BTW News Briefs

Ingram Offers Extended Terms on Calendars

Ingram has announced 90-day extended terms on its selection of more than 1,400 wall, desk, and engagement calendars. Payment for calendar orders placed to invoice before September 30, 2012, using the AM order type will not be due until the end of December 2012 (1% 10, net 90 EOM). All orders are subject to credit approval. Calendars are nonreturnable.

 Questions about Ingram’s calendar program can be addressed to a bookstore’s Ingram sales rep or by calling (800) 937-8200, option 3. Learn more.

Google to Buy Frommer’s Travel Guides

Google announced plans this week to buy Frommer’s travel guides from John Wiley & Sons to augment its local and travel search results, according to a report in the New York Times, which noted that the move is the latest evidence that Google is trying to transform itself into a media company.

Though Google is not the only tech company expanding to create content, the Times observed that the company “is walking a tricky line, which antitrust regulators are watching closely.” By producing its own content, it competes with other sites “instead of being just a neutral organizer of information.” It also sets Google up as a competitor to publishers.

Plans call for Google to incorporate Frommer’s travel content into its local reviews, according to the Times, and Frommer’s employees who remain at Google will work on the team that manages Zagat local listings and reviews.

“Google did not say whether it would maintain the Frommer’s brand or continue to publish print Frommer’s books,” the Times reported. “But it still uses the Zagat brand and publishes Zagat books. While Frommer’s has mobile apps, travel is one of the few areas in which print books are still essential because people often do not have cellphone data access when traveling abroad.”

Study Finds Gen Y Takes Lead in Book Buying

Generation Y, those born between 1979 and 1989, spent the most money on books in 2011, taking over book-buying leadership from Baby Boomers, according to the 2012 U.S. Book Consumer Demographics and Buying Behaviors Annual Review, released this week by  Bowker® Market Research and Publishers Weekly.

According to the report, GenY’s book expenditures rose to 30 percent in 2011, compared to 25 for Baby Boomers. Forty-three percent of GenY purchases were made online.

“Consumers can now very easily purchase virtually any book they want, whenever they want it and get it at a competitive price. It’s more essential than ever before to understand who is buying and what their expectations and habits are,” said Kelly Gallagher, vice-president of Bowker Market Research.

Among the significant events in 2011 that influenced buying patterns, the report said:

• The closure of Borders accelerated movement of book sales from chains to online retailers. By the fourth quarter of 2011, online retailers’ share of unit purchases had risen to 39 percent, up eight percentage points from the close of 2010. Conversely, chains’ share fell to 30 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 from 36 percent at the end of 2010.  
• E-books rose from four percent of unit sales in 2010 to 14 percent in 2011. 
• The slow economic recovery helped increase the percentage of book purchases by affluent households. Fifty-seven percent of book spending in 2011 came from households earning more than $50,000 annually, up from 54 percent in 2010. 
• And though women remained a more powerful spending group than men, women’s share of unit purchases declined to 62 percent from 65 percent in 2010 and their share of spending dropped to 55 percent from 58 percent in 2010. 

NAIPR Basic Goes Live

The National Association of Publishers Representatives (NAIPR) and Above the Treeline have announced the availability of NAIPR Basic, within Edelweiss. NAIPR Basic, which replaces NAIPR’s Frontlist Plus Universal, will provide all the functionality of the 20-year-old product and is available as a download formatted for all major Point of Sales (POS) software applications currently used by indie booksellers.

Additional service levels — NAIPR Enhanced and NAIPR Premium — will launch for  the spring 2013 selling season. The next two service levels “will go well beyond anything that was available through Frontlist Plus Universal and will reduce the administrative burdens for booksellers and sales representatives and offer publishers a far more robust tool for getting out information on their new titles in a more timely fashion to this important customer class,” said Bob Rooney, executive director of NAIPR.

WNBA Launches Annual Writing Contest

After years of celebrating published authors, extraordinary book women, and others in the field, the Women’s National Book Association (WNBA) is celebrating emerging writers through a new writing contest.

WNBA is accepting submissions of previously unpublished fiction and poetry until November 1, 2012. Guidelines and additional details are available at wnba-books.org.

The winner will receive a $250 cash prize and publication in WNBA’s Bookwoman. WNBA will announce the winner on April 1, 2013.

Thurber Prize Finalists Announced

The three finalists for the 2012 Thurber Prize for American Humor, which honors an outstanding book of humor writing published in the U.S. between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2011, are:

• Nate DiMeo for Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America (Hyperion)
•  Patricia Marx for Starting From Happy (Scribner)
• Calvin Trillin for Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin: Years of Funny Stuff (Random House)

The award will be presented with the support of the Greater Columbus Arts Council at a ceremony at Carolines on Broadway in Columbus, Ohio, on October 1.  The host for the evening will be Randy Cohen, former “Ethicist” columnist for the New York Times Magazine from 1999-2011, and author of the upcoming book Be Good: How to Navigate the Ethics of Everything.

SCIBA Names Award Finalists

Members of the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association have selected the 2012 SCIBA Book Award Finalists in six categories: fiction, nonfiction, mystery, art, architecture & photography, children’s novel, and children’s picture book.

The finalists in the categories of fiction and nonfiction are:

Fiction

• The Barbarian Nurseries, by Hector Tobar (FSG)
• The Book of Madness and Cures, by Regina O’Melveny (Little, Brown)
• Los Angeles Stories, by RY Cooder (City Lights Publishers) 

Nonfiction

• Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash, by Edward Humes (Avery)
• Happy Accidents, by Jane Lynch (Voice)
• A People’s Guide to Los Angeles, by Laura Pulido (University of California Press)

The complete list of finalists is available on the SCIBA website; the winners will be announced at the SCIBA Authors Feast & Trade Show on October 20, on The Queen Mary in Long Beach, California.