BTW News Briefs

Pubs for the Hub Auction to Raise Funds for Boston

Pubs for the Hub is coordinating an auction of publishing-related items and services with all proceeds being donated to The One Fund, an initiative to help those affected by the Boston Marathon bombings.

Items for auction include editorial services, printed books and e-books, consultations, design work, illustration work, e-book conversions and development, writing critiques and reviews, and homemade gifts.

The first round of items will be auctioned from April 22 to 27, and the second from April 29 to May 4. Bidders who win an auction will donate the bid amount to The One Fund.

Click here to offer an item or service for auction, and contact Iris Febres for more information about the fundraiser.  

Intuit’s “Make a Wish” Contest for Small Business Owners Returns

In 2012, Linden Tree Books in Los Altos, California, had its wish granted— signage to help with navigation in the store — by Intuit’s Small Business Growing Strong campaign.

Intuit is making the program available again this year, with 15 wishes being granted to small businesses around the country. Wishers can post their wish online and are encouraged to promote their wish for votes, as it contributes to the odds of having it granted. A wish can be worth up to $5,000, and the top five wishes that get the most public votes will get a suite of products from Intuit.

The deadline to wish is May 12. Announcements will begin May 6 and one winner will be announced each day for 15 days.

ALA’s List of Most Challenged Titles Released

The American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom received 464 reports of attempts to remove or restrict titles from schools and libraries in 2012 (up from 326 attempts in 2011). An official challenge is one that comes in the form of a written complaint filed with a library or school, identifying a title to be restricted or removed based on its content or appropriateness.

The Top Ten List of Frequently Challenged Books for 2012 features:

• Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
• Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher
• Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James
• And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
• The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
• Looking for Alaska, by John Green
• Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
• The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls
• Beloved, by Toni Morrison

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Announces Take 5 Promo

Next month, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will launch Take 5, a new e-incentive program featuring five titles each month for $2.99 or less. The selection each month will be a thematically linked mix of new and old titles, and primarily e-book format. May’s assortment features The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, An Unfinished Season by Ward Just, A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin, The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett, and Beautiful Boy by David Sheff.

Take 5 titles will be on sale through a range of electronic outlets, including Kobo. 

Books Are My Bag Campaign to Launch in the U.K.

Calling it the “biggest ever promotion of bookshops,” the Booksellers Association of the United Kingdom and Ireland will launch the new campaign Books Are My Bag to run from September through Christmas 2013.

“Books Are My Bag” tote bags, designed by M&C Saatchi and bearing a large orange font, will be available at both chains and independent stores. The promotion celebrating books and bookstores has two elements: a targeted PR campaign featuring celebrities with the bag in the national press and a street-level campaign that uses everyday people with the bag as advertisement.

M&C Saatchi’s James Lowther, founding partner and creative head, said that the bag’s message is, “I use bookshops because I value them. And I want it to stay that way.”

Simon & Schuster in Pilot Program With New York City Libraries

Simon & Schuster will launch a one-year e-book pilot program to bring its full list of titles to the New York City library systems.

Beginning April 30, the New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library will be able to purchase and provide e-books from the company’s full list to patrons. The Queens Library will have access beginning mid-May.

When a library purchases a title during the pilot, the title will be available for one year from the purchase date. The e-book is then available for an unlimited number of checkouts during the year, by one patron at a time. New titles will be made available to the libraries on the same day as publication.

As an additional part of the pilot, library patrons are able to purchase these e-books through the libraries’ websites. A share of the profit will go to the library.

Ingram Adds Ebook Library Titles to OASIS

Ingram will soon be allowing libraries to search and purchase Ebook Library (EBL) content through the Ingram OASIS® content platform. More than 325,000 titles will be added to the database under the collaboration.

EBL is an e-book aggregator that serves academic, corporate, and research libraries. Purchases and acquisitions from EBL, which libraries formerly handled as a separate transaction, will be consolidated with OASIS billing.

Ingram aims to continue growing its offerings to libraries, and currently provides content through Ingram Library Services Inc. and Coutts Information Services Inc.