Bookselling

Our friend and occasional correspondent Karen Spears Zacharias wrote a blog post yesterday about her friend Wanda Jewell, the executive director of the Southeast Independent Booksellers Alliance: "Books are her passion, bookstores her pulpit, and readers her mission field," Zacharias said in praise of Jewell, who earlier this year created a promotion in which she gave a free book for every purchase at a SIBA affiliate. (By the way, as far as we know, the free book stimulus plan is still running.)

But, Zacharias reports, Jewell will be undergoing surgery for breast cancer next week. Authors and other book people in the South have already begun to offer their hope for a swift recovery in the comments to Zacharias's post and in other online venues. "Wanda has reshaped the Southern literary landscape," says the Atlanta-based VERB. "[She] has never been interested in being known to anyone but her bookstores, but she is a giant in the industry, and her name is gold." We know that we are not alone among New York's publishing industry professionals in sending our own best wishes her way.

Despite Apple, Inc. CEO Steve Jobs's remark that "people don't read anymore," his company has a mysterious page-turning patent registered. Whatever they are doing with the patent, the company has earned a spot on our weekly Book Stock Watch.

GalleyCat has been tracking the stock performance of the major companies that influence the bookselling business. We created this chart with eight publicly-traded publishing stocks hand-picked by our readers--including company name, symbol, current stock price, and price increase or decrease at week's close.

The McGraw-Hill Co. MHP 29.48 -1.15
Books-A-Million, Inc. BAMM 7.64 0.18
Borders Group, Inc. BGP 3.41 -0.24
Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN 79.32 -2.28
Barnes & Noble, Inc. BKS 19.69 -1.33
Wiley John & Sons Inc. JW.A 32.68 -0.99
Scholastic Corporation SCHL 19.2 -0.88
News Corporation NWS 9.98 -0.66
Google Inc. GOOG 408.49 -10.5
Apple Inc. AAPL 140.02 -2.81

Seven independently-published books topped Oprah Winfrey's 25 Books of Summer list this year, bringing an indie spirit to a list traditionally dominated by major publishers.

According to MobyLives, only one indie book has made the Book Club during the 13 years the popular host started the club--picking W.W. Norton's "House of Sand and Fog" by Andre Dubus III in 2000. Winfrey's seal of approval virtually assures bestseller status for a title.

Here are a few of the indie summer picks, from the post: "'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,' published by David Borgenicht's Philadelphia-based Quirk Books, is credited to Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith ... The next independently published title on Oprah's list is 'The Peep Diaries: How We're Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors' (City Lights Books), by Hal Niedzviecki."

UPDATE: A previous version of this post included an erroneous fact about the book club picks.

Touching on one of the most controversial issues in 21st Century publishing, Barnes & Noble has set e-book prices to compete directly with Amazon.com, Inc.'s prices.

Information Week reports that eReader--one of Barnes & Noble's digital book properties--sent members an email setting the majority of e-books are now priced very near to Amazon's $9.99 standard price. That $9.95-9.99 price point drives Tina Brown (and some other publishing types) batty.

Here's the eReader pricing scheme, from the article: "All new eBooks are $9.95 or less. No eBook over $12.95. They aren't moving all ebooks to $9.95 or less, only newly published ones. Cutting to $12.95 is a substantial cut for many older books though. All books on the New York Times Bestseller list are $9.95, whether it is new or has been there a while." (Via Publishers Weekly)

In a nostalgic and bittersweet set of Twitter posts, Shaman Drum Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan blogged its final day of operation. In the Twitter-sphere at large, tributes poured in all day.

The bookstore had struggled with steep declines in textbook sales and a rough bookselling climate. Owner Karl Pohrt sought support in a February column, but decided to close at the end of the June after selling books for nearly 30 years.

Among the memorable posts, the workers left this tweet (summing up this GalleyCat editor's expression years ago): "The look on the freshman's faces (and their parents) was the best part of the school year." The day's posts ended with a hip-hop tribute: "Pour a 40 on the ground for us tonight!"

Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) has terminated its affiliate program in Rhode Island and North Carolina--cutting out website owners who earn money by featuring Amazon products on their site.

According to The Street, Amazon cut off the two states in recent days. The massive online bookseller had already warned affiliates that they would end the program in both states if new sales tax laws were passed.

Here's more from the article: "Amazon, it's worth noting, decided to keep its affiliate program in New York when it passed a similar bill last year. Currently Amazon only collects sales tax in a handful of states, and some say it's taking advantage of a loophole for online retailers."

In its debut today, the brand-new Barnes & Noble iPhone app hit the number three spot on the "Top Free Apps" list in Apple App Store's "Books" category--going head-to-head with two Amazon digital reader applications.

Today Barnes & Noble Bookstore launched their first iPhone app, a way to shop (and read reviews) via smartphone. Readers can also access web-only extras like videos, book lists, and information about 50,000 in-store events around the country. The free app is the third most popular free offering in the Books category, followed by Amazon's Kindle for iPhone and Amazon owned e-reader, Stanza.

Here's the gee-whiz special feature, from the release: "Barnes & Noble has partnered with LinkMe Mobile from Evryx Technologies, Inc. and Spotlight Mobile, Inc. so that users can simply snap a photo to search millions of products. Using the iPhone or iPod touch camera, just snap a photo of the front cover and within seconds get product details, editorial reviews, and customer ratings--even find and reserve a copy in the store closest to you."

Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) made the biggest bookselling headlines this week. The WSJ reported that Amazon.com Inc. mailed a letter to California lawmakers, warning that the company will "end its business with marketing affiliates in the state if legislation passes forcing the Seattle e-commerce company to collect sales tax from California customers."

GalleyCat has been tracking the stock performance of the major companies that influence the bookselling business. We created this chart with eight publicly-traded publishing stocks hand-picked by our readers--including company name, symbol, current stock price, and price increase or decrease at week's close.

The McGraw-Hill Co. MHP 29.64 -0.08
Books-A-Million, Inc. BAMM 7.04 0.49
Borders Group, Inc. BGP 3.45 0.41
Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN 83.88 1.68
Barnes & Noble, Inc. BKS 20.65 0.05
Wiley John & Sons Inc. JW.A 33.04 -2
Scholastic Corporation SCHL 20.09 -0.49
News Corporation NWS 10.53 -0.02
Google Inc. GOOG 425.32 9.55

This week Amazon.com, Inc. wrote its North Carolina affiliates to explain that if a suggested "click-through" tax passes, the bookselling giant could end the affiliate program in the state--cutting out website owners who earn money by featuring Amazon books on their site.

According to the News Record, the state legislature proposed $784 million in new taxes to meet a budget shortfall, including a "click-through" tax on Internet sales that could earn the state $13.2 million in a single year. If that tax change passes, then the online retailer could end the affiliate program in North Carolina.

Here's one affiliate story from the state: "For many people, their cut from Amazon is small potatoes, maybe a couple of hundred dollars per year. But [Kayla Fay] is among those who have built a business by way of affiliate marketing. Payments from Amazon and another similar vendor make up the bulk of the $40,000 she clears from her business every year." (Via Publishers Weekly)

Today Tor.com launched an innovative "publisher agnostic" online store--alongside Tor.com merchandise, the shop will also sell popular science titles, art texts, comic books, and science fiction and fantasy novels by other publishers.

The new model also lays the groundwork for Tor.com's future e-book store, which is currently in development. This strategy enables the site's bloggers and guests to create "special pick" lists of their favorite books--digitally hand-selling books from a giant pool of SF/F literature, irregardless of publisher.

GalleyCat caught up with Tor.com web producer Pablo Defendini to find out more: "Amazon is general community driven, this site is much more about leveraging a publisher's ability to curate content," he explained. "These aren't just community members, these are people that fandom looks up to and values for their opinion. We're not throwing everything at the reader and saying 'Here's some science fiction!'"