Category Archives: News

Book Designer Paul Bacon Has Died

Paul Bacon is a name that is at the top of all book designer lists. He pioneered many of the looks and styles we see on shelves today. His eye and sense of composition in every 6″x9″ space was amazing.

You can read the full obituary on Paul Bacon, who was 91, here at the NY Times. From what I’ve read, though he is well known for his thought-provoking minimalistic covers he seems like the kind of book jacket designer that was always a designer first and an artist second.  Book designers seem to fall in two categories: the artist – they’ll fight you on your opinion and get angry when you want to “mess up their art” and the designer – a professional that understands there is a mission to accomplish and will employ all the artistic tools to see it happen.

Paul Bacon was one of the greats. No doubt. Here are a few of his now classic book jackets that I bet you’ve seen in bookstores and in libraries.

Catch22 Compulsion_Meyer_Levin_cover OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest RagtimeDoctrorowHardcover Slaughterhousefive

 

I’m thankful the NY Times ran that obituary. I had no idea that Paul Bacon was a jazz musician. I knew he’d done a Thelonious Monk album cover, but I didn’t realize he played.

O’Reilly Cancels Tools of Change Conference

Yesterday, Tim O’Reilly announced that, after a seven year run, O’Reilly Media would no longer organize their annual “Tools of Change” conference. Of course, like many I was asking a fearful “Why? What’s not working?” Which is why I was thankful to see this quick exchange between LibraryThing founder Tim Spalding and O’Reilly-founder Tim O’Reilly:

Tools of Change Talk

The two Tims talked via Twitter briefly where Tim O’Reilly said that there was a definite opportunity cost:

“Expensive in NY, not very profitable, not enough resource to do everything we want”.

So it sounds that, yes, as ebooks settle into their own and trends are maturing and flattening, it was really a numbers decision to pull the plug on the Tools of Change conference.

The TOC conferences have been fun. While many other digital publishing conferences have popped up over the past few years, TOC tended to focus on “high level views” of publishing and technology. While the details were mentioned and listed, there were more chats and sessions on trends and next year’s tools than this year’s strategies and products.

Speaking of which, it sounds like (paragraph 5) O’Reilly plans on rolling out their own publisher-focused tools in the coming months. I’m anxious to see what they can offer that other services and add-ons don’t already. It’d be exciting to see then apply their forward-looking experience to current publishing tools and services. We’ll see.

Thanks for Shopping Indie Plans

The American Bookseller Association is teaming up with 20+ publishers and independent booksellers across the country for a special week of promotions called “Thanks for Shopping Indie”. The ABA helped get special pricing on a select set of titles for independent bookshops, so they can pass that extra-lower price on to their customers.

The event kicks off in conjunction with Small Business Saturday (Nov. 24th) and runs through December 1st. So mark yoru calendars and be on the lookout for the “Thanks for Shopping Indie” logo as there may be some good book deals to be had.

Thanks for Shopping Indie logo

It’s great to see this promo. I was so disappointed when Google left independents hanging. I’ve stopped by a few local shops looking for the new Kobo displays, but haven’t seen any yet. So yes, I now have the perfect excuse to canvas the town this weekend and visit all of the local shops.

Vestavia Cokesbury Bookstore Closing

The fact that the Vestavia Hills Cokesbury store will close its doors early next year has been confirmed via phone. Yesterday, the United Methodist Publishing House announced that they were closing all 38 of their full-line stores and 19 of their school campus/seminary bookstores.

The statement says that the United Methodist Publishing House and Cokesbury are bowing to their customers’ trending to buying online, which makes the overhead of keeping stores open too high.

They tried to spin a little positive angle by announcing a new online selling system called CokesburyNEXT, but it just won’t be the same as being able to go into a bookstore and thumb through the weighty texts that make up many religious books. It’s really too bad. The local Cokesbury staff has always been great and helpful. So sad to see another bookstore close.