BTW News Briefs

ReadingGroupGuides.com Celebrates 10 Years With Top-10 Lists for Book Clubs

ReadingGroupGuides.com, an online community for reading groups run by TheBookReportNetwork.com, is celebrating its 10^th anniversary by sharing its Top Ten Discussion Books for book clubs and reading groups, as voted on by more than 12,000 book club members in its 10^th Anniversary Contest.

“While the overall top-10 discussion books did not present any surprises, these lists reinforce the popularity of these bestselling titles, solidifying them as perennial favorites for book club members,” said Carol Fitzgerald, president of The Book Report Network.

ReadingGroupGuides.com compiled six lists from reader entries: Overall Top 10, Top 10 Classics, Top 10 Young Adult/Kids Books, Top 10 Memoirs/Biographies, and Top 10 Books Featuring Animals and Selections You Might Not Expect.

ReadingGroupGuides.com plans to share more lists this fall, including one of historical fiction titles broken out by time frame.

SBA Implements Higher Maximum Loan Sizes

As a result of the passage of the Small Business Jobs Act, the U.S. Small Business Administration has increased maximum sizes for several of its loan programs.

Under the Jobs Act provisions, SBA has permanently increased 7(a) and 504 limits from $2 million to $5 million, and for manufacturers and certain energy-related projects seeking 504 loans, to $5.5 million.  The maximum for International Trade and Export Working Capital loans also has been increased from $2 million to $5 million.

SBA also permanently increased microloan limits from $35,000 to $50,000, to help larger entrepreneurs with start-up costs and small business owners in underserved communities. It also raised the limit on Export Express loans, from $250,000 to $500,000, and made the program permanent.

SBA Express loan limits have been temporarily raised from $350,000 to $1 million for one year.  These loans offer a streamlined application process. Unlike traditional 7(a) loans, SBA Express loans carry a 50 percent guarantee and can be used as revolving lines of credit – to help restock inventories and support larger revenue sales.

Londoner Howard Jacobson Named Man Booker Prize Winner

On October 12, author and columnist Howard Jacobson was named the winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury), a novel about love, loss, male friendship, and what it means to be Jewish today.

Jacobsen had been longlisted for the prize twice before: in 2006 for Kalooki Nights and in 2002 for Who’s Sorry Now.

This year’s other shortlist finalists were:

• Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey (Faber and Faber)
• Room by Emma Donoghue (Picador/Pan Macmillan)
• In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut (Atlantic Books/Grove Atlantic)
• The Long Song by Andrea Levy (Headline Review/Headline Publishing Group)
• C by Tom McCarthy (Jonathan Cape/Random House)

Ingram Content Group to Provide Integrated Distribution Services for Springer

Ingram Content Group and Springer have announced a new integrated distribution services model that combines traditional physical book fulfillment with single-copy print-on-demand solutions for Springer’s Americas publishing program. 

Starting in the first quarter of 2011, Ingram Content Group will manage warehousing, fulfillment, and print-on-demand for Springer. Ingram will hold Springer’s entire U.S. inventory and as it sells down, Ingram will transition titles to print-on-demand when it makes the most economic sense, the companies said. All fulfillment will come through Ingram.

AAP:Year-to-Date E-Book Sales Comprise 9.0 Percent of Trade Book Sales

The Association of American Publishers released figures this week that showed e-books sales for the period of January - August 2010 comprised 9.03 percent of total consumer book sales, compared to 3.31 percent at the close of 2009. For January – August 2010, overall trade book sales (not including books for academic study) totaled $2.91 billion, while e-book sales were $263 million. AAP noted that this compared to $89.8 million in e-book sales from January - August 2009 and represented an overall increase for the category of 193 percent over last year.

August 2010 e-book sales showed a 172.4 percent increase over August 2009.