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The biggest news in book retailing so far this year may be Borders’ opening its first “concept store,” a new generation of superstores unveiled in February in the company’s hometown of Ann Arbor, Mich. At 28,900 square feet, the new store—the first of 14 planned to open this year—does not skimp on size, and a lot of that space is taken up by innovative features: shop-within-a-shop “destination zones” for travel, cooking, wellness, graphic novels and children’s categories; bold, new architectural designs; and a “digital center” offering services ranging from book downloading to self-publishing. “Our mission is to be a headquarters for knowledge

If you look at “Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography” as an equation—say, America’s most controversial A-lister + one of the world’s most titillating celebrity biographers + a secretive, litigious religion (+ as a bonus, a Writers Guild strike that has much of the entertainment biz on its heels)—you might guess that a publisher needs simply to sit back and let the money roll in. But that’s just never the case, is it? Yes, the book’s publisher, St. Martin’s Press, is reveling in the eye of what we’ll call a perfect storm of self-perpetuating buzz with the Andrew Morton-penned celeb-bio. Yes, prelaunch reports

Chris Anderson’s ironic farewell to the retail bookshelf is a harbinger of how direct distribution in the supply chain is bypassing the traditional foundations of bookselling—as well as library patronage­—and is also flowing into nonprint formats. But while that transformation is nibbling around the edges of distribution, the fact remains that the book publishing industry’s supply chain model has as its primary target a physical book on a physical bookshelf. In this special two-part series, I want to discuss how digital data management drives workflow through the operations, acquisitions, development, production and distribution supply chain; in particular, how use of the Online Information Exchange

The 20th year of the Gold Ink Awards—the industry’s most prestigious print competition—featured some of the storied awards’ most impressive and highest-quality submissions to date. A talented team of judges poured through more than 1,400 entries in this milestone year, awarding Gold, Silver, Bronze and Pewter honors in 46 categories spanning a wide variety of printed products. Printers and publishers submitted their finest pieces, and more than a dozen judges rolled up their sleeves to scrutinize and examine the entries’ each and every detail over four days in May at the Philadelphia headquarters of North American Publishing Co.—parent company of Book Business and Publishing

Hooked on Phonics was created in 1987 as an instructional program to assist school-age children who were struggling with reading skills. Sold primarily through infomercials, the name grew increasingly recognizable as more and more television viewers stumbled upon the advertisements and their memorable “Hooked on Phonics worked for me!” tagline. Throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, the company introduced a handful of additional products, including “Hooked on Math,” but still remained true to its original direct-to-consumer sales model. In 2005, Hooked on Phonics, now known as HOP LLC, was acquired by Baltimore-based Educate Inc. (which also owns Sylvan Learning Center) and was

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Book Business magazine proudly announces Google’s Jim Gerber as keynote speaker for the upcoming 2007 Book Business Conference and Expo, scheduled for March 5-7, 2007, at the New York Marriott Marquis, Times Square. Gerber, director of content partnerships at Google, will present the Keynote Address on Tuesday, March 6, 2007 at 9:15 a.m. The Keynote Address is open to all registered attendees. “We are thrilled to have Jim give the keynote address at the Book Business Conference and Expo. There are few companies that have as profound an influence on publishing today as Google, so it’s a major boon for our audience of

In today’s world where numerous venues exist to sell books—from bookstores to mass-market outlets to catalogs to the Internet to author-supported sales—making the best use of each channel can be challenging. To help make cross-platform marketing more effective, here are some proven insights I’ve learned during more than 25 years of publishing and marketing books. Ninety percent of all marketing efforts are wasted. This law of wasted effort is just a fact of life. It applies to all areas of marketing, from making sales pitches to direct mail to Internet sales. If a publicist actually gets one media hit from every 10 phone calls she makes,

Is it time to take another look at Hi-Fi printing? Hi-Fi is any printing technology that delivers a higher-quality product than the normal four-color process. This is usually done with custom ink applications of five, six, seven or even eight-color Hi-Fi ink sets that deliver a wider range of colors than the standard CYMK process. Hi-Fi breaks the color barrier and achieves far superior brightness levels. Ten years ago it was touted as the next great innovation in high-quality printing. The flexography market has done well with it for the packaging industry, but it somewhat fizzled in the publishing industry. However, a devoted group

CTP Veterans Share Tips For Publishers Taking Their First Steps By Tatyana Sinioukov So what's a publisher to do when considering going CTP with four-color work? Do your homework, first and foremost, insists Rick Wills, electronic prepress manager, Banta Book Group, Menasha, WI. Tom Carpenter, director of book development for the North American Outdoor Group (NAOG), Minnetonka, MN, agrees, suggesting visiting a publisher who is already using CTP as a first step. "We all know people at other publishing companies, and the technology isn't proprietary--I can't see where anyone would have a problem showing you what goes on, as a professional courtesy," he muses. "You can't understand