The Written Nerd

Carolyn Bennett is one of my favorite people in the book industry. She's a sales rep at BookStream , a youngish independent wholesaler (and sends out their great e-newsletter), and works part time at Oblong Books in upstate New York. She also belongs to a wonderful bookselling family: her sister Whitney works for HarperCollins, and her parents John and Betty Bennett are the proprietors of Bennett Books in Wyckoff, New Jersey. I've been lucky to get to know both John and Betty through NAIBA, and they're some of my bookselling role models. Last week, Carolyn told me Bennett Books has made the decision to close at the end of September. The closing of an indie bookstore is always a hard thing to grapple with, and I think Carolyn's own words do it better than mine could. The following is also published in today's Shelf Awareness and on Carolyn's blog . Epilogue: Nineteen Years Later Back in 1988, my ten-year-old heart burst with a secret. My parents were goin...

Just madness, no links -- forgive my overworked state, I promise I'll have more later this week. I suggest you spend Monday messing around with the Bookseller Wiki . Actually, you can only change it if you're an ABA member, but the accumulated knowledge (and they only just unveiled it ), is fascinating. Especially the info on the order of kids' book series like Warriors -- I don't think that information is available anywhere else. What's your favorite example of information sharing?

Brooklyn Lit Life is a series of interviews with authors, publishers, retailers, bloggers, readers, and others involved in the literary life of my favorite borough. Questions are designed to spark conversation from a variety of perspectives on what characterizes Brooklyn and its neighborhoods as a cultural and literary place. If you'd like to take part or you know a great candidate for the series, email me: booknerdnyc at earthlink dot net. Brooklyn Lit Life #2: Peter Melman Peter Melman is a long-time Brooklynite and first-time novelist: his story of a Jewish Civil War soldier, Landsman , was published by Counterpoint in June 2007. I met him at a charming dinner for Counterpoint authors and later hosted his reading at McNally Robinson, and was delighted to learn that he once worked at BookCourt , one of the borough's premier indie bookstores. His cheeky answers to my interview questions reveal a true Brooklyn spirit. Describe your particular literary project, and your role i...

I'm trying really hard to buckle down on the business plan this morning, so here are some quickie links. * HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman is optimistic about the future of publishing. Here's a sample of her interview in Forbes : I think the book business is the healthiest I have seen it in a very long time. We are seeing a breadth of titles selling in many different channels of distribution. We are no longer publishing for the independents only, the chains only, the big box merchandisers only, the online sellers only. We are selling across the board. The health is the breadth, diversity and range. That's good for business, and more importantly, it's good for society. *I so totally want to go the New York Public Library and print a free instant book on the Espresso Book Machine -- especially after the great stories about indie bookstores doing great business with Print on Demand I heard at the Digital Task Force. *A victory for shopping local: thanks largely to the ef...

Today marks the first installment in an ongoing series I'm calling Brooklyn Lit Life: interviews with authors, publishers, retailers, bloggers, readers, and others involved in the literary life of my favorite borough. Questions are designed to spark conversation from a variety of perspectives on what characterizes Brooklyn and its neighborhoods as a cultural and literary place. If you'd like to take part or you know a great candidate for the series, email me: booknerdnyc at earthlink dot net. Brooklyn Life Life #1: Johnny Temple Johnny Temple is in some ways the face of Brooklyn literary life. He is the co-founder and publisher of independent press Akashic Books , and the chair of the Brooklyn Literary Council, which organizes the Brooklyn Book Festival . He is also the organizer for the Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival , and I've seen him selling books from a booth at the Atlantic Antic . And that's all when he's not touring with his band, Girls Again...

It's not blogging day, but these two links are too good to wait until Monday: The Litblog Co-Op has announced it's new Read This! selection, and has posts on the winner as well as the two runners-up. They're all great books, and a great conversation is starting -- check it out! And today my first column on graphic lit runs in Shelf Awareness ! I'm delighted at the opportunity to write about comics for a wider audience, and I hope it proves helpful to bookstores trying to navigate what for many is a new category. Comments welcome!

Despite the purported summer doldrums, July was a busy month as booksellers came together for pooling our collective brains and planning for the future. My own brain is a bit fuzzy today as I seem to have contracted an icky summer cold, but I'll do my best to give you the scoop on the two meetings I attended this month. Wednesday, July 11: American Booksellers Association Digital Task Force (ABA-DTF) Participants: * Beck Anderson (Anderson’s Bookshops – Naperville, IL) * Tom Campbell (Regulator Bookshop – Durham, NC) * Dan Cullen (Director Information Department – American Booksellers Assoc.) * Avin Domnitz (CEO – American Booksellers Assoc.) * Kelly Justice (Fountain Bookstore – Richmond, VA) * Russ Lawrence (Chapter One Books – Hamilton, MT) * Ricky Leung (Technical Lead – BookSense.com) * Madeline MacIntosh (Senior VP and Publisher, Random House Audio Group) * Jessica Stockon (McNally Robinson – New York, NY) * Neil Strandberg (Tattered Cover – Denver, CO) * Oren Teicher (COO –...