Bookselling

This photo was taken in the window of independent book store Spoonbill & Sugartown in Brooklyn, NY.

It reads: “‘e-books’ are not books, only books are books. Happiness is a warm book.”

As you can see from the sign in the window, they are not one of the indie book stores that are embracing eBooks and selling them through Google.

Funnily enough some of the other bookstores that they mention as “other great bookshops” include Word, St. Mark’s and Greenlight, all of whom sell eBooks from their websites.

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We are still awaiting the numbers from Amazon and Barnes & Noble about eBook and eReader sales over the holiday weekend, but we have learned that overall e-commerce sales were up this Christmas.

According to a report from IBM, which tracks 500 e-commerce sites not including Amazon, online shopping was 16.4 percent higher on Christmas Day 2011 than last year.

The Associated Press has more about the report: “It found a huge increase in the number of shoppers making their purchases with iPhones, iPads and Android-powered mobile devices. In fact, nearly 7 percent of all online purchases were made using iPads, just 18 months after the tablet computers were released by Apple Inc., said John Squire, chief strategy officer for IBM’s Smarter Commerce unit.”

Comic book artist Dan Clowes drew the cover of next week’s issue of The New Yorker.

In the drawing, Clowes imagines a book store full of author-related tchotchkes and eReaders, but no books. The eReaders are the only sign of actual reading amid Shakespeare  t-shirts, Bronte hats and Hemingway drawings.

The drawing raises the questions about how book stores will survive in the age of eBooks. Is author merchandising the answer? What do you think?

eBooks hit a major milestone in February. According to Association of American Publishers (AAP) sales figures, eBooks ranked as the top format “among all categories of trade publishing” that month.

eBook sales totaled $90.3 million for the month, expanding 202 percent compared to the same period  last year. Below, we’ve embedded the full release.

Here’s more from the AAP: “This one-month surge is primarily attributed to a high level of strong post-holiday e-Book buying, or ‘loading,’ by consumers who received e-Reader devices as gifts.  Experts note that the expanded selection of e-Readers introduced for the holidays and the broader availability of titles are factors.”

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In a recent interview, novelist Barry Eisler said he turned down a $500,000 book deal and decided to self-publish his work.

The revelation came in a 13,000-word interview with novelist Joe Konrath. Eisler last published with Ballantine Books, but his self-publishing experiment began with “The Lost Coast,” a $2.99 short story. Konrath quipped: ‘Barry Eisler Walks Away From $500,000 Deal to Self-Pub’ is going to be one for the Twitter Hall of Fame.”

Here’s an excerpt from the interview: “There’s a saying about the railroads: they thought they were in the railroad business, when in fact they were in the transportation business. So when the interstate highway system was built and trucking became an alternative, they were hit hard. Likewise, publishers have naturally conflated the specifics of their business model with the generalities of the industry they’re in. As you say, they’re not in the business of delivering books by paper–they’re in the business of delivering books. And if someone can do the latter faster and cheaper than they can, they’re in trouble.”

According to Association of American Publishers (AAP) sales figures, eBook net sales increased by 115.8 percent, up from $32.4 million to $69.9 million.

At the same time both adult mass market paperbacks and hardcovers lost sales. GalleyCat has more about those declines.

We’ve embedded the complete release below. Here’s more from the report: “As AAP reported last month http://tiny.cc/obolv in its December 2010 monthly report and full 2010 analysis, E-book sales have increased annually and significantly in all nine years of tracking the category.”

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Sharing eBooks just got easier in the UK, thanks to a new startup called aNobii. Investors from the HMV, HarperCollins, Penguin and The Random House Group, who acquired the existing social reading site aNobii, have formed the startup. A new version of the existing aNobii social reading service will launch later in the year.

The new iteration of the company, which has the same name, is an upgraded aNobii site that merges social networking with a retail platform where you can buy eBooks and share them with your friends.

aNobii project head Matteo Berlucchi had this statement about the company: “We want to create a social commerce platform that will allow people to find, share and buy books beyond the bestseller lists with an emphasis on creating an environment where people can talk about the books they love. aNobii’s knowledge and functionality for finding books and engaging readers gives the service we want to build a head-start.”

Ree Drummond‘s The Pioneer Woman made The New York Times Best Sellers List for combined print and eBook nonfiction this week. The list is available online today and will be published in the Sunday edition of The Times.

The New York Times debuted eBooks on its Best Sellers lists last week with a list of the bestselling eBook fiction and non-fiction titles, as well as combined lists of eBook and print titles based on category.

Interestingly, on this week’s lists the hardcover and eBook bestselling fiction titles are quite similar, but the paperback titles vary. James Patterson’s Tick Tock leads in eBook fiction and hardcover fiction, whereas Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen leads as the paperback fiction bestseller of the week.

Despite a 4.8% drop in 2010 revenue for Lagardère Publishing, the parent company that owns the Hachette Book Group, eBooks grew significantly. The U.S. leads the way in digital, and Hachette Book Group saw 138% growth in eBook revenues last year.

eBooks accounted for 8% of revenues in the United States, compared to 3% in 2009, and eBooks grew more modestly in the UK, making up 1% of 2010 sales.

Lagardère Publishing’s overall 2010 revenues came to about $2.9 million. The company attributed the decline to a drop off in Twilight series sales. While sales dropped off in France, because 2010 didn’t provide the company with hot titles like a new Asterix comic book and Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol (which sold 1.1 million copies in fourth-quarter 2009), sales grew in the UK thanks to bestsellers from authors including Martina Cole, Maeve Binchy, David Nicholls, and Keith Richards.

The New York Times Best Sellers lists for eBooks will launch online on February 11th and will be followed with a print publication in the Sunday February 13th issue.

James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge’s crime novel Tick Tock from Little, Brown, topped the fiction category as the No. 1 eBook Best Seller and the No. 1 combined print and eBook Best Seller.

Laura Hillenbrand’s WWII book called Unbroken from Random House is No. 1 on nonfiction list. This title also topped the combined print and eBook sellers list.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett, ranked higher in eBooks sales than eBook and print combined sales. The book is No. 8 on the eBook bestsellers list for fiction and No. 9 on the combined print and eBook Best Sellers list.

Other authors who made the top 10 lists include Stieg Larsson, John Grisham, and George W. Bush.