Just a Tease

June will not be a month to miss. In the coming weeks we'll have some exciting news to announce - about events, new books, and a very special piece of news that was confirmed just today. I'll tell you more about these in the coming weeks.

Our Harry Potter 7 plans are coming together and will kick off at 7 p.m on Friday, July 20, at Track Nine and Three-Quarters. Will we find a Horcrux? Will a special spell allow us to experience Hogwarts the way Harry, Hermione, and Ron do?

This weekend we're excited about hosting local author Bev Lozier Jackson, who will introduce her beautiful new children's book Mommy, Is God a Superhere? Bev will be at the store at 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 16, to read from and sign her first book. That's the same day our representative to Book Expo America will be coming to town with an armload of goodies. Join us.

And mark your calendar for Thursday, June 28. I can't reveal the details just yet, but what happens that day will be very big for Destinations Booksellers and our patrons.

Finally, if you're just a casual reader of the blog you may have missed the announcement about our e-mail lists. All patrons were unsubscribed from our newsletters and our specialty e-mails as of June 1. If you want to keep up with everything going on in the books world and the store, you need to go to our primary Web site and re-subscribe. With our new program, we have streamlined e-mails for children's interests, new books just in, the blog, and an expanding list of specialty announcements. If you've been missing your news, that's why. Why not click http://www.destinationsbooksellers.com and sign up now?

After Harry, Then What?

It has been a "killer" week, but that's no reason to leave you hanging. Here are some thoughts on what might be the successor to Harry Potter and his pals. By the way, Thursday is your last day to reserve HP and the Deathly Hallows: Year 7 at our special price. The launch party is Friday, July 20, beginning at the store at 9 p.m., with distribution of reserved pre-paid copies at midnight.

POSSIBLE SUCCESSORS
Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider series
Jenny Nimmo's Charlie Bone series (a new one releases tomorrow)
Angie Sage's Septimus Heap series
Joseph Delaney's Last Apprentice books
Suzanne Collins's Underland Chronicles
Janet Lee Carey's Dragon's Keep
The Pendragon series by D.J. MacHale
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
The Edge Chronicles (now up to eight titles)

Share with us your suggestions of YA fantasy that will do the trick!

All Harry, All the Time?

Sooner than you can imagine, you won't be able to turn your head without hearing about J.K. Rowling's mammoth conclusion to Harry Potter's school days, Year 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. We're going to embrace the madness ourselves, and it has begun.

Your independent booksellers will be offering a sweepstakes to win a trip to London as part of our Independent Muggles for Harry Potter promotion.

Scholastic, Rowling's U.S. publisher, is offering special Book Sense collectible bookmarks and we have them (on request). Each of seven bookmarks lists a key question leading up to the gala release at midnight on July 21, 2007. The first is out - bookmark #2 is available on May 1. Come by and ask for your collectible bookmark while supplies last. And then during Harry Potter weekend, you can enter the sweepstakes.

Sunday Notes for April 1, 2007

Ann and I played with the idea of pulling the old April Fools’ Day stunt and announcing something like “Destinations Booksellers is sorry to announce that it will cease retail operating hours effective today.”

Ha, ha! But honestly, New Albanians and all the rest of you in these environs have demonstrated clearly that you recognize the tangible and intangible benefits of having a full-service bookstore right here in Southern Indiana. Although March was predictably slow, there is no doubt that you appreciate the breadth of our inventory and our rapid delivery of out-of-stock merchandise. Thank you, one and all.

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I’m certain that you pay far less attention to publishers than we do, but you might be interested to know that one of the larger publishers has disappeared, so to speak.

As usual, it’s the end result of a merger or acquisition. Europe’s Hachette Group pounced when the Time-Warner/AOL conglomerate began disaggregating, gobbling up the Warner Books brand. Part of the agreement required Hachette to give up the Warner brand at a date certain, and that date has arrived. Effective Friday, the new name for the concern is Grand Central Publishing.

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Harry Potter fans can relax. The cover art for the U.S. editions of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Year 7, by J.K. Rowling and due out on July 21 of this year, has been released, and you can see it here. For the first time, the artwork encompasses the full cover, front and back, which you can also see here.



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Likely provocateurs for an in-demand publisher (often called a vanity press) have created a stir in the bookselling world. A fraudster has been calling around the country to order a book of short stories and leaving a false name and credit card number. Many stores, including quite a few chain stores, have fallen for the fraud.

The book is a collection of public-domain short stories from Edgar Allen Poe, Bram Stoker, etc., leavened with a few stories from unknown authors. That's certainly one way to sell the books, since the stores are unable to return the books and have no legitimate buyers. In case you wondered and want to avoid such illegitimate publishers, the company goes by "Author Identity Press."

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According to Publishers Weekly, Indiana has 291 stores selling books, 142 of which are bookstores.

62 of them are members of the Christian Booksellers Association, while 45 are, like us, members of the American Booksellers Association, the organization that brings us the Book Sense Best Seller list and other great promotional opportunities.

There are 26 Borders/Waldenbooks and 14 Barnes & Noble stores. Of course, the PW survey doesn't take into account the Louisville and Chicago metropolitan markets, so Indiana is "served," if you want to call it that, by a few more stores than are reported. almost one-third of those 142 stores are in the Indianapolis market, but Indy has only one full-service independent general bookstore. Guess New Albany ain't doin' so bad, huh? Indy's Big Hat Books is about one-third the size of Destinations Booksellers.

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Here's your link to the latest Book Sense Best Seller lists:

Paperback
Hardcover
Children's

Kim Edwards' The Memory Keeper's Daughter continues to rule the paperback fiction list, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert tops the nonfiction paperback report.

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult leads the hardcover fiction list and The Secret, edited by Rhonda Byrnes resides at the top of the nonfiction hardcover screen.

The top children's book is Christopher Paolini's Eldest. In picture books, Pirates Don't Change Diapers is at the top.

The April Book Sense picks and notables can be found here.

The number one book in the Louisville metro area during the latest reporting period (ending 3/24/07) is The Secret, according to BookScan.

Sunday Notebook - March 25

You'll have noticed the "browse inside" features we've added recently. It's certainly not the same as holding the book and flipping through it, but it's a nice touch that just became available to the wider universe of Web sites. That the launch of HarperCollins's and Random House's feature coincided with the kickoff for this blog is just that - coincidence.

Sunday's are notebook days, not because I couldn't preview a book for you, but because I want the blog to offer more to you than a "buy this book" posting. Reserving Sunday's for education instead of sales (but look below for Sunday: The History of the First Day From Babylonia to the Super Bowl) is the best way to ensure we stick to our objectives.

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The unique identifier for any book - the one way you can be sure you're getting the precise edition you want (paperback, hardcover, reinforced binding, audio, 3rd revision, etc.) - is the ISBN. It's pretty straightforward. International Standard Book Number. Until January, the ISBN was a 10-digit number. On January 1, 2007 the book world began to transition to a 13-digit numbering system. In these early days, it doesn't really matter if you know the 10 or the 13 - either is a unique identifier of the same book and our software verifies that there will be no confusion. When you call and say "I have the ISBN if that will help..." it ensures that we are pulling the "right" book for you. We don't always need it, but it is useful. That's why I always try to include it on first impression on this blog. Unfortunately, I can't persuade the newspaper to do that, but then, even the publisher Web sites bury that important number.

Did you ever wonder why most ISBN's are more complex than they need to be? You know. Pick up a book and look on the back cover where the bar code is, or look on the copyright page inside. The ISBN is "cluttered" with dashes separating the digits. Old-time booksellers became savants about ISBN's in the pre-computer age. Those dashes were a critical element that told them who the publisher (or imprint) was. Today, you'll learn how to read an ISBN yourself.

ISBN 13: 978-0-312-34729-1 and ISBN 0-312-34729-4 are the same book. You will want to read this when it comes out in July. Trust me!

So how to read this? The 978 simply identifies it as a book delivered in any type of media. Later, 979 will be added. This precursor number was added to normalize the books industry with others. The ubiquitous UPC (uniform product code) has been at 13 digits for some time, and at the retail/consumer level, books have been out of sync. That's why "drugstore" paperbacks wouldn't scan in a bookstore. The major chains required publishers to cater to their systems for the mass market paperbacks. Bookstores would have to scan the inside front cover to accommodate the Krogers, Targets, and Waaaa...I can't type the word.

As a quick aside, there's another reason the inside back cover includes an ISBN bar code. Mass market paperbacks (the $5.99 to $9.99 ones) aren't designed to last. They are designed to be read once and discarded. They are so little regarded that many publishers have no interest in recovering them if they don't sell. Some retailers (not bookstores) simply tear the cover off the paperback and mail that back to the publisher, then throw (recycle) the book away. You'll often read inside a MM paperback a legal notice that says if you've received this book without a cover, the book has been stolen. It was sent out to be sold or "stripped." The ISBN is on the inside cover so that the whole book doesn't have to be sent back.

Back to ISBN's. 978 says it's a book. The next digit, 0 (zero), is the national identifier. In the U.S. and English-speaking world, 0 or 1 indicate that. There are more than 160 official agencies authorized to issue ISBN's, but only one in the U.S. The others are reserved for individual countries or country groups. In this country, only Bowker can issue you an ISBN publisher identifier. If anyone tries to "sell" you an ISBN, you are being defrauded and participating in a fraud, too.

ISBN 13: 978-0-312-34729-1. "978" is for books. "0" is for U.S. The "312" identifies the publisher. A large publisher with multiple imprints or one who has acquired other publishers might have dozens of these. In this case, the "312" represents one of St. Martin's Press's issued identifiers for its Thomas Dunne Books imprint. "34729" is the number of the book, usually assigned by the publisher consecutively. You can see that St. Martin's has been assigned 99,999 unique numbers.

A micropublisher like Flood Crest Press, New Albany's publisher, has been assigned only 99 numbers. Its publisher identifier is "934130," one of 999,999 possible numbers. St. Martin's is, relatively speaking, occupying an elite group of no more than 999 publishers its size and scale.

So, finally, what is that last digit for. If you really want to know, I'll tell you. Post a comment to show you really want to know, and I'll follow up with a full explanation. But in brief, it is a check sum based on a fairly simple, but complicated algorithm that verifies that an ISBN is valid. That prevents mistakes and overlaps and keeps people from simply making up a number 13 digits long. When you see an "X" in the last digit, representing 10, a possible sum of the algorithm, or modulus.

Wasn't that fun. We'll revisit "How to Read a Book Cover" in some future Sunday notebook.

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Here's a recap of this week's Book Sense Best Seller lists.




Trade Paperback Fiction
1. The Memory Keeper's Daughter
Kim Edwards, Penguin, $14, 9780143037149
A tragic snap-decision about a handicapped baby, played out among the affected.
2. The Inheritance of Loss
Kiran Desai, Grove, $14, 9780802142818
A rich Book Sense Notable and winner of the Man Booker Prize. Set in India on the eve of the Nepalese movement for an independent state.
3. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Lisa See, Random House, $13.95, 9780812968064
A #1 Book Sense Pick in hardcover, set in 19th-century rural China.

Trade Paperback Nonfiction
1. Eat, Pray, Love
Elizabeth Gilbert, Penguin, $15, 9780143038412
The author's year long search for spiritual meaning.
2. The Year of Magical Thinking
Joan Didion, Vintage, $13.95, 9781400078431
Paperback edition of the National Book Award winner, Book Sense Notable, and Broadway production.
3. Three Cups of Tea
Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin, Penguin, $15, 9780143038252
An American's effort to open 50 schools across rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. A Book Sense Notable title.

Hardcover Fiction
1. Nineteen Minutes
Jodi Picoult, Atria, $26.95, 9780743496728
A high school shooting rampage is the latest contemporary issue for Picoult.
2. Whitethorn Woods
Maeve Binchy, Knopf, $25.95, 9780307265784
Step into the deep, Irish woods with reader favorite Binchy.
3. What Is the What
Dave Eggers, McSweeney's, $26, 9781932416640
Fictionalized memoir of a survivor of the tragedy in the Sudan.

Hardcover Nonfiction
1. The Secret
Rhonda Byrne (Ed.), Beyond Words, $23.95, 9781582701707
A collection of wisdom and philosophies to improve our daily lives.
2. A Long Way Gone
Ishmael Beah, Sarah Crichton/FSG, $22, 9780374105235
A hypnotic firsthand account of war from a former 12-year-old soldier in Sierra Leone's civil war.
3. I Feel Bad About My Neck
Nora Ephron, Knopf, $19.95, 9780307264558
Funny, funny comic relief, on being a woman of "a certain age," from the honest and smart Ephron. A Book Sense Pick.

For the entire list, go here.

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Read this item with a "grain of salt," but the publisher of the seventh Harry Potter book, Scholastic, is going to great effort to let the world know that Year 7 - HP and the Deathly Hallows will be environmentally responsible. In response to pleas by the Rainforest Alliance, the publisher has pledged that all copies of the standard hardcover edition will be printed on 30 percent post-consumer waste fiber paper - all 784 pages. In addition, more than half the paper will have been approved by the Forest Stewardship Council. And the deluxe edition, which will be in limited supply at $65, will be printed on paper that is derived from 100 percent post-consumer waste fiber. Destinations Booksellers will have five copies, or 0.005% of all the copies in the world. What does that mean? If you want it, you'd better let us know! The book releases on July 21 at midnight.

Sunday Notebook

It’s not the world’s biggest surprise, but we’ve had exactly zero responses to last Sunday’s request for suggestions for the top five American novels. You may recall we’ve been asked to participate in an American Booksellers Association survey for an upcoming PBS documentary on the subject. We’d love to have your thoughts. Go here for the questions. Sorry, though, we have no responses to share with you this week as we had promised.

Sundays we try to talk about something other than specific books. BookExpo America is coming up May 30 through June 4. If any of you would be interested in representing us at this annual convention of the publishing and bookselling world, please contact us right away. We can credential you and give you some rudimentary prep, but we can’t pay your way. By the way, historian/author and two-time National Book Award-winner David McCullough will be the keynote speaker on Wednesday, May 30 in advance of a series of walking tours by Brooklyn authors.

The U.S. publisher of the Harry Potter books will be doing a promotion with independent booksellers across the country called “Independent Muggles for Harry Potter.” Beginning on April 17, Scholastic will release the first of seven questions for debate. The final question comes July 7, with the book releasing two weeks later at midnight on July 21. There’s still time to reserve your first-day copy. Call us. Our price is $19.01 ($34.99 list), and we have a limited number of the deluxe ($65) editions on a first-come, first-served basis. Still no word on the audio release. First printing of the book? Just 12 million copies.

Are you a blogger yourself? If you aren’t, you could be. We’re planning a workshop on blogging for this spring. Registration is limited to ten for this first workshop. We’re working with at least two bloggers to turn their online ouvre into a perfect-bound book, in association with Flood Crest Press. It’s a great way to write fiction or nonfiction. Call or e-mail the store if you’d be interested in the workshop.

A.H. – As we work on your “guru” book, I think we should blog chapters before we go to press. Then we’ll submit the book as an entry in the Blooker Prize competition. (A “blook” is a book that results from a successful blog.)

Hey, you’re online already. Take a minute to discover my friend Ruthanne Wolfe’s niece as she goes on casting calls in Hollywood this season. Go to www.imdb.com and type in “Traci Ann Wolfe” into the search window. Learn more about this stunning actress and follow her career. Ruthanne and husband John Gonder are great friends of the store and I thank her for alerting us to her relative’s success.

Retail sales at bookstores were down in January for the seventh straight month. Compared to January of 2006, this year’s sales were down about 1 percent.

Colleague Arlene Lynes of Woodstock, Ill., reports that her bookshop was cited as one of the notable features that enabled that city to be named one of the Dozen Distinctive Destinations of 2007 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Lynes told Bookselling This Week that she regards the town council’s recent decision to allocate $64,000 to promote tourism in the downtown business area as a reason to feel tremendous optimism for the future of Woodstock’s local businesses. Woodstock is 45 miles from Chicago. Arlene’s store, Read Between the Lynes, has been in business for 20 months, slightly fewer than our own.

Book Sense is a joint marketing program for the independent bookstores in the American Booksellers Association. In addition to the Book Sense Bestseller List, which now appears in The Tribune and The Evening News, we publish a series of specific genre bestseller lists. You can take a look at these here. We are a reporting store, of course, and typically we carry almost all of those books.

Previously on the marquee!
Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich by Mark Kriegel ISBN 9780743284974
Divided America: The Ferocious Power Struggle In American Politics by Earl Black and Merle Black ISBN 9780743262064
Dog Years: A Memoir by Mark Doty ISBN 9780061171000
The Sacred Bones by Michael Byrnes ISBN 9780061146077
God & Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now by John Dominic Crossan ISBN 9780060843236
The Gas We Pass: The Story of Farts by Shinta Cho ISBN 9780916291525