Higher Price for Amazons International eReaders
International users of Amazon's Kindle e-book reader will be paying significantly more to buy books than their American counterparts. An Amazon.co.uk spokesman revealed that foreign customers would be paying $13.99 per book instead of the American price of $9.99. That amounts to a 40% premium for the same title. Amazon explains that this cost is due to higher operating costs outside of the U.S. Additionally, VAT rates in the EU are higher on e-books than on print books.
Shelf Awareness
Book Enterprises, LLC
Jason Zutaut has moved on from Strictly By-The Book Inc and is looking forward to launching his new company at the upcoming CIROBE show in Chicago. Jason would like all to know that his focus is once again on buying and selling books and looks forward to building up a very successfull company in the years to come. Buyers please feel free to contact him at
jasonzutaut@hotmail.com or his cell number 508-826-2202 to set up a time to meet at the show. Book Enterprises will be specializing in sorting Publishers hurts and buying other remainders and closeouts that are available in the marketplace. Publisher's are also welcome to contact him for any books they are looking to sell off.
Thomas Nelson to Launch New Publishing Company
Thomas Nelson Inc. will launch West Bow Press, an imprint whose books will be designed, published and distributed by Author Solutions Inc., the country's largest self-publisher. Although the company's editors won't be editing manuscripts, they will monitor sales to identify potential big sellers. Michael Hyatt, Thomas Nelson's CEO, remains very hopeful that this project will generate great revenue. Kevin Weiss CEO of Author Solutions said "What this will do is to put the stamp of approval on self-publishing. There are still folks who say if you aren't picked up by the trade publishers, you aren't real."
Shelf Awareness
Preparing Your Book Store for Flu Season
With autumn comes flu season, but this year's outbreak of swine flu, or 2009 H1N1, adds new urgency to preparations for combating spread of the diseases. To date, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 2009 H1N1 influenza virus "continues to be the dominant influenza virus in circulation in the world." Bookselling This Week has written a wonderful article on how to prepare your bookstore for the upcoming flu season. To read the article:
http://news.bookweb.org/news/7116.html.
Shelf Awareness
Winners of the National Book Foundation
The winners will be announced at the National Book Foundation’s 60th anniversary celebration on November 18 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City, hosted by Andy Borowitz. Gore Vidal and Dave Eggers will receive lifetime achievement awards, and the Foundation will also announce the winner of its Best of the National Book Awards Fiction Poll. The complete list of nominees follows.
Fiction
Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage (Wayne State University Press)
Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin (Random House)
Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite (Alfred A. Knopf)
Marcel Theroux, Far North (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Nonfiction
David M. Carroll, Following the Water: A Hydromancer's Notebook (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Sean B. Carroll, Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Greg Grandin, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt)
Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy (Princeton University Press)
T. J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (Alfred A. Knopf)
Poetry
Rae Armantrout, Versed (Wesleyan University Press)
Ann Lauterbach, Or to Begin Again (Viking Penguin)
Carl Phillips, Speak Low (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Open Interval (University of Pittsburgh Press)
Keith Waldrop, Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy (University of California Press)
Young People’s Literature
Deborah Heiligman, Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith (Henry Holt)
Phillip Hoose, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
David Small, Stitches (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Laini Taylor, Lips Touch: Three Times (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic)
Rita Williams-Garcia, Jumped (HarperTeen/HarperCollins)
Publishers Weekly
The Nook- An eReader by Barnes and Noble
B&N CEO Steve Riggio along with B&N.com president William Lynch recently showed off the company’s new device called the nook, an unusual dual screen digital reader. The nook has a 6” grayscale e-ink display screen with a full color backlit touch control screen situated just below—that raises the ante on E-Ink devices. The nook offers a virtual keyboard, 2 GB of internal memory with expandable (16 gig) SD card and 5 different fonts. The device will go on sale exclusively in B&N stores and through B&N.com at the end of November. Priced, unsurprisingly, at $259, the same price as the Amazon Kindle 2, the nook not only offers wireless connectivity over a 3G network (AT&T) but also limited wi-fi connectivity as well. Nook owners can also wirelessly lend/transmit titles for up to 14 days (although once lent, the book’s owner cannot access it) to anyone else with a nook, iPhone or other selected smartphone OS that has the B&N eReader software installed.
Publishers Weekly
AAP: August Sales Rise 0.9%, Up 2% for the Year
In August, net book sales rose 0.9% to $1.55 billion as reported by 91 publishers to the Association of American Publishers. For the year to date, net book sales are up 2% to $6.837 billion.
Among categories:
- E-books soared 189.1% to $14.4 million.
- Adult hardcover rose 12.3% to $110.6 million.
- Adult paperback climbed 3.2% to $152.7 million.
- Higher education rose 2.9% to $868.1 million.
- University press paperback rose 2.7% to $9.6 million.
- Adult mass market was up 1.3% to $70.4 million.
- Children's/YA paperback slid 0.2% to $69.4 million.
- University press hardcover fell 2.7% to $5.8 million.
- Professional and scholarly dropped 12.4% to $89.2 million.
- Audiobook was down 12.5% to $12.9 million.
- Children's/YA hardcover fell 12.9% to $84.5 million.
- Religion dropped 13.8% to $58 million.
Shelf Awareness
