Marketing

By Carl Lennertz

Booksellers Help Reading Groups Connect With Authors via Speakerphone Speakerphone conversations with authors are taking root as a new dimension for book clubs and booksellers. According to authors Donna Woolfolk Cross (Pope Joan) and Julia Older (The Island Queen) and booksellers Kiez Shultz (Prince & Pauper Bookshop in Rapid City, South Dakota) and Ruth Blake (Dickens-Reed Bookstore in Mount Dora, Florida), this kind of tele-networking is fruitful for everyone involved.

Booksellers participating in the Book Sense national marketing program will have a special opportunity this summer to celebrate Harry Potter’s July 31st birthday. Scholastic Books and Book Sense have joined efforts to present the "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Celebration" promotion.

The July 22 issue of The New Yorker, on sale July 15, will include a Book Sense ad featuring the title Fragrant Harbor by John Lanchester (Marian Wood/Putnam, 0399148663), with a recommendation from Robert Rubin of The Bookstall at Chestnut Court in Winnetka, Illinois.

As promised last week, a downloadable pdf version of the Teen Summer Reads 76 is now available on BookWeb. Teen Summer Reads pads will be included in the July white box. All previous 76s, children’s, and specialty 76s are available on BookWeb in html format and all previous 76 titles are included in one searchable Excel file at http://www.bookweb.org/read/1474.

The coming weeks will see the launch of significant new promotional opportunities for independent bookstores participating in the Book Sense national marketing program.

Any experienced e-mail user knows the drill: Log on, check mark the spam, and click delete. Then, if you have any relevant e-mail, you open and read it. For those e-mails you’re not sure of, you may open them -- but if you don’t see the point within two seconds, click! Deleted.

By Scott Foley

Or, Get the New Gold Gift Certificates! By Carl Lennertz Bear with me; this is a "5!" plea from me. It’s that important.

Three July/August Book Sense 76 picks will be featured in print ads in the coming weeks. The Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Harcourt) will be featured in an ad in the July/August issue of The Atlantic (on newsstands the week of June 18). The July 1 issue of The New Yorker (on sale June 24) will include a Book Sense ad featuring Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (St. Martin’s Press), and the July 8 issue (on sale July 1) will feature Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling (Blue Hen/Putnam).