Americana Exchange Monthly reported recently on a new program Alibris will be offering most of its sellers, "Alibris Inventory Demand." The service: offers three types of data. Foremost is their historical sales data, which provides actual sales prices transacted on the Alibris and Alibris partner sites (such as Borders Marketplace). Next, it provides current pricing data, such as highest, lowest and average prices currently listed, along with the number of copies for sale. Finally, they provide what they call the "Alibris Sales Index," which rates the likelihood of an item being sold. As Alibris explained in their press release:Utilizing such...
Costco the Bookseller
The current issue of Costco's in-house magazine The Costco Connection features a look at their highly successful book department.The Costco book buyers call it "The Table" - the two rows of real estate within Costco where the 200 or so hand-picked titles reside. And it is from the success of "The Table" that Costco has become one of the top five booksellers in the country.Jeff Rogart, HarperCollins vice-president of sales, says of the Costco book team:“This team knows what they are doing...Despite the limited selection of books [compared to industrial-size bookstores], Costco is consistently one of our top retailers for...
Princeton – Bloomsbury
Princeton is a band from Santa Monica, CA who released their debut EP Bloomsbury this summer. The four-song disk is - as they explain - "based on the lives of four members of the influential Bloomsbury intellectual collective of the early 20th century. The songs are about Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, John Maynard Keynes and Lytton Strachey." The whole disk can be streamed from their Myspace page (and available for a mere four bucks from iTunes). It's fun stuff, bound to appeal to the bibliophilic: clever, catchy, lush and literate. They remind me of Vampire Weekend (with whom they've performed),...
On the State of the Independent Bookseller
The folks at Marquand Books, one of the country's leading book design firms, recently interviewed me for their blog. They were interested in my thoughts on "how to thrive as an independent bookseller in a shrinking economy moving heavily towards on-line sales."The interview appears here.
Barnes and Noble Gets Social
Barnes & Noble has launched "My B&N". It is the latest feature in their every expanding arsenal of online offerings.With "My B&N" users can now "create their literary identity, connect and share insights with other readers, discover and rate new products, and keep up to date on events in their local Barnes & Noble store on BN.com" says Tom Burke, executive vice president of e-commerce for Barnes & Noble.com.This pure social networking play solidifies the rise and importance of book social networking in the book world and will likely have an impact on the other players in the space.Publisher's Weekly...