The Written Nerd

It's the season of Lent, that exciting time of sacrifice and self-examination...I'm using it to put in some extra hours at the bookstore and catch up with the backlog that seems to still be there from Christmas or Winter Institute or something. Hopefully our webpage, our events series, our sales floor, and our overcrowded back office will be the better for it. Then there's wedding planning -- an all-too-delicious distraction, which does take up a certain amount of a girl's time. Which leaves blogging time scarce, again. So check out my posting from Friday and weigh in on what Max from the Millions calls the "Widget Wars" : Amazon Look Inside!, Google Book Search, HarperCollins Browse Inside, and Random House's Insight (the last two partnering with BookSense), in an effort to... make shopping online more like browsing a bookstore? Compete for demanding digital customers? Just make sure we've got what everyone else has got? The goals of the various...

Here's some food for thought for the weekend. This falls under the category of "I'm still figuring this out, so you look at it with me and tell me what you think." I recieved this press release from the good folks at Random House the other day. I'm pasting it here 'cause that's what press releases are for. INSIGHT, NEWLY LAUNCHED DIGITAL SEARCH & BROWSING SERVICE, TO OFFER 5,000-PLUS RANDOM HOUSE, INC. U.S. TITLES (New York, February 27, 2007)—In a giant stride forward in the emerging world of digital book search, Random House, Inc., the U.S. division of the world’s largest trade book publisher, has announced the launch of its own online book content search and browsing service, named Insight. Through Insight, Random House will make the text searchable for more than 5,000 of its new and backlist titles from across the company’s U.S. publishing divisions. Random House expects to add several thousand more of its books to Insight this spring. Insigh...

Time at last to talk about the big pop culture event of the weekend... New York Comic Con ! (What, did you think I meant that awards show ?) Your Book Nerd was there, both overwhelmed and underwhelmed by it all, but having a good time nonetheless. My bookstore had been asked by HarperCollins Publishers to do retail sales at their booth for the Con, so I spent all day Friday and part of Saturday in bookseller mode. I was at first a bit put out to be working when I'd rather be exploring, but it was worth it when I waltzed past the four-block-long line of fans on Saturday morning, flashing my "Exhibitor" badge (the ALP had to wait in line outside for another hour, and it wasn't warm this weekend...) Being on the other side of the booth was interesting -- I can see why my publishing buddies don't look forward to BEA with as much alacrity as my bookselling buddies, since being in the same place answering many of the same questions for 10 hours or more can be a bit ...

Dear readers, not only was yesterday the day-long winter meeting of the NAIBA board (where we were joined by ABA staffers and had a great discussion of upcoming projects), it was also the night of bookstore inventory, which lasted until the wee hours (I left around 2:30 AM, and there were folks still blearily uploading stuff to the computer). As I may have mentioned, I am a girl who needs her sleep. And right now I'm feeling like I have a book-scanning hangover (I'm sure I'll be hearing the beep of the scanner in my dreams). And as my extremely practical and outspoken colleague Pat Kutz of Lift Bridge Books says, "I do need ONE day in my life that isn't all about books. Don't you?" Yes, I do. So I'll see you after Comic Con. I'm going back to bed.

Hope some of you are enjoying the three-day weekend and thinking kind thoughts about pres. Washington, Lincoln, et al. Of course, lots of people use their holiday Monday to go shopping, so us retail types are on the job as usual. But here are some linkety-links before I head off to the store. - Hooray, an optimistic article about indie bookstores! This piece in the Christian Science Monitor (from several weeks ago) chronicles some recent success stories, while still acknowledging the struggle (and the fact that none of us are planning on becoming milionaires). It's a nicely balanced piece, and quotes hometown favorite Adam Tobin of Adam's Books (thanks to Sarah Weinman's Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind for the link). - Case in point: Waynesville, NC's fabulous Osondu Booksellers , which has just remodeled and installed a wine bar in the bookstore! Proprietor Margaret Osondu is already kind of famous for her campaign get Oprah to visit Osondu Booksellers, and...

Mmmmm.... sleepy today, as a result of a late night last night and an early meeting this morning. It's probably too late for any of you to read this post at work today, but I've got the time to get it off my chest and leave time for links on Monday. It's been ages since there were any book reviews around here -- anyone ever notice that the more involved one gets in the book industry the less time there seems to be to read? Actually, I think that's a fallacy, but I have seemed to be in the reading doldrums until recently. What I have had the time and energy to read has been fairly escapist fare, though not stupid by any stretch. I was tempted to describe my January books as "diet reading" -- a take on the "light reading" idea -- but really, it's more like candy reading, or junk food reading -- though it's not junk, just on the more fun side than the intellectual side -- oh, the whole food metaphor breaks down. Just read the reviews. FRAGI...

Ready for some links, O my bookish friends? * Here's that piece in Bookselling This Week about the Book Nerd experience at Winter Institute. Read for all the bits you didn't get here. * At the WI session on PR, there was a round of indignant applause when one bookseller mentioned "the same old story" that major media had decided was "sexy", especially in the days since You've Got Mail. You know that story: woe to independent bookstores, they are dying if not already dead, the only reason to go to them is sentimentality, what a tragedy. (Never mind the opening of 97 new independent bookstores last year, the success stories from New York City to North Carolina, the innovative new stores and those that have continued to evolve for decades, the smart business people who are educating themselves and adapting to a changing retail environment... but don't get me started.) Well, here's another version of the same old story from the L.A. Times (go ...