Stellar customer service, a curated list of titles, and intense localization are hallmarks of indie bookstores. Can they work across a large chain?
How Can Physical Bookstores Better Integrate E-books?
Bookstores need to get creative with selling e-books if they want to stop customers abandoning them for Apple and Amazon.
Is WHSmith Travel the UK’s Best Bookseller?
WHSmith Travel is turning unlikely books into bestsellers, expanding internationally, and maintaining revenue in the midst of a recession.
Week in Review: S&S Opens in India, 3 Million Titles Pubbed in US in 2010
By Edward Nawotka Simon and Schuster Opens Subsidiary in India It is the last of the “Big Six” US publishing groups to enter the Indian book market. The staff of six will focus on sales and marketing of S&S’s existing list of English-language titles. Three Million New Editions in the U.S. in 2010 If you thought the 1.3 million titles …
UK Book Chain Waterstone’s Sold to Russian Billionaire
By Hannah Johnson Waterstone’s parent company HMV announced this morning that it would sell the UK book chain to Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut’s company, A&NN Capital Fund Management, for GBP 53 million. In a surprising move, The Bookseller reports that Waterstone’s current Managing Director Dominic Myers will be replaced by James Daunt to run the bookstore chain after the deal …
What is the Future of “Social Bookselling”?
Do you only buy the books your friends suggest? Perhaps not. By Edward Nawotka It has long been a maxim in book marketing that “word-of-mouth” is the best. The same can be said for “handselling” in bookstores. So what happens when both move online? Book oriented social networking, nee bookselling, sites are proliferating. Copia and Bookish, in the US, and …
UK’s Waterstone’s Pins Hopes on aNobii “Social Bookselling” App
Beleaguered bookseller Waterstone’s is counting on aNobii, a book-oriented social networking site originally developed in Hong Kong, to help save them. By Roger Tagholm LONDON: Troubled UK chain Waterstone’s is pinning its hopes on the aNobii app which it officially launches next month. Not much has been said about this so-called “social bookselling” website, but it was clear from talking to …
#LBF11: Waterstone’s to Close 200 Shops in the UK?
By Roger Tagholm LONDON: A shadow hangs over the aisles this year and if it’s not made up of volcanic ash this time, the consequences could be even more worrying for British publishers. The shadow is called Waterstone’s whose fate is of concern to almost everyone at Earls Court. At the moment, the chain’s founder Tim Waterstone and his Russian investor …
With UK Print Book Sales Falling, Can E-books Close the Gap?
E-book sales accounted for just 1% of the UK book market in 2010, but are expected to boom in 2011 — growth that might be offset by cheaper prices. By Roger Tagholm British consumers bought fewer books in 2010 than 2008 -– down from 344m to 339m -– and the amount spent fell from £2,341m to £2,183m. E-books accounted for …
UK Launches “Fiction Uncovered” to Promote Eight Underappreciated Authors
By Edward Nawotka The Arts Council England has announced a major new initiative to support eight underappreciated writers in the UK with through major publicity, marketing and retail promotions with Waterstone’s, Foyles and The Book Depository. Dubbed, Fiction Uncovered, it is described as “a major new promotion to support our best fiction writers The promotion pledges to support those writers …