Because of high rent, RJ Julia at Elm Street Books in New Canaan, Conn., is closing, the Connecticut Post
reported. A group of 16 investors who had hoped to create a
self-sustaining store has decided to give up its effort, and RJ Julia
Booksellers, Madison, Conn., which has managed the store since last
June, has not exercised an option to buy the store--because of the rent problem.
Founder Susan Rein told the paper that rent takes up 25% of sales and
that taxes on the property, not a landlord decision, accounted for the
high rent. Rein hopes to reopen in a smaller space. The store will
close in its current location on March 12.
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Victor Kamkin Inc., the huge Russian book wholesaler and bookseller
that had moved to its current location in Gaithersburg, Md., four years
ago, has been evicted after being more than five months behind in rent,
according to the Maryland Business Gazette. In an ugly turn, the owner of the property has literally thrown out about 400,000 of the
company's 600,000 volumes, leading book lovers to rummage through trash
bins outside the building.
Kamkin was founded in 1952 and bought the old Four Continents Bookstore
in Manhattan in 1982. The company is now owned by Igor Kalageorgi.
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Gift card redemptions and unusually mild weather helped boost January
general retail sales 2.3% over December and up 8.8% compared to January
2005, according to the Commerce Department. In addition, a decline in
oil prices, a net gain in jobs and improved consumer confidence in January led observers and Wall
Street to predict a stronger year than they had earlier. The
downside: these trends will likely result in the Federal Reserve Bank
pushing up interest rates another notch.
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Shades of the talk about CD-ROMs a decade ago!
College students aren't flocking to e-textbooks because the e-books
haven't taken full advantage of the new technology, according to an AP
story via the Kansas City Star.
"It's like taking a book and . .
. trying to turn it into a movie just by trying to read pages,"
Alexander Pereira, chief operating officer of Xplana Learning, told the
AP. "It's a different
medium."
Among titles that might be more attractive to students: "a biology
e-book showing video of DNA's double helix coming to life" or "a math
book with a built-in calculator or spreadsheet so students can try out
formulas as they read."
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Titles Inc., the "much-loved rare bookstore" in Highland Park, Ill.,
has moved three blocks, to 1821 St. Johns Avenue, after 29 years in its
current location, the Chicago Tribune reported. Owner Florence Shay called each of the 10,000 books, "to me, a treasure."
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Oscar host alert:
Via his Publishing Insider blog, Carl Lennertz reminds us that before Jon Stewart became one of the famous people, he wrote a book of short stories, Naked Pictures of Famous People ($14, 068817162), that HarperCollins "happily published" and sells more of each year.
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Lights, camera, joint venture action. . .
Random House Films and Focus Features have done their first two joint
deals since announcing the partnership last November to make feature
movies together based on Random House titles. One of the pair is a
French novel, The Attack by Yasmina Khadra (the pen name of
Mohammed Moulessehoul, a former Algerian army officer), to be published
here in May by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, about an Arab surgeon in Israel
"who learns a shattering secret about his wife in the aftermarth of a
suicide bombing."
The other is Curveball by Bob Drogin, the Los Angeles Times
reporter who broke the store about the Iraqi informant code
named Curveball whose erroneous information about weapons of mass
destruction was used by the Bush administration to justify the war
against Iraq. The book is scheduled for publication in fall 2007 by
Random House.
---
The Christian Science Monitor explores book-sharing Web site PaperBackSwap.com, whose members exchange used paperbacks, usually paying just the cost of postage.
The site lists more than 300,000 paperbacks and audiobooks. Members
mail 1,500-2,000 books a day. The typical member is a woman who loves
to read, is bored by TV and owns many paperbacks.
---
Bookworld has added six publisher-clients. The four that will be sold
by Bookworld Trade are Healthful Communications, Transpersonal
Publishing, Jones & Williams Publishing and Living Life Publishing.
The other two--Avery Stafford Ministries and M2 Music--will be sold by
Bookworld Music.
Bookworld now has 150 publisher-clients.
