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Give the headline writer a raise

xensen — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:34:15 +0000

Everybody in New York Hates Slate Reporter Who Complained About Indie Bookstores

Post from Right Reading, Tom Christensen's guide to print and electronic book publishing.
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Give the headline writer a raise

Book vs. Kindle Smackdown

xensen — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:00:37 +0000

Green Apple Books — located right here in the Bay Area — has launched a ten-round battle between the book and the kindle. Who do you suppose wins round one?

Post from Right Reading, Tom Christensen's guide to print and electronic book publishing.
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Book vs. Kindle Smackdown

Destination bookstores

xensen — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:00:21 +0000

Has it come to this? Is it left to USAToday/Associated Press to be the guardian of our literary culture?

Beth J. Harpaz, AP Travel Editor, has selected nine bookstores that she considers “worth a tourist’s time” because each is “more than just a place to buy books.” The nine bookstores are:

BOOKS & BOOKS: 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables
CITY LIGHTS BOOKS: 261 Columbus Ave., San Francisco
ELLIOTT BAY BOOK CO.: 101 S. Main St., Seattle
POLITICS AND PROSE: 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington
POWELL’S CITY OF BOOKS: 1005 W. Burnside, Portland
PRAIRIE LIGHTS: 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City
TATTERED COVER BOOK STORE: 1628 16th St., Denver
THAT BOOKSTORE IN BLYTHEVILLE: 316 W. Main, Blytheville (Arkansas)
THE STRAND: Corner of 12th Street and Broadway, near Union Square, Manhattan

What do you think of this list? I would add Moe’s in Berkeley to it, for one.

LINK: Nine destination bookstores worth putting on a tourist’s itinerary (USAToday). IMAGE modified from this source

Post from Right Reading, Tom Christensen's guide to print and electronic book publishing.
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Destination bookstores

Amazon-France tussle continues

xensen — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:00:11 +0000

As noted before, the Europeans are less sanguine about large internet companies than is the U.S. In France, Amazon wanted to offer free shipping to its customers. But France has a law intended to protect booksellers from predatory competition. The International Herald Tribune summarizes:

The 1981 Lang law was passed at a time when booksellers were losing sales to supermarkets and other new competitors. It was meant to assure that the French public had equal access to a wide variety of books, both high-brow and low-brow, not just heavily marked-down publications. The law has twice come before the European Court of Justice and both times it has been affirmed. The law is not considered anti competitive because all book retailers are held to the same standard…. In the Amazon case, a union of French bookstores won its lawsuit against the company last month over the free-shipping offer, which applies only to deliveries within France on book orders of more than €20.

The result of this is a $1500/day fine currently being levied against, and paid by, amazon. Who will win this game of chicken?

via Persona Non Grata

Post from Right Reading, Tom Christensen's guide to print and electronic book publishing.
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Amazon-France tussle continues

Flexible pricing or independent booksellers who pay for readings?

xensen — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 13:01:45 +0000

The chains’ dominance of the bookstore segment of the U.S. book publishing industry is a result of the value the country places on open competition. Would you be willing to give up bargain pricing if it meant a thriving culture of independent bookstores and a system that rewards authors with a comfortable yearly income? According to Critical Mass, that’s the choice that Germany made.

POSTING WILL BE A LITTLE LIGHT while I’m on the road.

Post from Right Reading, Tom Christensen's guide to print and electronic book publishing.
Follow me on twitter.

Flexible pricing or independent booksellers who pay for readings?