BTW News Briefs

ABA CEO’s Turn at Watermark Books Featured in Associations Now

The January edition of Associations Now, a magazine for nonprofit professionals, takes a look at ABA CEO Oren Teicher’s December trip to Watermark Books and Cafe in Wichita, Kansas, where he helped with restocking, organizing, handselling, and other tasks for several days during the holiday season.

The magazine stated that often the best way for an association to understand its members is to be the member — see first-hand how the organizations’ initiatives are playing out on the ground level. In this vein, Teicher volunteers at a member bookstore every year during the holiday season, and shares insights gained with his colleagues back at ABA’s offices. “My staff always laments when I come back, full of all kinds of things that I’ve learned and things that we ought to be doing to be helpful and responsive to stores,” Teicher said.

“There are dozens of things that you hear from customers that are really useful in terms of understanding why it is that customers shop in our member stores, what it is they like about them, and, frankly, what are some of the things they don’t like about them.”

Scholastic Study Finds Kids’ E-reading Nearly Doubled Since 2010

The results of a survey of kids and parents released this week by Scholastic shows that the percentage of children who have read an e-book has almost doubled since 2010 (25 percent vs. 46 percent). The fourth edition of the Kids & Family Reading Report™  also found that the overwhelming majority (80 percent) of children who read e-books still read primarily print books for fun, but half of parents still say their children do not spend enough time reading books that are not assigned for school.

Fifty-eight percent of kids ages 9 - 17 in the survey said that they will always want to read books printed on paper even though there are e-books available, a decline of eight percent since 2010.

In a hopeful sign for those looking to motivate boys to read more, the study found that one in four boys who has read an e-book said he is now reading more books for fun. However, among girls since 2010, there has been a decline in frequent readers (42 percent vs. 36 percent), reading enjoyment (39 percent vs. 32 percent), and the importance of reading books for fun (62 percent vs. 56 percent say it is extremely or very important).

Best Buy Says Sales Tax Fairness Increased Sales

Electronics retailer Best Buy Co. announced last week that in states where competitor Amazon.com is now collecting and remitting sales tax, its online sales have increased, as reported by Reuters. Amazon started collecting sales tax in California on September 15, weeks before the start of the holiday season.

“In California, Texas, and Pennsylvania, where Amazon.com recently started collecting tax, it is very early, but Best Buy has seen a four to six percent increase in online sales observed in aggregate versus the rest of the chain,” Best Buy spokeswoman Amy von Walter wrote in an e-mail to Reuters. “While some people may still prefer to shop online, the sales tax parity has shown that people will shift their buying habits,” she added.

Additionally, Best Buy saw an increase of six to nine percent in online orders that are picked up in its stores in those three states, compared with the rest of its chain, von Walter told Reuters.

NBF Changes National Book Awards Review and Selection Process

The Board of Directors of the National Book Foundation announced changes this week in the National Book Awards process that aim to broaden the reach and impact of the awards.

Among the changes in the process is an increase in the number of honored books. A “Long-List” of 10 titles in each of the four genres will be announced five weeks before the finalists announcement. In 2013, the Long-Lists will be announced on September 12 (40 titles), the Finalists on October 15 (20 titles), and the National Book Award Winners on November 20 (four titles.)

In addition, judges comprising the four panels — Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature — will no longer be limited to writers, but now may also include literary critics, librarians, booksellers, and other experts.

2012 Story Prize Finalists Announced

The three finalists for the 2012 The Story Prize, chosen from 98 submissions representing 65 different publishers or imprints, are:

• Stay Awake, by Dan Chaon (Ballantine Books)
• This Is How You Lose Her, by Junot Díaz (Riverhead Books)
• Battleborn, by Claire Vaye Watkins (Riverhead Books)

The winner will be announced at an event at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium in New York City at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 13, where the three finalists will read selections from their work and will be interviewed on stage.  The winner will receive $20,000 and an engraved silver bowl; the two runners-up will each receive $5,000.

This year, The Story Prize is adding a new $1,000 prize — The Story Prize Spotlight Award — to recognize an emerging author, an established but overlooked author, or an innovator in the short story form. This year’s winner is Drifting House, by Kris Lee (Viking).

Mystery Writers of America Announces 2013 Edgar Nominees

Mystery Writers of America this week announced its nominees for the 2013 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction and television, published or produced in 2012. The awards will be presented at a gala banquet on May 2 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City.

This year’s nominees for Best Novel are:

• The Lost Ones, by Ace Atkins (Penguin/G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
• The Gods of Gotham, by Lyndsay Faye (Penguin/G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
• Gone Girl: A Novel, by Gillian Flynn (Crown Publishers)
• Potboiler, by Jesse Kellerman (Penguin/.P. Putnam’s Sons)
• Sunset, by Al Lamanda (Gale Cengage Learning/Five Star)
• Live by Night, by Dennis Lehane (HarperCollins Publishers/William Morrow)

The list of nominees in all categories is available at theedgars.com.

The evening’s festivities will also include the presentation of this year’s Grand Masters Awards to Ken Follett and Margaret Maron; the 2013 Raven Awards to California’s Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore and Oline Cogdill, a mystery columnist for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel; and the Ellery Queen Award to Johnny Temple, founder and editor of Akashic Books.

Kirkus Launches Redesigned Website

Kirkus Media, which is best known for publishing Kirkus Reviews, launched a new website design last week and is reporting an 88 percent increase in unique visitors to kirkus.com over the average week last month. The makeover was designed to simplify the book discovery experience for consumers and to make it easier for authors and publishers to navigate Kirkus’ suite of professional service offerings (such as book editing, reviews, and promotion).

Highlights of redesigned site include “Our Critics’ Take on the Bestsellers: They’re Popular, but Are They Good?”; “Vintage Reviews,” which introduces consumers to titles they may have missed when they were first popular; “Trending Now,” a section that provides an inside look at the books and happenings that have the industry buzzing; an enhanced Author Services area; and “Back Story,” a weekly feature that has bestselling authors sharing how they went from being writers with a dream to success stories.