How to use this Page

- Read the complete results of the latest ABACUS Survey from the ABA -- those stats from indie bookstores nationwide were a big factor in my business plan

- Read bookseller Tova Beiser's account of WI3

- Catch up with my Brooklyn blog reading! I just met Myka of MotherSister Brooklyn this weekend (look for a chronicle of meeting with the amazingly wonderful Fort Greene Association soon), and I think I have a lot of back posts to read. There's always Louise Crawfords indispensible Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, which will also lead you to almost every other Brooklyn blog worth reading (and she also had a supernice congrats on my PowerUp win). And I've recently discovered Brooklynometry, and specifically the write-up of a new Brooklyn bookstore practically in my backyard that I didn't know existed: Babbo's Books on Prospect Park West. Exciting news!

- Post book reviews! Here's what I read in January but haven't yet found time to write about (and they're all GREAT, in different ways):
THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY by Michael Chabon
THE A.B.C. MURDERS and A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED by Agatha Christie
THE BOOK OF OTHER PEOPLE, edited by Zadie Smith
A GOLDEN AGE by Tahmima Anam
THE SIZE OF THE WORLD by Joan Silber
THE ESCAPISTS by Brian K. Vaughan
LAIKA by Nick Abadzis
and currently reading MUDBOUND by Hillary Jordan, which has now officially made me miss a subway stop -- the sign of an irresistibly great read.

- tell you lots of details about the TitleWave event I've beeen working on putting together that BookStream is hosting on February 27, with Richard Price, Steve Toltz, Hillary Jordan, and sales rep extraordinaire Ken Abramson. If you haven't heard the details in Publishers Weekly, Shelf Awareness, Bookselling This Week, the NAIBA and NEIBA newsletters, or the blogs, then email me or Carolyn Bennett and we'll tell you all about it. Remember, it's free, but you DO have to RSVP!

- find out if I can vote in the primary on Tuesday even though I'm registered as an independent... when my sweet mom, who's a Republican from California, and New York City bookish type like me can agree on a candidate, it's clearly a good time to vote.

What's hanging over your head, dear readers? There are always too many books to read -- but that means we'll never run out!

Welcome home from Winter Institute, booksellers! From all I've heard already, this year in Louisville was just as invigorating a session as last year in Portland. Here's where you can find out more:

The lovely Lori Kauffman of Brookline Booksmith was live blogging from WI3 on her blog, Brookline Blogsmith; check it out for some impressions of Danny Meyer's opening presentation on hospitality vs. service, Gary Hirschberg's bit on saving the world while making a living, some bookseller/librarian conspiring, and Lori's pick of the galleys. And I suspect there's more to come -- the intensity of the programming can make it impossible to find time to blog, so sometimes it's all about the recap afterward.

Dan Cullen of the ABA was also live blogging on the ABA blog, Omnibus, and has posted exhaustive coverage of the whole thing, Thursday to Saturday, plus lots of pictures. Dan humbly admits the difficulty of finding time or a single perspective on a weekend that includes "24 educational sessions, 12 rep picks' sessions, 3 keynote addresses, an author reception... and a closing reception", but he also does a killer job of capturing a weekend of "flow", that state of concentrated bliss when you're working so well on the work you love that time doesn't seem to exist. (Here's one of my favorite pictures, of three of my Emerging Leaders Council cohorts: Susan Weiss, Sylla McClellan, and Sweet Pea Flaherty. I know Megan Sullivan was also there; can't wait to hear all about it, guys!)

And of course, today's Shelf Awareness has the first in a series of articles recapping the experience and lessons of WI3, written by John Mutter and Susan Weiss. Looking forward to vicariously absorbing those lessons through them.

(And yes, incidentally, there is a little bit about yours truly and my terrific Wednesday night in there too... thanks for the mention!)

Again, I'd love to get a bookseller or two to write here about Winter Institute: their overall experience, a specific session or topics, or even the people you met. Send me an email or leave a comment if you'd like to be a guest poster.


In the meantime, I was surprised and gratified to read an article in the New York Times this weekend that actually rebutted the "no one reads anymore" opinion -- in an article reviewing the Amazon Kindle. Apparently about two weeks ago Steve Jobs of Apple made an already infamous statement when asked about the Kindle and whether Apple would be looking to get into the e-reader business:

"�It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

In the Times piece, Randall Stross politely but thoroughly demolishes this absurdity, and ends with a challenge for those of us in what we now call "the book business". Here's the passage -- I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

To Mr. Jobs, this statistic dooms everyone in the book business to inevitable failure.

Only the business is not as ghostly as he suggests. In 2008, book publishing will bring in about $15 billion in revenue in the United States, according to the Book Industry Study Group, a trade association.

One can only wonder why, by the Study Group’s estimate, 408 million books will be bought this year if no one reads anymore?

A survey conducted in August 2007 by Ipsos Public Affairs for The Associated Press found that 27 percent of Americans had not read a book in the previous year. Not as bad as Mr. Jobs’s figure, but dismaying to be sure. Happily, however, the same share — 27 percent — read 15 or more books.

In fact, when we exclude Americans who had not read a single book in that year, the average number of books read was 20, raised by the 8 percent who read 51 books or more. In other words, a sizable minority does not read, but the overall distribution is balanced somewhat by those who read a lot.

If a piece of the book industry’s $15 billion seems too paltry for Mr. Jobs to bother with, he is forgetting that Apple reached its current size only recently. Last week, Apple reported that it posted revenue of $9.6 billion in the quarter that spanned October to December 2007, its best quarter ever, after $24 billion in revenue in the 2007 fiscal year, which ended in September.

But as recently as 2001, before the iPhone and the iPod, Apple was a niche computer company without a mass market hit. It was badly hurt by the 2001 recession and reported revenue of only $5.3 billion for the year. This is, by coincidence, almost exactly what Barnes & Noble reported in revenue for its 2007 fiscal year. In neither case did the company owners look at that number, decide to chain the doors permanently shut and call it quits.

Amazon does not release details about revenue for books, but books were its first business. And Andrew Herdener, a company spokesman, said that Amazon’s book sales “have increased every year since the company began.”

The book world has always had an invisible asset that makes up for what it lacks in outsize revenue and profits: the passionate attachment that its authors, editors and most frequent customers have to books themselves. Indeed, in this respect, avid book readers resemble avid Mac users.

The object we are accustomed to calling a book is undergoing a profound modification as it is stripped of its physical shell. Kindle’s long-term success is still unknown, but Amazon should be credited with imaginatively redefining its original product line, replacing the book business with the reading business.

So much going on there's just not enough time for everything!

I'm working some extra hours at the bookstore this week because some of our staff will be gone at the ABA Winter Institute. It looks like a fantastic program this year -- I'll be thinking of all of you who are there! (And if you're going and feel like writing up your experiences, I'd love to have some guest bloggers about WI3 on Written Nerd -- send me an email if you're interested.)

Wednesday evening is the awards ceremony for the Brooklyn Public Library's PowerUp! business plan competition -- the ALP and I will be there to hear the winners announced. I'm looking forward to seeing what great businesses are being planned in Brooklyn, and getting some feedback on my bookstore plan... so send some good vibes my way if you think about it.

I've got some new writing assignments lately -- I'll let you know when there's something to read, but I don't want to jinx myself by promising too much. Right now I'm feeling a bit too sleepy to imagine writing. I spent part of the morning at Old First with an incredible project for fighting homelessness in New York -- the staff and volunteers of Common Ground work 24/7, and the people they're helping don't always have the luxuries of hot showers and naps. It's good to put things in perspective, and better to try to help -- I don't know how much good my presence did, but I was there, and I'm hoping I can go again.

Hope you're having a good Tuesday, too.

Link Madness (late edition)

I guess I was overcome by Labor Day laziness and forgot to blog on Monday, so here are some late and rather eclectic links.

* Author Alex Kuczynski has a somewhat smirky article in the NY Times about the contemporary book party, describing the "colossal blowouts" for books by Tina Brown, Holly Peterson, and Patricia Marx, as opposed to the warm-wine-and-skimpy-brie affairs of yesteryear. Her contention is that today's parties are hosted not by publishers, but by wealthy authors and friends of authors; hence the extravagance in hopes of garnering publicity. (Thanks to Ron at Galleycat for the link, and I'll second his notion that if it's media mentions you want, invite a blogger or two along with the glitterati!) I'm not sure I agree with Kuczynski; we've hosted some pretty swanky publisher-sponsored digs at the bookstore, and sold books offsite at several more, though there are still plenty of author-sponsored cheap wine and cheese soirees -- long may they live.

* Speaking of rich people and reading, the Times also has a slideshow of recommended wedding gifts for booklovers. Too bad this wasn't around when the ALP and I were sending out invites -- though some of these are pretty silly. We're happy with just books... or maybe some more bookshelves.

* Here's a more grassroots kind of project: the Delocator! Covered recently in Bookselling This Week (among others), the website is a tool for locating independent coffee shops, movie theaters, and bookstores in your zip code, and anyone can add a favorite. It's not a perfect system (I put in McNally Robinson's zip code and several bookstores were in there two or three times, and there were clearly some spam entries), but it's certainly a step in bring independent businesses into the internet age, and raising consciousness of the great stuff in our own communities. Give it a try -- add your favorite local spots, and discover some new ones (I just added Word, one of the newer additions to the Brooklyn bookstore scene).

* Latest in the e-book saga: Business Week reports on the Sony Reader, which is available in Borders and Best Buy, though Sony won't release sales figures, which suggests it's not doing so well. The main problem at this point, aside from some complaints about clunky design, is that e-books for the readers are only available through Sony Connect, the company's own website, and there aren't that many. Though that may change as Sony is "now planning to adopt e-book software from Adobe Systems" which will allow downloads from other outlets. What do you think, readers (small R)? Any interest in reading books on an electronic device, particularly this one? What would have to happen to make e-books relevant? And what would that mean? I love the way one commentor on this article puts it:

I am interested in where this takes us? How many trees can we save? How do authors fare or royalties when the print and production is taken out? how much cheaper can books be? They're big questions. Bring them on!

* I know one place people will be talking about these questions: the 2008 ABA Winter Institute in Louisville, Kentucky! Registration has just been opened for the January 24-27 conference and educational sessions -- it's the third annual Winter Institute, so Len Vlahos at ABA has dubbed it WI3, perhaps in reference to the increasing focus on technology. Holy cow, am I dying to go. I'll have to figure out some way to beg, steal or borrow plane and hotel fare to get in on those conversations.


Brooklyn Bookstore Visits
I had a very interesting week. I'm in the home stretch of trying to get my business plan ready for the September 14 PowerUp! deadline, and as usual at this point I feel both super-ready and like I need to go back to Square 1. So I spent some time this week visiting folks at two different (successful) Brooklyn bookstores to pick their brains a little, and enjoy the scene.

Word Books, Greenpoint
As I mentioned earlier, Word Books is one of the newest additions to the Brooklyn literary scene. Opened in March 2007 by Christine Onorati, it sits on the most Brooklyn-ish corner of Greenpoint you can imagine. Across the street is a public park with baby strollers and teenagers playing basketball; behind that is an old industrial warehouse with "GREENPOINT" stenciled in beautifully faded letters on the side; down the street is a church steeple silhouetted against the sky; a block away is the multi-lingual bustle of Greenpoint Avenue. Word occupies one of those enviable two-exposure corner lots, albeit on a quiet street in a neighborhood that's really only accessible by the dreaded G train (one of the few subways that only serves Brooklyn and Queens, not Manhattan, it's notoriously unreliable on weekends).

I asked Christine about that, expecting to hear that her business was mostly during the evenings and weekends when folks were home from work, but her knowledge of the neighborhood put my assumptions to shame. As she's discovered living a few blocks away, there are a lot of work-at-home folks around, and they are thrilled for the chance to shop local. The shop is open from 10 to 7, and business has been tripping along steadily for these first, often precarious months. To put it in perspective, Christine told me that she ran a bookstore in a small Long Island town for about six years ("practice" for the Brooklyn store, she calls it now), and while her rent in Brooklyn has doubled what she paid there, her sales have quadrupled -- and that's just in the first six months! She emphasized the importance of knowing your neighborhood, and knowing that there are folks who want to read what you read around you -- otherwise, she says, what's the fun of stocking your store?

The store has the aura of doing small things solidly and well. The window has a beautiful stencil with the store's name and specialties, and the window displays have won prizes (i.e. the Lonely Planet display contest). There's a graphic novel section that's possibly better than the one I buy for, though half the size. Discounted books are front and center; great fiction and nonfiction line the left-hand wall. A gorgeous display of hand-selected stationary and a wall of neat locally designed T-shirts round out the sideline offerings. And the back is a slightly segregated section of kids books and toys -- very savvy from a browsing and marketing perspective.

There's also great potential for the future. A child-proof gate blocks access to the basement, which is finished just enough to hold events (the store's Harry Potter party attracted around 200 locals). Christine has plans for expanding her event series, implementing a number of book clubs, and maybe adding more retail space. Talking to her, I suddenly realized the wisdom of thinking about a bookstore in phases. Maybe you don't have to have every element in place on opening day. Maybe it's financially and even emotionally more reasonable and satisfying to think of the store as a work in progress, something that will continue to improve and expand and refine and grow every month and year. I'm grateful to Christine for her insights, and I can't wait to see how Word continues to grow.



Book Court, Boerum Hill
Downtown Brooklyn's own BookCourt is at the other end of the spectrum in terms of bookstore life: founded in 1981, the store has done a fair amount of growing already, though more is on the horizon. I stopped in on a Friday morning to get a feel for the place and talk to founders Henry Zook and Mary Gannet and their son Zack, who now works in the store as a manager. The store is one of the success stories of indie bookselling in the last quarter of the 20th century: though they had some slow years in the 1990s, when the book business seemed to falter everywhere, their neighborhood regulars never failed them, and the owners were able to buy their original building and the one next door. Mary told me that when the Barnes & Noble opened a few blocks away in 2003, business at BookCourt actually got better. By that time folks had seen what tended to happen to small bookstores when the chains moved in, and they clearly told the owners of BookCourt that they weren't going to let that happen to their store. Mary and I agreed that Brooklyn is a good place for an indie: New Yorkers can tend to be more educated about economics and the effects of shopping local, and Brooklynites often have fierce loyalties to their neighborhoods.

BookCourt's operations were interesting too; they're open until around 11 most nights, because of the restaurants and nightlife in the area, and earlier in the morning to accomodate business from the nearby courthouses and city government buildings. I spent an hour or so receiving a shipment from Perseus (something I haven't had a chance to do in a long time), and learned about the store's staffing, computer systems, and discounting policies, which seem to fall somewhere between those of a small store and a large store, in keeping with the bookstore's 1800 square foot space. This encompasses the two store fronts and basement of the first building, and the store seems larger than it is, with lots of beautiful displays, staff picks, and local Brooklyn interest books. They're the exclusive seller of a Jonathan Lethem project, Patchwork Planet, and have lots of great relationships with local authors.

Things are about to change, though. Henry and co. are in the process of building on an addition in back that will more than double the size of the store, and that will serve as expanded event space, cafe, and increased retail space. To accommodate this increased volume, they're also finishing some basement space to serve as a receiving room and offices, and will streamline some processes. More books will be moved upstairs, the children's section will be relocated and expanded, and the store will begin to stock remainders. It's an exciting time, as the renovations should be complete in a few months, and the venerable store will enter a new phase of its life.

I sat with Henry and Zack in their office/living space above the bookstore after my stint on the floor, talking about history and future, plans and precautions. BookCourt is another shining example of knowing your neighborhood, investing wisely, and creating a space for books and authors that has obviously led to long-term success. I'm grateful to Henry, Mary, Zack, and their staff for their enthusiastic support of my own bookstore dreams, and inspired by the life they have created for themselves, and I look forward to seeing the bookstore continue to mature.