The Travelodge hotel chain in the UK issued a press release last week announcing the results of a "survey" of the top ten books left behind in their hotel rooms this summer (which technically hasn't ended yet, first flag).The books were:1. The Blair Years - Alastair Campbell2. Dont You Know Who I am? - Piers Morgan3. A Whole New World - Jordon4. Wicked - Jilly Cooper5. Dr Who Creatures & Demons - Justin Richard6. The Diana Chronicles - Tina Brown7. I Can Make You Thin - Paul McKenna8. Humble Pie - Gordon Ramsey9. The Story Of A Man And His...
Dress Your Books
Worried about reading O. J.'s If I Did It in public? Worried about selling it in public?Worry no more, with Book-Frocks you can shamelessly read or sell whatever you want wherever you want."The covers fit any standard size trade-paper book, and even the extra tall/large ones. For you poetry lovers, the button closure keeps skinny ones from slippin about. Perfect to take with you on the bus, or to your favorite cafe, or to disguise the fact that you're reading."This might be just what the doctor ordered for Barnes and Noble. They already stuck their foot in their mouths by...
E-Books Stink
No, really.CafeScribe, a new website devoted to the digital delivery of textbooks for students, announced plans yesterday to launch "the world's first smelly e-book."They commissioned Zogby to undertake a survey of 600 college students and this is what they found:43% identified smell –- either new book smell or old -- as the thing they most love about books as physical objects.3 in 10 of the surveyed students associated “mustiness” with the books they most loved, although 16% -- possibly those most likely to hit the books early in the day – associated best-loved books with the smell of “freshly-ground coffee.”Oh...
A Megalister Exposed
If you look for books online with any regularity you know who they are.Their names show up on almost every search you do.Their prices, for the most part, are completely out of whack with the other listings for the book.Their descriptions are more often suited for the selling of commodities than books.Oh, and they don't own the books they are selling.A colleague of mine refers to them (and the online sellers who offer books for a penny) as the "termites eating away at the foundation of bookselling."Now it seems that one of these mega-listers, Anybook, has taken this insanity a...
Abebooks Goes Live With Deceptive Bookseller Rating System
Leave it to Abebooks to come up with yet another way to alienate the core group of booksellers that their company was built on.I blogged about this rating system and it's utter disregard for the integrity of bookselling while it was in beta mode.Here is a snippet:AbeBooks is working on a rating system for booksellers based on the star rating systems that appear at other online marketplaces. Unfortunately, this bookseller rating system has nothing to do with bookselling and everything to do with order fulfillment. The amount of stars you earn is based exclusively on your order fulfillment percentage. Nothing...