BTW News Briefs

SCIBA Celebrates Jennifer Bigelow

The Southern California Independent Booksellers Association last week feted the organization’s longtime executive director, Jennifer Bigelow, who retired at the end of December.

Friends, family, and bookselling colleagues, including surprise guest ABA CEO Oren Teicher, came together to honor Bigelow for her years of dedication to the cause of indie bookselling and to wish her well in her future endeavors.

Here, Bigelow is pictured with Teicher and former SCIBA President Guy Adams of the UCLA Store.

Bookish Debuts

Bookish, a website that promotes books to consumers from some 20 publishers, launched on February 5. The site, a joint project of Hachette, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster, is billed as “a one-stop, comprehensive online destination designed to connect readers with books and authors.” Plans for the site were first announced in May 2011.

Among Bookish’s offerings are editorial content, a recommendation tool, author pages, and a virtual bookshelf. Bookish also gives users the option of buying both physical books and e-books through a process on the site (powered by Baker & Taylor), or to click through to  retailers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and IndieBound stores, to purchase their next read.

Other major publishers participating in the site include Random House, Scholastic, HarperCollins, and Perseus Books Group.

iBookstore Highlights Self-Published Books

In a further indication of the growing popularity of self-published books, the New York Times reported that on Tuesday Apple was launching a feature that organizes a group of popular self-published e-books together and gives them prominent display on iBookstore, under the banner “Breakout Books.”

The books will remain on the iBookstore’s main page for at least two weeks and then will remain a permanent feature on the site.

“Self-published authors often sell their books for $2.99 or less, which is significantly less than books sold through traditional publishers,” the Times observed. “The savings are popular among some readers.”

Europa Launches World Noir Series

This May, Europa Editions will launch a World Noir series. The new series will publish three to four new crime titles each season, but will begin this summer with a total of 15 titles, eight redesigned classics from the Europa list (reissued with new ISBNs) and seven brand new titles.

In anticipation of the World Noir launch, Europa is releasing a special international crime fiction reader featuring a variety of essays, excerpts, and interviews. A digital edition of the World Noir reader is also available  for download in several formats.

Verso to Be Distributed by Random House

Effective July 1, Verso Books will be sold and distributed in North America by Random House Publisher Services. Since 1996, Verso has been sold and distributed in the U.S. by Norton and in Canada by Penguin Group.