BTW News Briefs

Children’s Choice Book Awards Voting Opens March 14

The Children’s Book Council has announced that voting for the 2012 Children’s Choice Book Awards (CCBA), whose winning titles are selected by children and teens of all ages, will open on March 14, 2012. The winners will be announced at a gala celebration during Children’s Book Week (May 7 – 13).

A Children’s Book Week Toolkit is in the works, and booksellers can stay in the loop regarding all things Children’s Book Week and CCBA by following the Children’s Book Council on Twitter and on Facebook.  

Inc. on Leveraging the Senses to Spur Holiday Sales

This month, Inc.magazine examines how retailers can, and should, leverage the five senses to encourage customers to buy. “During the holiday season, when stakes are sky-high and competition is fierce, atmospherics become especially important. And businesses that understand how to play into consumer psychology will likely reap the rewards of higher sales,” Inc. said.

Experts encourage retailers to look at the way their stores:  

•  Smell (it matters a lot).
• Use music (a powerful marketing tool).
• Give customers their personal space (not having it can deter sales).
• Use colors to stimulate the senses.
• Offer free food samples.

Esi Edugyan Wins Canada’s Giller Prize

Esi Edugyan has been named the 2011 winner of Canada’s Scotiabank Giller Prize for her novel Half-Blood Blues, published by Thomas Allen Publishers.

“Imagine Mozart were a black German trumpet player and Salieri a bassist, and 18th century Vienna were WWII Paris; that’s Esi Edugyan’s joyful lament, Half-Blood Blues,” said the Giller Prize jury.

The Scotiabank Giller Prize awards $50,000 to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English and $5,000 to each of five finalists. The shortlist was chosen from 143 books submitted for consideration by 55 publishing houses from every region of Canada.

BISG Study Finds Deepening Commitment to Digital Formats

The Book Industry Study Group has revealed some key data from the final report in Volume Two of its “Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading“ survey, which is on sale now.

Among the survey’s findings:

• Nearly 50 percent of print book consumers who have acquired an e-book in the past 18 months would wait up to three months for the e-version of a book from a favorite author, rather than immediately read it in print.
• More than 46 percent of those who acquire e-books at least weekly report having increased their dollars spent for books in all formats, compared with 30.4 percent of all survey respondents. 
• Seventy-five percent of respondents are satisfied with their e-reading device; less than 5 percent said they felt their e-reading device was not a good value.
• Amazon.com remains the preferred source for e-book acquisition for 70 percent of respondents; Barnes & Noble is second, at 26 percent; and Apple is third.  Libraries are on the upswing, however.
• Many barriers to e-book reading, including concerns about e-book availability, are falling, although the price of e-book readers remains a concern.

Findings from all survey fieldings in Volume Two are available for sale from BISG both as PDF Summary Reports and as a complete data compendium, accessible online.

Google eBooks Launches in Australia

Google eBooks™ launched in Australia this week with partnerships with Booktopia and Dymocks, Australia’s two largest booksellers,” as reported by the Herald Sun. QBD, one of the country’s top three chains, and Co-Op, university booksellers, are also slated to begin selling Google eBooks.

In other e-book news, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that many of the country’s indie booksellers will be offering e-books for sale through in-store kiosks. “Pages & Pages in Mosman will be the first independent to install a kiosk using the ReadCloud platform and within two weeks Abbeys, Newtown’s Better Read than Dead, Berkelouw, and Shearers will follow,” the paper said, noting that ReadCloud has distribution rights to 15,000 titles from HarperCollins, John Wylie & Sons, Murdoch Books, Text Publishing, and Scribe Publications and is in discussion with Random House.

B&N Unveils Nook Tablet

On November 7, Barnes & Noble launched a Nook Tablet priced at $249, about $50 more than Amazon’s Kindle Fire but half the price of Apple’s cheapest iPad, according to the Wall Street Journal, which said that the Nook Tablet comes with “16 gigabytes of built-in memory, twice that of the Kindle Fire, plus the ability to store more on a removable memory card.” The tablet is pre-loaded with apps from Netflix and Hulu Plus to stream movies and TV shows and Pandora’s Internet-radio app for music.

B&N said that it was also cutting the price of the Nook Simple Touch to $99 from $139 and the Nook Color e-reader to $199 from $249.