AbeBooks.com is one of the world's leading marketplaces for new, used, rare, and out of print books with over 13,000 vendors offering over 110 million books. I recently had a chance to interview their CEO, Dr. Hannes Blum. An edited version of the interview will appear in the July issue of Amphora.*********************************************************************************************************Book Patrol - Firstly, I want to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule, it is appreciated.AbeBooks recently announced its acquisition of Chrislands, a website provider for online booksellers. This comes on the heels of AbeBooks previous acquisitions of Fillz and BookFinder.The earlier acquisitions of...
The Bright Spot at Barnes & Noble : The Rise of BN.com
In 2003 Barnes and Noble took over the reigns of BN.com and in October of last year relaunched a much improved website. In the last year traffic has almost doubled and sales have risen over 7% (compared to only a 1.1% increase in stores). It is safe to say something is working.What I am most impressed with is the Barnes & Noble Studio. It is a rich, multi-faceted approach to the world of books and for those who follow Book Patrol you know that one of my main frustrations in the book world is how segmented it is. Barnes &...
The Bookshelves of Bruno Petronzi
Looking at Italian designer Bruno Petronzi's bookshelf designs I am immediately reminded of The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus.Many book people face a constant struggle to house, arrange and bring order to their books and once they get somewhat comfortable with how things are, once they feel some semblance of biblio-control, more books appear and beg for attention. Many booksellers face this challenge on a daily basis.Petronzi's designs convey this struggle perfectly. They combine the human form with the bookshelf and the inseparable connection of weight and illumination.Thanks to the blog on the bookshelf for the lead
Shelfari’s Looking Good
The book social network site Shelfari has relaunced
82% Still Curl : Zogby Polls Readers
Random House hired Zogby International to get out there and find out what is going on in the world of reading and book-buying. They polled a little over 8,000 people and here are some of the highlights and lowlights:82% say they still prefer to "curl up with a printed book" rather than reading online or using an e-reader or smartphone.Only 3% of those surveyed currently own an e-book reader, and only 4% have plans to purchase one.A whopping 80% reported that they have no plans to purchase an e-book reader!Independent bookselling did not fare so well in the survey either:The...