Independents flock to NBT’s e-book shop

Patrick Neale

| By Lisa Campbell

More than 130 independent booksellers have signed up to the new Indie eBook Shop already, with the figure expected to increase to around 400.

National Book Tokens (NBT) launched the service at the London Book Fair in April, giving independent booksellers 17.5% commission on e-book sales through the site, which is powered by Gardners.

NBT’s managing director Alex de Berry said he was impressed with the encouraging reaction from booksellers to the proposition so far. He told The Bookseller: “It’s going really well—we continue to get good feedback on it, even though it is still relatively early days. We have sent emails to 850–900 indies, and now we are about to start the chase-up process, talking to people about how it might work.”

The Indie eBook Shop offers 430,000 titles, which are all in the EPUB format and can be read on all e-readers apart from Amazon’s Kindle.

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Inaugural children’s book award from Radical Booksellers alliance

 | Lisa Campbell

A graphic novel about refugees forced to flee their homeland has won the inaugural Little Rebels Children’s Book Award, given by the Alliance of Radical Booksellers.

Azzi In Between by Sarah Garland (Frances Lincoln) was praised by judges for its power and simplicity, as well as tackling a topical and important subject in the contemporary climate.

Fen Coles, director of Letterbox Library, who administered the award, said: “At a time when there are so many damaging myths circulating about refugees and asylum seekers, it is heartening to see a book which tells the truth—and in a way which children can relate to.”

The Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing has also been awarded to a ‘shocking’ account of the working lives of Chinese rural migrants, Scattered Sand: The Story of China’s Rural Migrants by Hsiao-Hung Pai (Verso).

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Debut-heavy list for R&J summer promotion

 

Richard and Judy

| By Lisa Campbell

Seven debut authors feature on the 10-strong list of summer Richard and Judy Book Club reads at W H Smith, as the retailer launches a new Book Club website featuring exclusive content.

The seven debut novels are: Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann (Picador); The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker (Simon & Schuster); This is How it Ends by Kathleen MacMahon (Sphere); The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence (Hodder); The Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman (Black Swan); The Sea Change by Joanna Rossiter (Penguin); and The Sea Sisters by Lucy Clarke (Harper).

 

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‘Wonderful’ shortlists for Food Writers awards

| By Lisa Campbell

The Guild of Food Writers Awards shortlists include a “wonderful diversity of subject matter” for 2013, the organisers have said.

The annual ceremony awards feature categories such as Cookery Book of the Year, Campaigning and Investigative Food Writing, Cookery Journalist of the Year, Food Blog of the Year and Food Broadcast of the Year. This year’s list includes names like Yotam Ottolenghi, who is up for the cookery journalist of the year award for work published in the Guardian’s Weekend magazine. Also on the list is work such as Consider the Fork: A History of Invention in the Kitchen by Bee Wilson (Particular Books), who is nominated for the Food Book of the Year award.

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Mantel on IBW shortlist

Hilary Mantel

|By Lisa Campbell

Man Booker and Costa-winner Hilary Mantel could be in line for another prize for Bring Up The Bodies (Fourth Estate), after scoring a place on the Independent Bookseller Award shortlists, with fellow nominees David Walliams and Rachel Joyce thanking booksellers for their support.

Joyce’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Black Swan) is included on the adult shortlist alongside HhHH by Laurent Binet (Vintage); A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (Canongate); Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo (Portobello); and The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth (Icon Books).

Last year’s Orange Prize-winner The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Bloomsbury) has also made the shortlist, along with three books from Faber—Capital by John Lanchester, Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver and Walking Home by Simon Armitage.

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Husain urges publishers: ‘act now to keep bookshops’

 | By Lisa Campbell

The c.e.o. of Foyles has called for publishers and suppliers to support bookshops with better terms and consignment stock before it becomes “too late” as in the case of HMV.

In an open letter to The Bookseller, Sam Husain has said the bookselling model is broken and needs “a complete re-think” in the current climate before more retailers are lost.

Husain called for better terms from publishers and suppliers, aiming at an average of 60% discount instead of the average of 40% currently experienced—and “a level playing field” with supermarkets and online retailers, which he said can benefit by discount anything up to 15% higher than that given to booksellers, based on their volume of sales. Bookshops, however, are not compensated from the extra value they add as a showroom and advice centre for published works, he argued.

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Horologicon tops indie Christmas tips

| By Lisa Campbell

Mark Forsyth’s follow-up to last Christmas’ runaway hit The Etymologicon (Icon) has been picked as the top title for booksellers to champion this December.

Publishers pitched alternative Christmas hits to booksellers at the Bookseller Association’s annual conference at Warwick University in September. The retailers voted for their favourites, with Forsyth’s The Horologicon (Icon) today (20th November) revealed as topping the Bookshop Originals list.

Two titles by John Murray made the indies’ choice selection, Patrick Leigh Fermor by Artemis Cooper, also on the shortlist for Waterstones Book of the Year award, at number two, and humorous title The Middle Class ABC by Fi Cotter-Craig and Zebedee Helm, in third.

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Indies tell customers: ‘We pay our taxes’

 |By Lisa Campbell

Booksellers across the country are displaying “We Pay Our Taxes” posters in their shop windows in a reference to rival company Amazon’s appearance in front of the Public Accounts Committee last week (12th November).

The Booksellers Association has created striking red point-of-sale materials for its IndieBound members to encourage their customers to choose to shop at their local bookshop as opposed to using rival online site Amazon.

The first of the two POS styles reads: “Your Money, Your Bookshop, Your Community”, with a stack of pound coins followed by the message “We Pay Our Taxes”; the second features a Union Jack-patterned purse with the message “Can Pay Do Pay!”, followed by “We Pay Our Taxes.”

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Kobo to launch in South Africa

| By Lisa Campbell

Kobo is to launch in South Africa in partnership with Pick n Pay hyperstores and supermarkets.

Amazon already sells Kindle devices in South Africa and now Kobo will attempt to win market share from the digital reading giant with the Kobo Touch device.

The Kobo South Africa website says it will offer popular literature by “notable local authors”, with books in both English and Afrikaans.

 

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Binet debut on Waterstones Book of the Year shortlist

 | By Lisa Campbell

A debut novel translated from French is among the six titles shortlisted for the inaugural Waterstones Book of the Year.

Laurent Binet’s HHhH, published in translation by Harvill Secker, is one of only two novels included on the shortlist, announced today (30th October). Also shortlisted is the Man Booker Prize-winning Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate).

The remaining titles are all non-fiction: Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure by Artemis Cooper (John Murray); The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot by Robert Macfarlane (Hamish Hamilton); On The Map: Why The World Looks The Way It Does by Simon Garfield (Profile Books); and Polpo: A Venetian Cookbook (Of Sorts) by Russell Norman (Bloomsbury Publishing).

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