True love at Costco.

Costco book buyer Pennie Clark Ianniciello has chosen Loving Frank: A Novel by Nancy Horan (Ballantine, $23.95, 9780345494993/0345494997) as September's book pick. She has highlighted the title in the current issue of Costco Connection, which goes to many of the warehouse club's members.

Ianniciello wrote that after reading the first novel, "I realized that this was a story I had heard but had long since forgotten. As I read, my recollection of architect Frank Lloyd Wright's relationship with Mamah Borthwick Cheney filled out, and I finally broke down and skipped to the end to remind myself of the lovers' fate. I cannot thank Horan enough for reminding me of, and introducing countless readers to, Cheney--an amazingly strong, smart and determined woman. What makes the story even better is that the love between Cheney and Wright, as described by Horan, seems as dedicated and true as any I've ever read about."

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Denise Brown, sister of Nicole Brown Simpson, is backing out of an appearance on Oprah with some members of the family of Ron Goldman, who was murdered with Simpson, the New York Times reported. The group was planning to be on the show September 13, which is the publication date for If I Did It by O.J. Simpson.

In related news, Beaufort Books, which is publishing If I Did It with the support of the Goldman family, will print 125,000 copies and will likely go back to press before pub date. Beaufort's Eric Kampmann said that company has orders for 116,000 copies.

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"Hogwarts Express hasn't run out of steam," according to the Boston Herald, which featured an update on the retail fate of HP7. A manager at Curious George Goes to Wordsworth bookstore, Cambridge, Mass., said, "People have come in telling me that they weren’t going to read it but see people reading it everywhere they go (and) are now curious for the first time. They want to pick up Deathly Hallows, and I suggest they start with the first one. So you have a whole new set of people just learning about Harry Potter."

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Dealing with English-speaking customers, coups de coeur (store favorites) and the palmarès (bestseller) lists in Montreal.

In an interview with Blaise Renaud, commercial director at Renaud-Bray, Montreal, Que., the Montreal Gazette asked about the company's ordering strategy for the small section of English books. Renaud said, "It's simple: We stock some important works and bestsellers--the types of books where you wouldn't want to read a translation." Renaud-Bray employees are not required to speak English, "but that doesn't mean they don't. I think English customers are understanding. I mean, this is a French bookstore, after all."

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"The world of publishing is changing in very major ways," David Davidar, publisher of Penguin Group (Canada), told Canadian Business magazine. "It isn't the same place that it was 20 years ago. Readers aren't necessarily willing to wait anymore. Increasingly, you have one big hit, people go out and buy the hardcover, and because of deep discounting and used books, readers won't wait for the paperback. [This will make] the model of the classic trade publishing house outdated."

The article combined a profile of Davidar with an exploration of "English-language book publishing in Canada--a place where profit margins are super-tight, multinational publishers are muscling in on an already intensely crowded marketplace and the retail market is dominated by one big bookselling chain."

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Stars and Stripes explored the international proliferation of "Book Towns," beginning with Bredevoort, a "quintessential Dutch village . . . with its cobblestone roads, bikes and brownstone homes bedecked with flowers. . . . Fewer than 2,000 people inhabit this tidy town, but, incredibly, there are roughly 200,000 tomes on the market in Bredevoort's two dozen bookstores."

In early August, another Booktown--Redu, Belgium--held its annual Night of the Book festival, "a time when shops stay open late, streets are packed and fireworks fill the midnight sky."

"It's very pleasant and fun," said Philippe Evrard, a bookshop owner in Redu. "There is music in the streets. Books are not only serious."

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Citing Larry Portzline and his bookstore tourism concept as inspiration, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette offered a "book tourist's guide to some of the stops in Arkansas." Featured booksellers included Sleuths Mystery Bookstore, Little Rock; Nightbird Books, Fayetteville; That Bookstore in Blytheville, Blytheville; Treasure House Books, Harrison; Jefferson Street Books, El Dorado; and Cottage Bookstore of Melbourne, Melbourne.

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In a "companion" piece to its bookstore tourism coverage, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette introduced readers to the bookstore "cats and critters" in the region and declared that "writers tend to like cats. Cats like to sleep on shelves, and in store windows. Some say a bookstore needs a cat almost as much as it needs books."

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Fasten seat belts to follow this:

The Quarto Group, a publicly traded company in the U.K., has bought Motor Books International, the St. Paul, Minn., publisher and distributor, and will be overseen by Ken Fund, president and CEO of Quayside Publishing Group, Beverly, Mass., which Quarto owns. Quayside publishes over 250 books a year in the graphic design, enthusiast and lifestyle categories. Quayside's imprints are Creative Publishing international, Fair Winds Press, Quarry Books, Quiver and Rockport Publishers.

Motor Books, which includes Voyageur Press and Zenith Press, has more than 8,000 book and calendar titles in print and specializes in cars, motorsports, motorcycles, tractors, railroads, racing, travel, nature, military history, aviation, country living and Americana. The company is a distributor for more than 20 publishers and for some publishers, acts as a wholesaler to specialty accounts, particularly the automotive, farm and hobby markets.

Quarto chairman and CEO Laurence F. Orbach said that the purchase of Motor Books is part of "the overall strategy" to make Quayside "the publisher and distributor of choice for books for enthusiasts across all niche categories."

 

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Consolidated sales at Borders Group in the quarter ended August 4 rose 10.4% to $945.1 million. The consolidated net loss was $25.1 million, compared to $18.4 million in the same period a year ago.

Excluding one-time charges that consist of $3.5 million in a tentative settlement of litigation about employee overtime in California (involving sales managers and inventory managers), store closing and relocation costs, executive severance costs and fees related to the intended sale of international operations, the loss was lower than expected. The company has emphasized that 2007 is a "transition" year as it enacts a major strategic overhaul announced earlier this year.

But with the charges, the loss was higher than expected by Wall Street analysts, according to the AP. Borders shares closed at $14.80, down 5.8% yesterday, and dropped nearly 1% more in after-hours trading.

"Progress is clearly being made at Borders Group as we continue to execute our strategic plan and are beginning to see improved performance," CEO George Jones said in a statement. "Harry Potter certainly gave us a big boost in sales across all businesses, yet even without it, we achieved positive same-stores sales results that are directly attributable to our focus on execution and more effective use of the Borders Rewards loyalty program to drive increased traffic to our stores. We have significantly more work to do, and we remain committed to staying on-track to deliver sales and earnings growth consistent with the long-term financial goals we set forth in our strategic plan."

U.S. Stores

Sales at all U.S. Borders superstores rose 9.7% to $658.6 million while sales at those stores open at least a year rose 4.6%. Excluding sales of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, same-store sales would have risen 0.4%, the first time in a year same-store sales have risen. The company noted that children's books besides Harry Potter and bargain books did well. In addition, café and gifts and stationery were strong performers while music continued to decline.

The superstores had an operating loss of $2.9 million compared to operating income of $11 million in the second quarter of 2006. The loss came mainly from special charges, discounts on HP7 and expenses connected with the company's strategic initiatives.

During the quarter, Borders opened four superstores in the U.S. and now has 506.

Waldenbooks Specialty Retail

Total sales at the Waldenbooks Specialty Retail division--which includes Walden and Borders mall and airport stores--dropped 7.7% to $116.7 million while sales at stores open a least a year rose 6.2%. Excluding HP7, comp-store sales were flat. This ends seven straight quarters of negative comp-stores sales results. The operating loss was $12.4 million compared to $12.6 million in 2006. Borders closed 21 of the division's stores during the quarter and now has 532.

Jones commented: "Our efforts to draw mall customers across our lease line with compelling presentation are paying off and we are seeing improvements resulting from other efforts, such as adjustments to the product assortment and better store execution."

International

Total international sales rose 31.2% to $169.8 million. Excluding the impact of the weak dollar, total international sales would have risen 20.7%. Sales at international stores open at least a year rose 8.2%. Excluding HP7, comp-store sales would have risen 5.6%. The operating loss was $9.8 million compared to $16 million in the same period a year ago. Borders is continuing to shop much of its international operations, as part of the strategic plan.

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• John Ed Bradley, author of It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium (ESPN Books, $24.95, 9781933060330/1933060336)
• Neal Thompson, author of Hurricane Season: A Coach, His Team, and Their Triumph in the Time of Katrina (Free Press, $26, 9781416540700/1416540709)

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M.J. Rose is the internationally bestselling author of nine novels, the founder of AuthorBuzz.com and on the board of International Thriller Writers. Her latest book is

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Okay, it's a trick question, and I haven't even asked it yet.

Is a bookstore blog the best solution for drawing more traffic to your website?

No. Bookstore blogs are an answer, not the answer, yet the question persists: Should your bookstore have a blog? In the right hands, bookseller blogs can be an effective asset, as Russ Marshalek of Wordsmiths Books, Decatur, Ga., showed us in last week's column and continues to prove with futureTense, an upcoming blog-themed event. Bookselling This Week recently offered an excellent blogging primer.

So, what should you do?

Consider a bit of (indirect) advice regarding the future of online bookselling from Douglas Adams, who once told us about two key words inscribed on the cover of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "in large friendly letters":

Don't panic.   

Alice Meyer, owner of Beaverdale Books, Des Moines, Iowa, almost panicked, but she recovered nicely and offers an honest look at her concerns about blogging and online marketing, which mirror those expressed by many booksellers I've communicated with:  

"Every time I see you have written something in Shelf Awareness, I panic, thinking: 'Oh god, he found my website and he's going to use us as an example of What Not to Wear.' I haven't seen anything I've been able to readily identify as ours yet, but it came pretty close to home when you wrote about getting rid of our Harry Potter party info. Guilty!

"Before I had a store (actually, 13 months ago), it really irked me when I would visit a website that was woefully out of date. What do these people do all day? I wondered. Well, I have been enlightened, as you would say in the Shelf. They probably own a 1,200-square-foot store which has one paid employee at a time working. Maybe the owner has a day job as well, and works for nothing at the store the rest of the time. This is what she does while she is there: buying, ordering, returns, payroll, setting up events, marketing (buying advertising, making signs, sending e-notices to the mailing list, getting on community calendars), bookkeeping, paying bills, going to the bank, speaking engagements, meeting with sales reps and vendors; all while the employees are selling books, talking with customers, receiving and shelving books, keeping the store clean (including the bathroom), leading discussion groups, setting up for book clubs, researching books for special orders . . . Well, you know the drill. The thing is, we love every single minute and every single duty. Except the bathroom one.

"And now we must have websites, MySpace pages, blogs and wikis. While I sometimes wonder how anyone got anything done before computers, it is sometimes hard to believe that they are the time-saving wonders we couldn't live without. Now I'm starting to sound like a geezer, but I'm not going to do an index card-based inventory system just to prove a point.

"So what is my point exactly? I'm not even sure anymore--just don't take away my POS, scanner, email, electronic ordering or anything else remotely digital! We're trying. We'll get there. And keep reminding us that our sites need refreshing, our blogs need updating and that Vicki-the-wiki is hungry. We know it's the way to do business. But if I have to make a choice between a possible virtual customer and one standing in front of me asking about the Redwall books, I gotta go with the live one. We really want to get to that place where we don't have to choose.

"I'm sure there are many other booksellers like me who feel like it's just one more thing in the ever-unending list of tasks we do. As a bookseller, I actually want to be selling books, but there is so much more to it than meets the eye, isn't there?"

And like any good bookseller, Meyer also did a little handselling: "While I'm at it, may I also comment on your column about [small press] authors? I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. I never realized how hard these fine folks had to work to promote their own books. Two of our favorite local handsells are Earthquake I.D. by John Domini (Red Hen Press, $20.95, 9781597090766/159709076X) and The Space Between by Kali VanBaale (River City Publishing, $23.95, 9781579660581/1579660584)."

Her email sign-off was a kind of mantra: "Keep up the good work . . . deep breath . . . send . . ." 

One more time, the answer is: Don't Panic.--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)

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