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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Kodak, On Demand Books and ReaderLink Join Forces for In-Store Book Printing at Retail

Eastman Kodak Company, the worldwide leader in retail imaging solutions, with a global footprint of 105,000 KODAK Picture Kiosks, On Demand Books, and ReaderLink today announced they have partnered to revolutionize the way all types of printed books will be marketed, sold and produced at point of sale. The venture brings together On Demand Books’ innovative, in-store Espresso Book Machine® to national retailers integrated with KODAK Picture Kiosks, giving consumers a full-service digital-to-print media center for all their custom print needs: from photo books, custom/local self-published titles, to educational supplements, and more.

On Demand Books is also working with ReaderLink to bring in-copyright titles to non-trade bookseller channels, allowing customers to have immediate access to a vast array of non-stocked and backlist titles at point of sale. ReaderLink is the largest full-service distributor of books in North America, distributing thousands of books to over 24,000 retail outlets across virtually all substantial mass market, club, drug and grocery chains in the United States.

The Espresso Book Machine, the only digital-to-print at retail solution on the market today, has begun to dramatically change the book industry by giving consumers the ability to produce a self-published book, or print on demand a book from more than seven million in-copyright or public domain titles, in less than four minutes. By integrating this solution with the KODAK Picture Kiosk, this capability will be expanded to produce perfect bound, high-quality Kodak Photo Books in minutes for in-store pick up.

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New perfume for book lovers available this week

Paper Passion evokes the scent of fresh paper and comes packaged inside a real book.

 By Nick Davies

A few months ago, we posted a video that explained where old books get their distinctive, musty smell that so many people love. Now, for people who prefer brand new books, there’s a perfume out that will let you keep their scent with you all day.

New York’s Daily News reports that fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld came up with the name Paper Passion, which launched on July 12 in Wallpaper magazine’s annual Handmade issue. It was actually at Wallpaper‘s Handmade exhibition in Milan last year that the idea for the perfume originated, when German publisher Gerhard Steidl remarked that his favorite scent was a “freshly printed book.”

Since then, Steidl has been working with perfumer Geze Schoen on perfecting the scent, using only four or five ingredients. Synthesizing paper’s unique aroma was apparently not an easy task. Schoen explained, “The smell of printed paper is dry and fatty; they are not notes you often work with.”

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Barnes & Noble Weighs in on E-Book Price Fixing Claims

Graph which B&N says shows that agency prices have not increased cost of e-books.

– By Michael Stillman

Barnes & Noble has joined many in the publishing industry in the battle against Amazon over electronic book pricing. This battle bears many similarities to that of a generation ago which pitted Wal-Mart against Main Street. However, there are differences as well, and the outcome is not quite so certain this time.

Amazon reprises the role of Wal-Mart a generation ago. Amazon wants to sell e-books for less. It is a business plan as simple as that of Wal-Mart. Sell more merchandise than anyone else by charging less. Crush the competition by selling it so cheaply that no one else can match your price. Consumers may treat you with disdain for being so crass, for providing so little service, but they still flock to your store. Ultimately, we follow the cheapest price. It’s like our feelings toward government. We like good schools, roads and bridges, parks, museums, all kinds if public services, but we prefer tax cuts.

Now, as previously noted, there are differences from the Wal-Mart vs. Main Street battle. When Amazon entered the e-book business, it was not trampling on someone else’s turf. There was no Main Street. No one was there. Amazon wanted to make sure it stayed that way. Even without competition, they sold e-books cheaply, at low margins, at times even at a loss. The plan was to so dominate the e-book business that no one else would ever get a foothold. It worked like a charm.

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Will ‘showrooming’ kill businesses?

Merchants suffer when customers use their stores to check out products, sometimes taking pictures of them, and then buying them online, says Bob Greene

By Bob Greene

In a bookstore, I saw a woman taking photograph after photograph of newly released titles that were arranged on a shelf. She was using her phone to take the pictures.

I didn’t understand. Why would anyone want to take pictures of books?

Then, at a restaurant, waiting for a table, I heard two men, also waiting, talking. One said he had just ended a frustrating day at the store he owned.

“Do they think I’m a showroom?” he said.

He mentioned people who had come into his shop that day, had looked at the merchandise, had taken notes — and then had left.

“Do they think I don’t know what they’re doing?” he said.

It is a relatively new phenomenon. Among retail merchants — owners of stores both small and large — it has a name:

“Showrooming.”

No one showrooms by choice.

And it represents a potential sea change in American life. Its implications are vast.

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The joy of Moleskine notebooks

Moleskine notebooks … the best of their kind? Photograph: Alamy

No, despite what you may have heard, Bruce Chatwin never used them but they are still the best notebooks money can buy.

By Emine Saner

It’s the  promise held in that unbroken spine, the smooth oilskin cover, the comforting rounded corners. But most of all in the pristine ivory blankness, ready to be filled with the beginnings of your first bestseller and sketches so groundbreaking they will require new ways of thinking about art. This notebook, the Moleskine pocketone you just paid £8.99 for, will deliver it all.

Apparently Van Gogh used one, and Picasso, and Hemingway – this history now rests in your hands. So long as you can find a spot in Caffe Nero and get to work. “It’s a masterful bit of excavation of the human psyche,” says Stephen Bayley, the design critic and writer – and user of Moleskines. “The stuff you’re writing in it could be the most brainless trivia, but it makes you feel connected to Hemingway.”

Except there is no real connection to Hemingway. Moleskine was created in 1997, based on a description of the beautiful, bound notebooks the travel writer Bruce Chatwin bought from a French bookbinder before it closed down. An Italian company Modo & Modo recreated it, sold it at a premium price and describes it as a “legendary notebook”. “It’s an exaggeration,” Francesco Franceschi, co-owner of Modo & Modo told the New York Times in 2004. “It’s marketing, not science. It’s not the absolute truth.”

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RHG, Hachette score three each in R&J summer club

Richard and Judy

|By Katie Allen

Three Random House Group titles have been picked for the Richard and Judy Summer Book Club, exclusive to WHS, which returns this month with an extra two titles.

The Fear Index by Robert Harris (Arrow); The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Vintage); and The Secrets Between Us by Louise Douglas (Bantam Press) are on the 10-strong list, which launches with Victoria Hislop’s The Thread (Headline Review).

One book will be launched each week in WHS stores nationwide and online from tomorrow (24th May), with extra bonus material in the back of the titles.

The Book of Summers by Emylia Hall, also Headline Review, is also in the promotion, plus third Hachette title Jubilee by Shelley Harris (Phoenix). A Perfectly Good Man by Patrick Gale (Fourth Estate) and The Hypnotists by Lars Kepler (Blue Door) from HCUK, Tideline by Penny Hancock (S&S) and Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington (Picador) complete the list.

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Morpurgo titles to be given away at McDonald’s

 |By Caroline Horn

Restaurant chain McDonald’s is to give away nine million copies of Michael Morpurgo’s Mudpuddle Farm books in its McDonald’s Happy Meals for children, as part of a promotion with HarperCollins Children’s Books.

The initiative will run from today, 11th January, to Tuesday 7th February. Customers ordering Happy Meals will be offered a free book from a selection including six titles from Mudpuddle Farm range including Mossop’s Last Chance, Pigs Might Fly! and Martians at Mudpuddle Farm, all aimed at children aged six to eight years.

Each book comes with a finger puppet and books will also be available to purchase at McDonald’s restaurants without the need to buy a Happy Meal. The initiative is being publically backed by TV presenter Jeff Brazier.

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Deon Meyer takes the bestseller lists by storm!

Deon Meyer

Deon Meyer‘s new Benny Griessel crime thriller 7 DAE (published in Afrikaans by Human & Rousseau, English title 7 DAYS) tops South African charts and TRACKERS, which managed to fend off the likes of Paolo Coelho, James Patterson, and many others, to maintain the Number One spot for eight weeks, is not far behind. TRACKERS was launched in the UK, USA, South Africa and Germany in September and the Sunday Times has tipped it as Meyer’s ‘best work yet’.  The German edition, published by Aufbau as ROTE SPUR, has reached Number One on the KrimiZEIT Bestseller lists too.

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Big names set to dominate children’s Christmas

Christopher Paolini's Inheritance

25.11.11 | Caroline Horn

Booksellers are relying on a handful of established names to boost sales this Christmas, with little expectation of any surprise bestsellers emerging in the next few weeks.

Melissa Cox, new titles buyer at Waterstone’s, said: “We already have early indications of what will do well this Christmas, including Jeff Kinney’s Cabin Fever and Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance. David Walliams’ Gangsta Granny is another nice gift book and, I think, his best work to date.”

Rachel Airey, buyer at W H Smith, said: “For us, the big authors are going to be even bigger this Christmas. That is what we have seen so far, and we expect it to continue. We don’t see new names cutting through or generating much excitement.” Sales for Cabin Fever reached 81,804, while Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance has sold 100,984 to date.

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