Announces Launch of Reading Without Walls Month

National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Gene Luen Yang has announced the launch of Reading Without Walls Month [12], which asks young people to explore the world through diverse books.

The program, which will take place annually starting with April 2017, challenges young people to read a book about a character that is unlike themselves in some way; read a book about a topic they don’t know about; or read a book in a format that they don’t normally read.

Reading Without Walls Month is the product of a partnership between the Children’s Book Council, the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, and Every Child a Reader, as well as Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. Downloadable materials [13] for schools, libraries, and bookstores supporting the program are currently available on the Macmillan Children’s website, including posters, reading lists, and certificates of completion.

To register and learn more, visit ReadingWithoutWalls.com [12].

Authors Guild to Honor Morrison, Patterson, IngramSpark

This May, the Authors Guild will honor [14] authors Toni Morrison and James Patterson and self-publishing service IngramSpark for their contributions to American literature.

Previous authors honored by the Guild include Joan Didion, Dave Eggers, Joyce Carol Oates, and Robert Pinsky.  The awards ceremony will take place at the Guild’s 25th Annual Gala on Wednesday, May 24, at the Essex House in New York.