HarperCollins is relaunching its line of large-print titles today with the debut of HarperLuxe. HC has redesigned the large-print titles to make them more appealing to readers, especially baby boomers, said publisher Liate Stehlik. “We want to move large-print titles beyond their traditional audience,” which typically has been the visually handicapped and older Americans, Stehlik said. “We want to give baby boomers and others a nicer reading experience.”The redesigned titles will have a 14-point font, slightly smaller than the 16-point used in traditional large-print books, and the leading will be the same size as traditional large print titles. The smaller font will be offset by a crisper design, Stehlik said.

Stehlik said she hopes to do about 100 titles annually under the HarperLuxe imprint, nearly triple the output in recent years. Fiction bestsellers will be a staple of the line, but the imprint will feature nonfiction titles and other works that might appeal to baby boomers, Stehlik said. “We won’t be doing Meg Cabot titles in large print,” she observed.

Read the full Publishers Weekly article here.

In a not so surprising play by Scottland based, Aultbea Publishing, who have become known for pushing the works of “child prodigies”, a 1,500 word book by six year old Christopher Beale was launched yesterday in the UK, garnering both a place in the Guiness Book of World Records for youngest published author.  Though some questions have arisen as to past “investment” from parents, Beale’s book, Last Season’s Excursions, is proported to be non-subsidy published and expected to be a hit with collectors.

Read more here

With book sales sagging — down 2.6 percent as of August over the same period last year, according to the Association of American Publishers — publishers are pushing their books into butcher shops, carwashes, cookware stores, cheese shops, even chi-chi clothing boutiques where high-end literary titles are used to amplify the elegant lifestyle they are attempting to project.

What began as a trickle of cookbooks in kitchen shops and do-it-yourself titles in hardware stores has become, in recent months, the fastest growing component in many major publishers’ retail strategies. (source: NY Times

Read the full article here

Aury Wallington recently went from writing for television shows like Sex and the City and Veronica Mars to writing a young-adult novel called Pop! Her tale of a seventeen-year-old virgin and her quest to have sex is funny and reminiscent of another young-adult novelist. Wallington explained, “I wanted to write a book that would serve a new generation of girls the way Judy Blume’s Forever served me—answering questions that I was too embarrassed to ask anyone, and showing the emotional issues of sex and virginity through a character I could identify with.”

But sexual content in young-adult novels is a tricky issue right now, with books like Craig Thompson’s Blankets getting pulled off of library shelves in Marshall, Mo., library because of an image on its cover of a couple lying in bed together, even though there isn’t any sex depicted. As for Pop!, Wallington describes the book’s sexual content as “on-screen, so to speak, although the language and act itself are not graphic.”
While Barnes & Noble made the decision to carry Pop!, that’s not what happened at the other big store. Ami Hassler, children’s buyer for Borders Group, Inc., said, “It is true that we monthly review many titles and because the space in the YA section is not unlimited, we make choices every day regarding what to carry and what not to carry. Other factors in this decision include the format of the book, the price, the cover design, and the competitive landscape.”

So where does that leave Wallington and her book? Hassler does say that Borders will special-order Pop! if a customer requests it. But having the book available, and visible, in the stores is important. After all, a book’s marketing campaign has to be that much more convincing if a customer has to remember enough about the book to special-order it through a major retailer.

Wallington was disappointed to hear that Borders wouldn’t be carrying her first novel, especially with no clear answers as to why. Sexual content? No established audience? Perhaps it really was just the cover artthough that seems pretty unlikely, considering the image is of a soda can emblazoned with the title. Wallington believes the young-adult section is in need of books like hers. “There are so many contemporary young-adult novels that trivialize teen sex, where the characters are so glib and sophisticated that sexual intimacy seems like no big deal, and sex has few or no physical or emotional consequences, as opposed to the awkward, confusing struggle that most real teenagers go through, which I tried to capture honestly in my book.”

read the full article here

Warren Adler, who has all his books available in traditional print, is a pioneering author in electronic publishing as well. All twenty-seven of Mr. Adler’s books can now be purchased and downloaded online.

DPPpress (www.dpppress.com) and DigitalPulp Publishing (www.digitalpulppublishing.com), an eBook publishing and distribution company, launched their online bookstore (www.dppstore.com) just ten months ago.

Opening their store with just seven titles, the DPPstore’s virtual shelves are now lined with five hundred titles by new authors and the best eBooks from independent publishers, creating an eclectic array of literary offerings.

The DPPstore (www.dppstore.com) continues to grow and this week is pleased to announce it has added 27 more eBooks, all by critically acclaimed author Warren Adler.

As a novelist, Mr. Adler’s themes deal primarily with intimate human relationships — the mysterious nature of love and attraction, the fragile relationships between husbands and wives and parents and children, the corrupting power of money, the aging process and how families cling together when challenged by the outside world. His books have been cited by readers and reviewers for their insight and wisdom in presenting and deciphering the complexities of contemporary life.
His novels have been translated into more than two dozen languages. Ten of his novels have been sold or optioned to the movies, and two have become major motion pictures, the classic The War of the Roses and Random Hearts.

Warren Adler is arguably the only author in the world, published by major publishing houses, who has re-acquired the English language and foreign rights to his entire backlist of more than 25 novels. Stonehouse Press (Adler’s own publishing company) has made the English language versions available in all eBook formats and Print-on-Demand formats in trade and hardcover.

full press release here

The world’s largest book chain is trying to create the world’s largest book club. Barnes & Noble has launched an interactive, online book club (at bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com), allowing readers to commingle—digitally, at least—with authors. Barnes & Noble Book Clubs, which launched this week with author Carl Hiaasen—his next book, Nature Girl, hits November 14—as one of its first featured authors available for questions and online chatter. B&N plans to host online talks with roughly 30 authors this fall and will also have discussions, hosted by bn.com online moderators, about classics and “noteworthy titles” in a variety of categories such as personal finance and health.

Marie Toulantis, CEO of bn.com, said the promotional opportunity for authors–which follows on the heels of the successful Barnes & Noble Recommends program, through which the giant retailer highlights one book a season to aggressively push in its stores–”meets the needs of authors who are eager to reach as broad an audience as possible.”

Read the Publisher’s Weekly article here.

More on Starbucks, Bookseller Extraordinaire:

“It’s not the typical kindergartener who starts his day with a cappuccino, but Starbucks and Random House Audio Group have teamed to offer youngsters their own delicious pick-me-up, resuscitating the Rabbit Ears line of classic children’s audiobooks, beginning with The Velveteen Rabbit and The Night Before Christmas. The former, penned by Margery Williams, read by Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep, with musical accompaniment by renowned New Age pianist George Winston, will be available exclusively in Starbucks’ 5,200 U.S. locations beginning August 29. Christmas, read by Streep with traditional holiday carols performed by Mark O’Connor, Christ Church Cathedral Church, and The Edwin Hawkins Singers, will follow November 7.

“Audiobooks are something that teachers and librarians have used with children for many, many years,” says Amanda D’Acierno, director, publicity and marketing at Random House Audio. “Audiobooks help readers of every level, from struggling readers to the most advanced readers. Your listening comprehension is so far ahead of your reading comprehension in children. So Starbucks’ putting these books in every store, it’s a way for us to reach not only the teachers and librarians, but also, directly, all of the parents who go in and out of Starbucks every day. We think that’s a good thing for young readers.”

Read the Full Article from Pages Magazine

 

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Debuts for the week:
Hardcover Fiction
#3-ECHO PARK by Michael Connelly (0316734950)
#5-ACT OF TREASON by Vince Flynn (0743270371)
#15-ONE GOOD TURN by Kate Atkinson (0316154849)
Hardcover Nonfiction
#2-THE INNOCENT MAN by John Grisham (0385517238)
#6-AGELESS by Suzanne Somers (0307237249)
#9-BLOOD AND THUNDER by Hampton Sides (0385507771)
#13-WHY WE WANT YOU TO BE RICH by Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Trump (1933914025)
#15-I LIKE YOU by Amy Sedaris (0446578843)
Paperback Fiction
#4-THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS by Kiran Desai (0802142818)
#6-THE LIGHTHOUSE by P.D. James (0307275736)
Paperback Nonfiction
#6- BAD PRESIDENT by R.D. Rosen, et al. ( 0761146202)
#8-1491 by Charles C. Mann (1400032059)
#10-Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk (1400033888)
#11-THE RIVER OF DOUBT by Candice Millard (0767913736)
Children’s Illustrated
#15-YOUR PERSONAL PENGUIN by Sandra Boynton (0761143726)
Children’s Fiction Series
The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 13, 0064410161)
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