September Book Co-op Newsletter
International Literacy Day – September 8, at the Albuquerque Main Library, 10:30am – 4pm
Even if you are not a vendor you are invited to drop in to the all day activities for Literacy Day at the Albuquerque Main Library at 501 Copper NW. Admission to the events and Book Market is FREE and if you park diagonally from the Library on Copper, stamped parking tickets give you 2 hours FREE – just go to the front desk. If you are thinking about publishing, come see publishers and authors at the Market and check out what has been done. If you have kids that are too young for school, the story times will be great! And if you get hungry the Library has a Café. But above all, support literacy because if people can’t read they can’t buy a book!






Book Howl for Halloween in Los Ranchos
There are about 10 spaces left for the Halloween Holiday Howl at the Los Ranchos Barn October 29. Don’t wait too long or all the spaces will be gone! There will be jewelry, books, foods, soaps, and much more and be spooky too!



BOOK NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT...
Internet Book Tour Gone
BookTour will be shutting down on Thursday, September 1, 2011. On that date, all of their services will end and the data will no longer be available. Fewer author tours and changes in book marketing budgets made the company financially unviable.
Another Shoe Dropping…?
We alerted all Co-op members starting in 2009 (it actually may have been even earlier than that) that Borders was in trouble and may close its doors. We advised everyone to monitor any inventory that they may have at Borders so that you would not lose those assets. Well, as we have also told everyone, things don’t sound very good over at Barnes & Noble either. Their big refinancing deal has fallen through. So watch out for any tell-tale signs. Be alert! Find out what is going on.
Book club members increasingly using e-readers
Some 21 percent of reading group members are now reading all or most of their selections on e-readers, up from 11 percent in 2009, according to a Reading Group Choices survey. Groups representing more than 200,000 members were surveyed online and via a traditional mailing in the first three months of the year.
Of reading group members reading e-books, 59 percent use Amazon Kindles, 26 percent use Barnes & Noble's Nook and 20 percent use a tablet. In 2009, only seven percent used the Nook.
Romance, always a popular e-book category, is most frequently read on e-books by book group members: 60 percent of romance fiction read for the book groups is bought as e-books.
One difficulty that may hold back e-book usage by book group members: many publishers' backlists are not available as e-books.
Reading Group Choices owner Barbara Mead commented: "The use of e-books in concert with printed books only serves to reaffirm book clubs' passion for literature. And e-readers are a great investment for avid readers who are consuming books well in excess of their reading group selections or for book club members with a dwindling amount of free shelf-space."
Hastings first quarter earnings slide, will start selling e-books
Hastings Entertainment reported a drop in net income for its first quarter to 5 cents per share compared to 11 cents per share a year ago.
Total sales declined by 3.8 percent, to $124.1 million. Overall book comps decreased 9.1 percent for the quarter, new book sales fell 8.6 percent in the period and used books sales declined 19.6 percent. However, value books (remainders and white sales) gained by 8.7 percent.
The retailer said there was a 22 percent drop in “titles for which we purchase more than 1,000 copies,” blaming publishers for weak releases.
The company said that it is working on a new program to sell e-books through its GoHastings.com website.
Author drops e-book price to $0.99, ups sales by 2,500 percent
An author who remains anonymous, with control of the rights to five of his titles previously published by a traditional publisher, initially listed the titles as Kindle selections priced at $2.99 each.
When the books moved slowly, he decided to drop the price to $0.99 per title, and more than tripled his sales.
The books were formatted for and made available only on the Amazon Kindle and Nook platforms since November 2010.
The books sold an average of 20 e-books a month until the beginning of May.
That’s when he decided to try lowering the price of the five e-book titles to $0.99 each, just to see what happened. He calculated that he had to increase his sales to 120 copies per month to match the small income he was receiving from the same books at $2.99.
Since dropping the price, he’s sold over 400 copies in three weeks, and if current trends continue, estimates he will easily eclipse 500 copies for the month.
“A number of his titles sold in excess of 10,000 copies when they were first released years ago, but to have them find new life as e-books,” he says, “is especially gratifying.”
Publishing revolution: Amazon now selling more ebooks than pbooks
Amazon said on May 19 that “Amazon.com customers are now purchasing more Kindle books than all print books - hardcover and paperback –combined,” adding that “Since April 1, for every 100 print books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 105 Kindle books. This includes sales of hardcover and paperback books by Amazon where there is no Kindle edition.” Amazon says ebook unit sales are more than three times sales for the same period in 2010. Amazon reiterated that its print book sales continue to grow - taking share from everyone else - and that their U.S. books business overall, including ebooks, is showing “the fastest year-over-year growth rate, in both units and dollars, in over 10 years.” … “The book publishing industry has entered a period of long-term decline because of the rising sales of ebook readers,” reads an April 28 research note from IHS iSuppli, which predicted a decrease in book revenue at a compound annual rate of three percent through 2014 - a reversal from the period between 2005 and 2010, when revenue rose. For the traditional book publishing industry, the implications of the rise of the ebook and ebook reader markets are frightening, given the decline in paper book printing, distribution and sales,” Steve Mather, IHS iSuppli’s principal analyst for wireless, wrote in the April 28 statement. “The industry has entered a phase of disruption that will be as significant as the major changes impacting the music and movie business.” The firm predicts that physical book sales will decline at a compound annual rate of five percent. While ebook sales will rise during that same period, the increase won’t cover the revenue gap created by the decline in the physical book market. By 2014, the research note predicts, ebooks will occupy some 13 percent of U.S. book publishing revenue, more than twice its current level ... E-books were .05 percent of the trade-book market in 2002 and 3.2 percent in 2009. Last year, they shot up to 8.3 percent of the $5.3 billion market, according to the Association of American Publishers, totaling $441.3 million in sales … Barnes & Noble is releasing an upgrade to the Nook reader that allows Nook owners to have authors sign their ebooks using a stylus. Nook owners can activate the autograph function, hand the stylus over, and get the signature. Just like with a paper book… According to an article posted to the Web by Piotr Kowalczyk, of the top-100 Amazon Kindle titles on April 21, 2011, 28 were by self-published authors. Eleven of the self-published titles were in the Kindle top 50. All of the self-published best-sellers were priced at $3.99 or less. Eighteen of the titles were selling at the lowest possible price tag: $0.99… Jeffrey Trachtenberg in a Wall Street Journal article noted that advance sales of a short story by best-selling author David Baldacci hit no. 51 on Amazon's digital best-seller list in April. Grand Central Publishing, a unit of Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group, listed Baldacci's original short story "No Time Left," which features Frank Becker, an aging assassin with work-life balance issues, for 99 cents. The work was published May 2. "No Time Left" was originally published in January 2010 when it was included in an anniversary edition of Baldacci's thriller Absolute Power… App maker Scroll Motion will create mobile apps out of Smashwords' "premium" catalog of over 30,000 ebooks at no additional charge to the authors and publishers. The royalty rate on the apps will be 60 percent of list price.
Author recognition: Relationship guru offers 10 tips for writers
Blane Bachelor, journalist, nationally syndicated columnist and author, has 10 tips for wannabe writers and authors.
Bachelor was among 16 distinguished presenters at the Authorship 101-201 workshops held in conjunction with the GABBS Atlanta Spring Book Show at Atlanta's Cobb Galleria Center. Bachelor, a long-term columnist with Atlanta's The Sunday Paper, is a former staffer at two metropolitan newspapers. She has written hundreds of articles and columns about dating, relationships, travel and pop culture for outlets including Marie Claire, Women's Health, People.com, Tango.com, Modern Bride, Zink!, the Christian Science Monitor and USA Today. Her popular advice column, "Ask a Bachelor," appears weekly in metro newspapers across the United States.
She offered fledgling writers advice on how to avoid "10 Pitfalls to Avoid on Your Way to Being Published." The Top 10 tips:
(1) Know the trade terminology used by professional writers, authors, editors and publishers.
(2) Always submit clean copy that avoids bad spelling and grammar and punctuation errors.
(3) Do your homework. Avoid accuracy errors. Check to be sure you have your facts correct - accurate names, addresses, ages and other information.
(4) Become a reader. You're not going to become a successful author if you don’t read.
(5) Avoid being short on patience and drive. Writing is a high-energy profession.
(6) Avoid tormented, tortured, insane query letters. Be calm and professional.
(7) Avoid listening to advice from unqualified critics. Your Mom loves you, but she's probably not capable of judging the excellence of your writing.
(8) Have some Web presence. You should be on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like.
(9) Don't assume that your book or writing will sell itself. You have to play the prime role in marketing.
(10) Avoid unrealistic expectations. Believe in yourself, but recognize that not everything you write is worthy of publication.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
If a form says write a check to the Friends of the Albuquerque Library do not write it to LPD Press, NMBA, NM Book Co-op, or anyone else. You are an author - READ! Now at this point you may be laughing but it created big problems because the Friends can not cash checks made out to someone else. Was that the point?
Why You Need To Check Our Outlets
This story is so stupid we had to share it with you. One of our books was the exclusive subject of a store and was delivered it to them in May. On another book delivery down the street in August, we decided afterwards to check them out. Upon looking we asked the clerk did they have it? We were told, “No – they never had it and it was not out yet – no one has it!” We knew that was wrong and said it is in display at the store down the street. We were told this store sold things for less than the store down the street. We said, ”How can you, the price of the book is printed on the back?” When we got back to the office we first checked that the store paid their bill and they had. We emailed the owner and told her the book is almost sold out do you want to get a few more for a big event coming up? The email back was priceless. It seemed that ONE copy of the book on display had sold – who knows when – and the box with the rest of the books was in the back room and no one, including the owner, had the common sense to put them out. You can’t sell books you don’t put out for sale!
This is a lesson that you have to drop in to your outlets to see what is going on. It doesn’t help the publisher or author one bit if the books are not put out for customers.
Can you say stores going under?
Congratulations
Congratulations to Marilyn Stablein who received the First Place Award at the National Federation of Press Women's Book Awards for her book "Splitting Hard Ground. Her book had previously won the New Mexico Book Award.
Next Meetings & Events
September 8, Literacy Day at ABQ Main Library 10:30 to 4pm
September 23, Don Bullis & The Finalists Announced for the New Mexico Book Awards
October 1-9, NM Women Authors Book Fair in Santa Fe
October 28, Lynn Baca of SAR Press & Renee Tambeau of Museums of New Mexico Press talking about What They Do For Survival
October 29 - Barn Holiday Howl in Los Ranchos 8am -3pm.
November 18 – NM Book Awards Banquet at MCM Elegante, Reservations ONLY
December 16 - Holiday Party – no business - Just Fun!
2012
January 27 – What We Have Learned in the NM Book Awards & Announcing 6th year of the NM Book Awards ( and maybe get some winners in to meet!)
February 24 - Michael Hice – pr & marketing for books
Connie Gotsch www.conniegotsch.com Host Write On Four Corners KSJE FM, Farmington NM www.ksje.com Author two award winning youth novels ‘Belle’s Star,’ and ‘Belle’s trial,’ based on the life of a real dog and written from her point of view. Available from Artemesia Press at http://www.apbooks.net and amazon.com, and Anazon,com Belle’s Star was a New Mexico BookAward in 2009 and 2010; First Place for Juvenile Fiction New Mezxico Press Women and National Federation of Press Women Communication Contests 2010’ Silver Mom’s Choice Award 2010.
Belle’s Trial’ won First Place for Juvenile Fiction in the 2011 New Mexico Press Press Women’s Commuication Contest, and a Silver Mom’s Choice Award for 2011. The book received an Eric Hoffer Award nomination for 2011.