More news about Amazon. The French have found a distinctly un-American way of protecting small bookstores (”Amazon Ordered to End Free Delivery on Books in France,” by Peter Sayer, IDG News Service):

Amazon.com may not offer free delivery on books in France, the high court in Versailles has ruled.

The action, brought in January 2004 by the French Booksellers’ Union (Syndicat de la librairie française), accused Amazon of offering illegal discounts on books and even of selling some books below cost.

The court gave Amazon 10 days to start charging for the delivery of books, which should at least allow the company to maintain the offer through the end-of-year gift-giving season. After that, it must pay a fine of €1,000 (US$1,470) per day that it continues to offer free delivery. It must also pay €100,000 in compensation to the booksellers’ union.

Retail prices, particularly of books, are tightly regulated in France.

So, if you’re curious about where that handwritten J. K. Rowling book ended up, now the truth can be told: it’s on Amazon. Naturally.

Clark Hoyt, the New York Times‘ public editor, offers an interesting look at how his paper’s best-seller lists are compiled (”Books for the Ages, if Not for the Best-Seller List“). Even if you feel that there is probably too much attention paid to best-seller lists and starred reviews (as I do), it’s worth reading the article to understand more about this important cultural force.

But the short version is that the best-seller lists aren’t simply comprised of the books that have the best sales. (For that, you’ll need to turn to BookScan.) At the Times, editorial prerogative is exercised, even though the books editor doesn’t edit the best-seller list.

Confused yet? Read the article. 

My favorite part is merely an aside:

Not making the list, or falling off - some books last only a week - can be devastating. "If you’re not on the list and you’re a publisher, you get a very anguished call from your author," Kirshbaum said. "Why aren’t I on the list?"

Because you am’nt working hard enough on yours grammar.

In the Los Angeles Times, Josh Getlin asks a number of people whether more is less (”N.Y. Times creates more bestsellers“):

NEW YORK — It has been criticized for being ingrown and unscientific, a weekly work of fiction that — for all its seeming authoritativeness — is shrouded in mystery. So when the New York Times Book Review announced it would begin splitting its paperback bestseller list into two lists, one reserved for quality paperback fiction, a chorus of voices in publishing began parsing What It All Meant.

Some declared it a long-overdue recognition of the importance of so-called trade paperbacks, the larger, more expensive editions that feature works by critically praised writers. Those books have had to compete for spots on the Times bestseller list with smaller, cheaper, glitzier mass-market paperbacks by brand-name authors like Grisham and Baldacci. But critics said the creation of yet another bestseller list threatened to dilute the meaning of the term. And they said it also threatened to dilute the Book Review itself, which announced that, at least initially, the section would lose a page of copy to make room for expanded book listings.

On NPR (”Why Women Read More Than Men“), Eric Weiner explains why Hemingway is Chick Lit:

When it comes to fiction, the gender gap is at its widest. Men account for only 20 percent of the fiction market, according to surveys conducted in the U.S., Canada and Britain.

By this measure, “chick-lit” would have to include Hemingway and nearly every other novel, observes Lakshmi Chaudhry in the magazine In These Times. “Unlike the gods of the literary establishment who remain predominately male - both as writers and critics - their humble readers are overwhelmingly female.”

My household proves an exception to this trend: my wife prefers nonfiction, while the boys and I prefer our stories to be made up. (Marya also knows more about plumbing and electrical than me, too.) But I’ll never understand why most people don’t enjoy a lot of both, despite having a favorite.

I did say I wouldn’t write about O.J. any more. But I plan to continue writing about lying. How to resolve this?

He’s got a point.

Wait, wait! I have one more thing! I’m not trying to have the last word. Frank had all the best last words (and I’m jealous, Frank. YOU got to see Keir).

But I just read this intriguing little biblio-tidbit while in the car to Joplin, MO today. It’s from Service and Style: How the American Department Store Fashioned the Middle Class by Jan Whitaker. In 1904 Wanamaker’s Philadelphia store was the biggest bookshop in the world. Department stores had been taking a critical drubbing for only selling bestsellers, undercutting the competition, and selling under the list price. They also received praise for always paying their book suppliers on time, exposing a wide readership to books and creating public interest in living authors by using promotions such as book fairs and teas.

The most powerful person in retail was one Marcella Burns Hahner, a book department manager for Marshall Fields. After ten years with the store, her department was deemed the largest retail book business in the world and she “held the power to make a book a best seller.” Take that, Oprah and Wal-Mart!

“Plus ça change plus ça le même chose.”

In my readers’ advisory (RA) class, I often include an assignment that asks students to visit any book store they wish and look around. What I hope they will see are examples of RA in action - in a different setting than their library. The Regulator Bookshop in Durham, N.C. offers some great RA moments for their readers - in ways that invite participation and in ways that create serendipitous discovery opportunities. Behold:

In addition to readings and author visits, The Regulator provides its reading community a chance to suggest books to both the staff and other readers. The comments are typed up and posted in a display called Book Love. Fans of Harry Potter got a chance to offer up odds on what might happen in the last book and the staff posted the list of ideas right over the checkout counter. Readers can match their interests against those of the community by tracking The Regulator bestseller display - which includes both expected titles and many surprises. While none of this is necessarily new, all of it is well done (and I will say that I have not heard of the Harry Potter prediction list as of yet appearing in any library), and it shows that a place that makes money off of its ability to invite and engage readers, thinks in terms of RA all the time - even if they would not call it that. So if you are ever in Durham, N.C. check out The Regulator on Ninth street and the next time you visit your local library or bookstore - see what RA features surround you.

There must be something in the water. Like Katie, I have been thinking about book jackets, prompted by the work of Joyce Saricks.

Joyce is Booklist’s readers’ advisory (RA) columnist (see At Leisure with Joyce Saricks). She recently wrote a column on book jackets which outlines how useful jacket art and text can be when conducting quick, on the fly RA work.

In addition to all the useful points Joyce makes about series, author popularity, genre, and tone, she prompted me to think about how covers change to reflect societal shifts. Oddly enough, romance titles and Harry Potter perfectly illustrate this.

Romance has moved from covers that looked like this:

To covers that look like this:

and finally, sort of back at least half way to covers that look like this:

While in England at least, Harry Potter gets both adult and children’s covers. The adult version of the last Harry Potter book is gorgeous:

but if you just landed on the planet, you could be forgiven thinking that it was an odd title for a classic reissue:

All this makes me wonder - in addition to what the book jacket and text can tell us about the inside of a book, what does it tell us about society as a whole and what we will and will not read on the subway - in front of an apparently judgmental audience? If the first rule of RA, never to apologize for your reading tastes, is alive and well in libraries, it seems to have a long way to go in publisher’s marketing.

Scootch OVER, Frank! I want a turn.

Frank, you amaze me. I cannot fathom how you are able to keep up with all the breaking news in the book biz. And provide pithy commentary. You get my brain buzzing about reading and writing. Now I have something to mull over in staff meetings. I appear to be paying attention to the agenda but secretly I’m pondering what will Hollywood do next to torture that poor Jane Austen?

You go great with morning coffee. I’m more of an afternoon candy break kind of blogger. That’s the time for biblio-silliness such as this, Judge a Book by Its Cover blog. Which prompted howls of laughter as my coworkers and I all counted the hands on a romance cover’s heroine. Giggles and snorts soon gave way to an insightful discussion of book covers, what they are trying to tell readers, what they tell librarians, and why doesn’t Harlan Coben just earflick the person who designs his covers?

And then there are covers that induce the universal statement, “Hmmmmm?” Such as this one, The Psychic Sasquatch, which set off all the readers’ advisors in my department on a spirited debate over genre-blending. You might need a cup of coffee and two pieces of Ghiradelli Dark for this one.