Category Archives: New Releases

Book Column, Book Talk, Bookstores, New Releases

AL Booksmith Featured in New Book

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Two Alabama bookstores are featured in the soon-to-be-released book My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop. Both the Alabama Booksmith and Fairhope’s Page & Palette made the cut! The book, published by Black Dog & Levanthal, hits bookstore shelves on November 13th and is a collection of essays written by famous authors about their favorite bookstore haunts. You can get a preview of the book over on Scribd where the publisher is sharing some essays. Be sure to check out the publisher’s own site as well so you can check the map and add your own favorite bookstore and share your story.

It looks to be a great read of not only some of nation’s neatest local bookstores that writers enjoy, but also dives into WHY they enjoy them. Rick Bragg wrote the feature on the Alabama Booksmith while Fannie Flagg wrote about Page & Palette (where the rumor is she got locked in a closet!?) I hear the book is indeed a true celebration of the impact bookstores have on their communities and the creative readers that pass through the doors. This is one book I am really looking forward to.

My Bookstore

Here is a complete listing of all the bookstores and the author’s that wrote about them:

  • Fannie Flagg—Page & Palette, Fairhope, AL
  • Rick Bragg—Alabama Booksmith, Homewood, AL
  • John Grisham—That Bookstore in Blytheville, Blytheville, AR
  • Ron Carlson—Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, AZ
  • Ann Packer—Capitola Book Café, Capitola, CA
  • Isabel Allende—Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA
  • Mahbod Seraji—Kepler’s Books, Menlo Park, CA
  • Lisa See—Vroman’s Bookstore, Pasadena, CA
  • Meg Waite Clayton—Books Inc., San Francisco, CA
  • Daniel Handler and Lisa Brown—The Booksmith, San Francisco, CA
  • Dave Eggers—Green Apple Books, San Francisco, CA
  • Pico Iyer—Chaucer’s Books, Santa Barbara, CA
  • Laurie R. King—Bookshop Santa Cruz, CA
  • Scott Lasser—Explore Booksellers, Aspen, CO
  • Stephen White—Tattered Cover Book Store, Devner, CO
  • Kate Niles—Maria’s Bookshop, Durango, CO
  • Ann Haywood Leal—Bank Square Books, Mystic, CT
  • Florence and Wendell Minor—The Hickory Stick Bookshop, Washington Depot, CT
  • Rick Atkinson—Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, DC
  • Les Standiford—Books & Books, Coral Gables, FL
  • Robert Macomber—The Muse Book Shop, Deland, FL
  • David Fulmer—Eagle Eye Book Shop, Decatur, GA
  • Abraham Verghese—Prairie Lights, Iowa City, IA
  • Luis Alberto Urrea—Anderson’s Bookshops, Naperville, IL
  • Mike Leonard—The Book Stall Chestnut Court, Winnetka, IL
  • Albert Goldbarth—Watermark Books, Wichita, KS
  • Wendell Berry—Carmichael’s Bookstore, Louisville, KY
  • Edith Pearlman—Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, MA
  • Mameve Medwed—Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA
  • Henry Louis Gates, Jr.—Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, MA
  • Simon Winchester—The Bookloft, Great Barrington, MA
  • Nancy Thayer—Mitchell’s Book Corner, Nantucket, MA
  • Elin Hilderbrand—Nantucket Bookworks, Nantucket, MA
  • Jeanne Birdsall—Broadside Bookshop, Northampton, MA
  • Martha Ackmann—Odyssey Bookshop, South Hadley, MA
  • Ward Just—Bunch of Grapes Bookstore, Vineyard Haven, MA
  • Ron Currie, Jr.—Longfellow Books, Portland, ME
  • Nancy Shaw—Nicola’s Books, Ann Arbor, MI
  • Katrina Kittle—Saturn Booksellers, Gaylord, MI
  • Ann Patchett—Mclean & Eakin Booksellers, Petoskey, MI
  • Kathleen Finneran—Left Bank Books, St. Louis, MO
  • Barry Moser—Lemuria Books, Jackson, MS
  • Jack Pendarvis—Square Books, Oxford, MS
  • Jill McCorkle—Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC
  • Carrie Ryan—Park Road Books, Charlotte NC
  • Laurent Dubois—The Regulator Bookshop, Durham, NC
  • Lee Smith—Purple Crow Books, Hillsborough, NC
  • Angela Davis-Gardner—Quail Ridge Books & Music, Raleigh, NC
  • Ron Rash—City Lights Bookstore, Sylva, NC
  • Ian Frazier—Watchung Booksellers, Montclair, NJ
  • Joan Wickersham—The Toadstool Bookshop, Peterborough, NH
  • Carmela Ciuraru—Community Bookstore, Brooklyn NY
  • Matt Weiland—Greenlight Bookstore, Brooklyn, NY
  • Kate Christensen—Word, Brooklyn, NY
  • Mick Cochrane—Talking Leaves Books, Buffalo, NY
  • Caroline Leavitt—McNally Jackson Books, New York, NY
  • Arthur Nersesian—St. Mark’s Bookshop, New York, NY
  • Francine Prose & Pete Hamill—Strand Bookstore, New York, NY
  • Chuck Palahniuk—Powell’s Books, Portland, OR
  • Larry Kane—Chester County Book & Music Company, West Chester, PA
  • Ann Hood—Island Books, Middletown, RI
  • Mindy Friddle—Fiction Addiction, Greenville, SC
  • Adam Ross—Parnassus Books, Nashville, TN
  • Douglas Brinkley—BookPeople, Austin, TX
  • Terry Tempest Williams—The King’s English Book Shop, Salt Lake City, UT
  • Robert Goolrick—Fountain Bookstore, Richmond, VA
  • Howard Frank Mosher—Galaxy Bookshop, Hardwick, VT
  • Jon Clinch—Northshire Bookstore, Manchester, VT
  • Jonathan Evison—Eagle Harbor Book Co., Bainbridge Island, WA
  • Tom Robbins—Village Books, Bellingham, WA
  • Sherman Alexie—Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA
  • Garth Stein—Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, WA
  • Ivan Doig—University Book Store, Seattle, WA
  • Lesley Kagen—Next Chapter Bookshop, Mequon, WI
  • Liam Callanan—Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, WI
Authors, Book Column, Book Talk, New Releases, Upcoming Titles

Some Remarks by Neal Stephenson

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Here’s one I haven’t read yet (it comes out August 7th, William Morrow/Harper Collins), but I’m pretty excited about it. Some Remarks: Essays and Other Writing is a collection of pieces by Neal Stephenson. Much of Stephenson’s new book is non-fiction, but I’ve heard there a couple of short stories as well. In the book Stephenson talks about his geek travels where he travels to far off places just to witness the installation of fiber optic internet connections in some remote pocket of Asia. He also tries to make a case for “modern Jedi knights”, chats metaphysics and technology/freedom vs. the Chinese. So it’s all over the place. Should be fun!

Neal_Stephenson_New_Book

If this book is as detailed and accessible as his fiction, I know it’s one I am going to enjoy.

Anything new coming out that you’re looking forward to?

 

Birmingham, library, New Releases, On the Web

Newest Books at the Library

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Here is a great link for folks in the Birmingham-area to bookmark. It’s a handy collection of lists showing you the most recent books, dvd’s, eBooks, audiobooks, etc. available for check out from local libraries. The lists are maintained by the Birmingham Central Library, Hoover Library, Vestavia Library and the Botanical Garden branch.

For the most part they are updated about twice a month. So it’s a good place to check on the 1st and 16th of each month to see if there is something new you’d like to read. Of course, being in the JCLC system, if you see something you like you can always have it requested and shipped to the closest library branch to you.

Digital Publishing, E-Books, New Releases, Publishing Industry News

Pando Daily Does It Right

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The new tech news/culture site Pando Daily is a daily read for me and I’ve been keeping up with founder Sarah Lacy since reading her book Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good a couple of years ago. They’ve done a great job of sourcing and surfacing interesting pieces. On top of that, they have a pretty solid editorial process. All of which adds up to . . . publishing. Which is why no one should be surprised they have just released their first eBook: Buy This Book Before You Buy Facebook. It’s priced at $3.99 and, so far, is only available on the Kindle platform. I do hope they share their thought process on why “just Kindle”. I’m guessing it’s either revenue related or they felt the Amazon tools were better to self-publish with. But whatever the reasons, there are lessons here for every publisher. Below is a quick rundown of the four points they got right and the one they missed:

1. Identify your silo/niche/subject and position yourself as a category expert. General publishing is in for a world of hurt over the next few years. There is a reason why we’ve seen some big publishers this year launching new imprints. This is something that needs to be considered at the publisher, series, author and title levels.

2. Build a community and engage daily. Things like brand, sales, followers, etc. will all flow from this. Pando Daily is nearing 20k followers on Twitter, which is where they first announced the eBook. In just 12 hours, their ebook moved up from a sales rank of #4,871 to #672 in the Kindle store. And that was overnight. This a function of building the community first and then tapping into it.

Pando Daily ebook stats

Pando Daily ebook stats 2

3. Pay attention to the news cycle and have tools in place to allow you to collect around a specific topic. It’s no coincidence that they are releasing this Facebook IPO eBook today. Traditional book publishing has been good at this… looking long term. But not so good at building books that repsond in the short term. That will have t change. Ten years ago, only marketers thought about the news cycle. Now publishers, acquisitions editors, authors and product folks need to pay attention.

4. Build your product and add value. Do not just collect all of your posts from one category and call it an ebook. You need to add something else. Make it worth your community’s time. For this product they gathered the folks who have been posting about Facebook and asked for some exclusive essays on the topic. And it can’t have been too much trouble for them as the eBook is only about 74 pages. They also had a solid cover design done. All of which add value. This is something the Pando Daily folks clearly understood bringing extra publishing help from the NSFW Corporation news magazine start-up.

5. Promote and sell where your community is. This is the one they missed. I can’t find the book on Kobo, Nook, Google, etc. By restricting to one platform they are allowing a third-party’s technology, accounts, payment processing and walls to restrict their content. I hope they take the time to build an ePub so they can push their book out on more channels.

I hope publishers everywhere are watching outfits like Pando Daily. They are fast. They have low overhead. They are sharp. And they are fighting for the same eyeballs, dollars and readers that traditional book publishers are.