BTW News Briefs

NCIBA Receives "Chain Alternative Award"

The Northern California Independent Booksellers Association has been honored with San Francisco Bay Guardian's Chain Alternative Award. The newspaper said, "The booksellers group keeps the small, community-based stores in the public eye, with promotions, events like the annual NCIBA awards … and political lobbying (NCIBA is a big supporter of a bill by Assembly Member Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, that would force Amazon to pay sales tax)."

The Bay Guardian noted that one of NCIBA's biggest tasks is educating the public about the critical function of local, indie bookstores. NCIBA Vice President Calvin Crosby of San Francisco's Books Inc. told the paper: "I was at a book-signing recently with a major author, and a bunch of people showed up with books they bought on Amazon and they wanted to trade them for signed copies. I had to explain to all of them that Amazon doesn't pay taxes and hurts the locals."

Google and SBA Launch "Tools for Online Success" for Small Businesses

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and Google have announced a new partnership, "Tools for Online Success," offering resources and training designed to help small business owners use technology to grow their businesses.

The "Tools for Online Success" website, www.google.com/help/sba, includes tutorials, video testimonials, and tips from small business people who are using the web to make their company's more successful.

Nolo to Publish Catalogs via Edelweiss

Above the Treeline announced this week that Nolo would be utilizing Edelweiss, its interactive publisher catalog system, to publish frontlist and backlist catalogs on the web. Booksellers, librarians, the media, and other end users of publisher catalogs will be able to review Nolo's full catalog of titles via Edelweiss by the end of May.

Nolo publishes books, software, online legal forms, and directories to help individuals, businesses, and nonprofits solve their legal problems.

PartnerShip Opens West Coast Office

On April 1, ABA member services provider PartnerShip opened a satellite office in Irvine, California, to serve small- and medium-sized West Coast businesses. The company, based in Oberlin, Ohio, offers ABA members discounts of up to 31 percent on FedEx shipments and up to 64 percent on UPS Freight and YRC.

The new office is located at 2302 Martin Street, Suite 330, Irvine. For more information about PartnerShip services for ABA members and an enrollment form, visit www.partnership.com/07ABA, call (800) 599-2902, or e-mail sales@partnership.com.

Publishing Triangle Names Best LGBT Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction Winners

On April 29, in a ceremony at the New School in New York City, the Publishing Triangle announced the winners of the 22nd annual Triangle Awards:

• Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction: Rebecca Brown, American Romances (City Lights)
• Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction: James Davidson, The Greeks and Greek Love (Random House)
• Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry: Stacie Cassarino, Zero at the Bone (New Issues Poetry & Prose)
• Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry: Ronaldo V. Wilson, Poems of the Black Object (Futurepoem Books)
• Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction: Lori Ostlund, The Bigness of the World (University of Georgia Press)
• Ferro-Grumley Awards for LGBT Fiction: Sebastian Stuart, The Hour Between (Alyson Books)

In addition, historian, activist, and scholar Blanche Wiesen Cook received the Publishing Triangle's Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, and veteran book publicist Michele Karlsberg was honored with the Leadership Award, which recognizes contributions to lesbian and gay literature by those who are not primarily writers, including editors, agents, librarians, and others.

Mystery Writers Present 2010 Edgar Winners

On April 29, the 201st anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, the Mystery Writers of America announced the winners of the 2010 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction, and television from 2009. Other honorees included indie bookstore owners Mary Alice Gorman and Richard Goldman, of Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, the recipients of a Raven Award for their constant support and dedication to the mystery community.

Among the 2010 Edgar® winners are:

Best Novel: The Last Child, by John Hart (Minotaur Books)

Best First Novel By An American Author: In the Shadow of Gotham, by Stefanie Pintoff (Minotaur Books)

Best Paperback Original: Body Blows, by Marc Strange (Dundurn Press/Castle Street Mysteries)

Best Fact Crime: Columbine, by Dave Cullen (Hachette Book Group/Twelve)

Best Juvenile: Closed for the Season, by Mary Downing Hahn (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's Books)

Best Young Adult: Reality Check, by Peter Abrahams (HarperCollins Children's/HarperTeen)

The full list of winners and honorees is available at mysterywriters.org.