Marketing

In a note to clients issued Monday, Hudson Square Research's Daniel Ernst reported on the results of a pre-holiday scouting trip he took to retail stores in New York and Connecticut over the weekend -- only a handful of shopping days before Christmas -- where he found "floor traffic up materially, but lines at checkout short."

Demand for tablet computers was strong, he wrote, with Apple's (AAPL) iPad maintaining its lead. Amazon's (AMZN) tablet sales, however, were a mystery.

World Book Night U.S. has announced the selection of its honorary national chairperson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Anna Quindlen, and revealed the WBN 2012 U.S. book picks. In addition, World Book Night U.S. has opened the registration process for those wishing to become volunteer book givers.

Springer announces the Springer API (Application Programming Interface) Challenge 2.0, its second competition for original, non-commercial applications using its freely available metadata and content APIs. The Springer API Challenge 1.0 asked participants to develop applications that offer users new ways to find, visualize, and manipulate relevant data drawn from Springer’s large and growing content database. The Springer API Challenge 2.0 is a goal-directed competition to develop more specific solutions

Penguin Group (USA) announced today the release of its Holiday eSampler featuring excerpts from over 40 frontlist, backlist, and upcoming titles. Available for free wherever eBooks are sold, this collection provides readers with the opportunity to browse sample chapters of a variety of adult and young adult books across genres: from bestselling thrillers and critically-acclaimed

From the Fortykey website comes this screenshot of a clever marketing idea: Actually, the book looks pretty interesting: ABOUT “CARDANICA” “A delicious steampunk nightmare dripping blood and oil from every crevice.”Graham Edwards, Fantasy writer “Not since Harlan Ellison’s ‘I Have no mouth and I must scream’ has there been a better depiction of man at [...]

Godin's biggest takeaway, he writes, is the importance of “permission”: “The core group of 50,000 subscribers to the Domino blog made all the difference in getting the word out and turning each of our books into a bestseller.

Just in time for Cyber Monday, Open Road Integrated Media has launched Gift of E (giftofe.com), a site aimed at educating consumers on how to gift e-books this holiday season.

Reading Group Choices is introducing a literary director who will work with authors, booksellers and publishers in guiding title selections that spark lively and fun book discussions for book clubs around the nation.

To better connect publishers with their audience (and give them a shot at acquiring new readers), Link.me has been forging partnerships with the top book publishers to launch trials, deals, promotions, and more through QR codes. In October, Link.me signed with its newest client, McGraw-Hill, and as an example of the kind of work they’re doing, one of the publishing company’s recent publications, “The Zappos Experience” embedded QR codes in over 15 individual chapters. The goal was, of course, to bring The Zappos Experience “to life."

Mark Cuban has 335,000 friends on Facebook and 760,000 followers on Twitter. Monday, the Internet billionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team will test just how friendly those fans really are. Mr. Cuban has written a 30,000-word e-book, "How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It". To drive sales, Mr. Cuban plans to tap all his online followers.