Seattle-area’s Once Sold Tales will close, and the owner is struggling to find homes for 500,000 books before her warehouse closes at the end of the month.

If you live near Seattle, you can visit the warehouses yourself. (Google maps link). A former employee posted those pictures of the store’s enormous warehouses and is trying to arrange a book sale on Reddit to avoiding pulping the books. Check it out:

Times have not been good to bookstores and Carrie is closing her store. She currently has about half a million books that she wants to find homes for. Because housing all these books is now costing more than she or her business can afford, Carrie is left with few options. If nothing is done, she will have to pulp all books left unsold. While there are many pounds of books, nobody wants that … Carrie will be operating her website and selling books at the warehouse (1$ for paperbacks, 2$ for hardback, or 1.50$/lb) until the end of May … Details are still getting worked out but it looks like 10 dollars for 8 books or 18 for 16. Details forthcoming as well as how to actually make the order.

Audubon, one of the oldest continuously published magazines in the country, has been harvesting some of the best earth-minded writing for more than a century. The pub appeals to the well educated, politically active nature lover. Though the mag is the only pure nature magazine on the market, EIC David Seideman admits that the publication aspires to the reach and commercial success of National Geographic, while still maintaining its commitment to the thought-provoking, long-form type journalism of The Atlantic and The New Yorker.

Audubon regularly publishes eco-themed book reviews, and the website offers a unique promotional opportunity for authors. “If there are authors who have written books about environmental or nature subjects, and they would like to blog on our site to promote their book or run excerpts on the site, we would explore that opportunity with them,” explained Seideman.

For more info, read How To Pitch: Audubon.
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Brooklyn’s Community Bookstore will open a second shop called Terrace Books, “a (mostly) used bookstore in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.”

The bookstore will replace the six year old Babbo’s Books, located 242 Prospect Park West, a couple blocks away from Prospect Park. Check it out:

A grand opening party is being planned for June. What to expect at Terrace Books? A considered selection of used books, a few new books, books to give as gifts (especially around the holidays), kids’ books, and more. Quick and easy delivery of new titles from Community Bookstore by bicycle. All the out-of-print books and vintage dust jackets you can handle. And for Babbo’s customers, we’ll honor your credits and gift certificates.

A reader snapped a photograph of that sign at the The Albion Beatnik bookstore in Oxford. UPDATE: One reader reminds us that the sign was adapted from a typography broadside written by Beatrice Warde about the power of type. You can read her original inspirational message here.

The sign has been viewed thousands of times online as digital readers share their love of bookstores. Here’s more about the Albion Beatnik at For Book’s Sake (be sure to read the entire review):

Opening some time around midday and usually closing after midnight, this is a place where you can sit in dilapidated red buttonback sofas and choose the poet mug you want to drink your (very strong, very good) coffee out of (I’m always Sylvia Plath. Fortunately there are two Plath mugs so I rarely have to resort to actually wrestling the other clientele or settling for Seamus Heaney) … It’s a place where zinesters meet to pillage material for handmades, politics students tap out theses whilst stopping to explain Bukowski or canvas customers on a point of Marxist theory, and poetry groups (the Backroom Poets, Oxford Improvisers, Oxford University Poetry Society and many both more and less official) meet to plot whatever it is poetry groups meet and plot about. Read more

The U.S. Senate has passed the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013 (S.743), approving a bill that would make online sellers with $1 million or more in yearly sales (including booksellers like Amazon) collect state sales tax.

The U.S. House of Representatives must now consider the bill. The bill was introduced by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Michael Enzi (R-WY) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND). It passed with a 69 to 27 vote. American Booksellers Association CEO Oren Teicher had this official statement:

We are grateful that the U.S. Senate has done the right thing and is standing up for Main Street retailers by passing the Marketplace Fairness Act … This victory is the direct result of the tireless work of thousands of booksellers nationwide, who, year after year, have advocated for sales tax fairness. Recognizing that this fight is far from over, importantly, today we are one very important step closer to leveling the playing field for Main Street retailers.”

The team behind Brooklyn’s Bookcourt bookstore has launched an Indiegogo campaign to buy the Bibliobarn property in New York’s Catskill Mountains and reopen as BookCourt North.

They have created a number of interesting perks for contributors. For $1,255 contribution, you can host an event at the future bookstore. For a $1,555 contribution, you can host an event at BookCourt in Brooklyn. Here’s more about the plans for the bookstore:

The ground floor of the barn will continue, just as it has for 16 years, to operate as a bookshop. We’ll maintain and enhance the store’s charming atmosphere and wisely expand on the book selection. We’ll add a selection of new-books and additional genres and sections. Down the line, we may open a cafe. … We will launch a much desired event series on site. We understand that many in the area have long desired a space dedicated to readings, discussion groups, and other performances. We’re very eager to make this happen, and it’s one of the first things on our list, but we won’t just be doing things inside the barn. The nearly five acres of land that accompanies will allow us opportunities in the years to come to host festivals and large scale events, which will draw people from all over the region to Bibliobarn, Hobart and to the Western Catskills.

Wanelo has grown quite popular among young Internet users lately. Below, we’ve linked to five Wanelo collections to help writers, readers and publishers explore the rapidly growing social network for young shoppers.

Wanelo users browse collections of quirky and stylish things, and they can buy the item in a few short clicks. Authors and publishers do have an opportunity to share books on the new site, and popular books have been shared thousands of times. At the same time, readers can buy lots of literary items in the sprawling store. Check it out:

Every product you see on Wanelo was posted by hand by a member of Wanelo’s growing community, via our desktop browser bookmarklet, Wanelo for iPhone and iPad, or that POST+ link you see at the top of this page. On Wanelo you can: Collect products. Start with what’s Trending today, or follow some stores, people andcollections, then check out your feed. Save products you like. Post products. Anyone can post any product from any online store. Sell products. Store pages are created when members post products from a new store. If products from *your* store have been posted on Wanelo, you can claim it.

Read more

Alexandria, Virginia is the most well-read city in America once again, according to Amazon’s annual ranking that measures ”all book, magazine and newspaper sales in both print and Kindle format” in cities around the country.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn was the most popular novel purchased in that city, followed by the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.

We’ve reprinted the top 20 cities on the list below–the survey counts sales data “on a per capita basis,” only focused on cities with more than 100,000 residents.

Read more

In a letter to the editor at the New York Times, Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary and Garden Arts co-owner Marion Abbott urged self-published authors to “think twice before venturing into a world largely unknown to them.”

While her comments may be discouraging for some self-published authors, our How To Sell Your Self-Published Book in Bookstores post will help you find a place for your indie book. Here’s more from Abbott’s letter:

We see this every day in our independent bookstore: writers dropping off unsolicited work in the hope that we will stock books that have had little or no editing, and few reviews or distribution beyond Amazon (always a nonstarter). With rare exceptions, it is unrealistic to expect busy booksellers, who conduct business with hundreds of established vendors already, to take them on: reading, evaluating and setting up separate vendors for each title.

Read more

Curbside Splendor Publishing and The Chicago Writer’s House have teamed up for a second round of pop-up book fairs this year.

On April 14th, 40 different literary outlets will be selling books in a festive community event. As bookstore struggle to compete in this digital world, pop-up fairs can help authors, publishers and booksellers find new readers. Check it out:

40 of the finest independent publishers, presses, & booksellers from Chicago and elsewhere will be on hand from 1:30 pm until 6:30 pm at Chicago’s finest venue for underground music The Empty Bottle hocking their goods. Quimby’s Bookstore will also stock a table with a selection of books-n-zines penned by Chicagoans. The bar will be open so grab a cocktail and listen to live music all afternoon as you ogle some books and satiate your bibliophiliac needs!