We are happy to share that Julia Collin Davison from America's Test Kitchen will be in Illinois October 24th and 25th to promote The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs with two events featuring live, interactive demonstrations and books signings. 

​Read below for all the details. 

Pre-registration is required at both venues.

Both events include a live cooking demonstration and book signing.

We are happy to share that Kristina McMorris in on tour for Sold on a Monday! Read below for all the details.

​Friday, October 12 at 12:00 PM
Beach Books – Lunch in the Loft
Seaside, OR
 
Saturday, October 13 at 3:00 PM
Litquake: WNBA’s National Reading Group Month’s author panel
In conversation with Mary Volmer, Lauren Markham, Debbie Clarke Moderow, Mary Monroe, and Brianna Wolfson
San Francisco, CA
 
Monday, October 15 at 11:30 AM
Towne Center Books – Read It & Eat Luncheon
Pleasanton, CA
 
Thursday, October 18 at 12:00 PM
Huntington Beach Central Library – Friends of the Huntington Beach Author Luncheon
Huntington Beach, CA
 
Saturday, October 20 at 2:00 PM
Adventures by the Book – Fall 2018 Literary Tea
San Diego, CA

Kristina McMorris is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Her background includes ten years of directing public relations for an international conglomerate as well as extensive television experience. Inspired by true personal and historical accounts, her novels have garnered twenty national literary awards, and include Letters from Home, Bridge of Scarlet Leaves, The Pieces We Keep, and The Edge of Lost, in addition to novellas in the anthologies A Winter Wonderland and Grand Central. Her forthcoming novel, Sold on a Monday, will be released September 2018. A frequent guest speaker and workshop presenter, she holds a BS in international marketing from Pepperdine. She lives with her husband and two sons in Oregon.

Visit her online at kristinamcmorris.com and on Twitter @KrisMcMorris.

We are happy to share that Charles Belfoure is on tour for The Fallen Architect​! Read below for all the details.

Charles Belfoure is the nationally bestselling author of The Paris Architect.  An architect by profession, he graduated from the Pratt Institute and Columbia University, and he taught at Pratt as well as Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. His area of specialty is historic preservation, and he has published several architectural histories, one of which won a Graham Foundation national grant for architectural research. He has been a freelance writer for The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times. He lives in Maryland. For more information, visit www.charlesbelfoure.com.

We are happy to share that Kate Moore is on tour again for her New York Times bestseller, The Radium Girls. Read below for all the details. 

Kate Moore is the award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Radium Girls. A British writer based in London, she has published numerous Sunday Times bestsellers, writing across various genres including history, biography, true crime, gift and humour. She began her career in publishing after graduating from the University of Warwick and worked as an in-house editor at various publishing houses for over a decade, most recently as an editorial director of Penguin Random House, and now works full-time as an author, ghostwriter and book editor. She has written more than 15 books and her work has been translated into more than 12 languages.

We are excited to share that Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, authors of Illegal, will be on tour this September.

From September 10—14, illustrator Giovanni Rigano will be joining the tour. Read below for more about the tour, the book, and the authors and illustrator.

Click the links below for more information about each event:

Decatur Book Festival:  Exploring the Plight of Undocumented Immigrants in Graphic Lit (Decatur, GA)

​Brazos Bookstore (Houston, TX)

Takoma Park Library:  Politics and Prose (Washington, DC)

Left Bank Books at the St. Louis Public Library Schlafly Branch (St. Louis, MO)

Boswell Bookstore (Milwaukee, WI)

Anderson's Bookshop (Naperville, IL)

Technology: How Kids Are Reading

​Kleeman kicked off the panel with trend information from quarterly research among 1000 families in the UK and the US on the reading habits and preferences of children. His results show that 70% of children prefer to read printed books over digital, and that when children are sharing their favorite books with friends the easiest way to do that is with a printed book.

Kleeman identified five major trends they are seeing:

1.      Smartphone + tablet + TV = foundation of kid’s technology
2.      YouTube is a kid’s Google
3.      Connected worlds – examples include Google Cardboard, Magic Leap and virtual reality
4.      Personalization
5.      Gen Z communicates in emojis

Bird shared that they have seen a big increase in people obtaining library cards and many of those people are joining the library in order to have access to ebooks, but ebook sales on picture books are flat to down. Medlar pointed out that children’s behavior patterns are often picked up from their parents, so when they see a parent constantly on their phone texting or playing games, they want to do the same. There is a book out there for every person, but the reader has to find it, which is what librarians help facilitate.

Picture Books

For decades picture books have been a very backlist-driven business. Yearly sales have historically been roughly 75 – 80% backlist and 20 – 25% frontlist, but in recent years there has been a big shift in people purchasing new, frontlist titles. Bird felt that new printing technology has allowed for brighter, more colorful books. Geck pointed out that there has also been a tremendous shift in the way the art for picture books is put together. Most artists now work with some sort of digital art, as opposed to sticking solely with more traditional techniques like watercolor and gouache, which also allows for brighter colors and a wider variety of styles.

Middle Grade

​Medlar pointed out three trends that he sees represented by the 2016 Newbery Medalists. First, Last Stop on Market Street was an example of a picture book tackling a deeper and more complex issue. This is something that more picture books are taking on. Second, Roller Girl is a graphic novel, an area where demand continues to increase. And third, The War That Saved My Life is very much in the category of classic literature that has always had strong readership.

​Thomas is also seeing a lot of stand-alone mystery titles that are expanded into series when the initial book is successful in stores.

#weneeddiversebooks

Diversity of reading materials and characters continues to be a trend. Thomas said there has been a significant increase in the number of teachers and librarians shopping in the store looking for books that feature diversity. Bird also noted that there has been growth in nonfiction featuring obscure and unknown stories, far more than what has traditionally been published in the past.

Thomas would love to see more authors who are Muslim or biracial writing about biracial children and Muslim children, and Bird would like to see more international books translated to English.

Social Media

When it comes to social media, Medlar noted that the influence really depends on “the height of the patron.” YouTube is most effective for the youngest readers, Snapchat is where many school-aged children are, and Pinterest is a great platform for reaching adults. Geck told how he saw this play out for the picture book The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes. [cover image to be included] Published in the fall of 2011, sales increased dramatically over the summer of 2012 when parents and educators began recommending it on Pinterest for children feeling pressured to succeed in school. The book has enjoyed a similar sales bump every summer. Thomas said that many authors have great success with engagement when posting on Instagram.

These five major trends give both booksellers and publishers some insight not only into what kind of books young readers will be looking for, but also the ways that those readers are discovering, sharing and learning.

Panelists Becky Anderson (Anderson’s Bookshop), Cynthia Compton (4 Kids Books and Toys), Meghan Dietsche Goel (BookPeople), and Valerie Koehler (Blue Willow Bookshop) have been running children’s events for years and shared the benefit of their knowledge with the bookseller audience:

• The stores that have many successful events today started out with no success stories and had to build up their event program. It can take years, but you have to keep doing the work.
• Local connections are key with PTA and PTO organizations, service groups, mom’s groups, or whatever is in your community. The key is to connect with these organizations and partner with them to create all types of successful events.
• Working with local authors is crucial. This can be done through launch parties, school events, and community outreach and can grow to a national presence for the author. The local indie bookseller can then provide books for those events.
• All bookstores start from a place of fear that they will do everything right for an event but no one will show up. Everyone has had this experience--you just have to keep moving forward.

Ultimately, there are no silver bullets to creating a great event, but lots of local connections really help. Events are a lot of work, but as you continue to create amazing experiences for your customers, you will see your reputation, your knowledge, and the success of your events continue to grow.
 
​Publishers Weekly also did a great writeup of the panel, which you can check out here.

The romance community is often stigmatized, and with the RT Booklovers Convention in Las Vegas last week, we took the opportunity to launch the #ireadromance social media campaign, which highlights all of the wonderful reasons why people read romance. A Twitter follower of ours may have said it best: ​

The conference is organized by RT Book Reviews and this year more than 2,500 attendees—composed of readers, bloggers, librarians, booksellers, and published/aspiring romance, YA, and fiction authors—gathered at the Rio All-Suite Las Vegas Hotel & Casino to celebrate all things romance!

We armed our authors with dry-erase boards and #ireadromance buttons and asked them to connect with readers and fellow authors. We wanted them to ask attendees to share just one of the reasons why they love reading romance. What we received was a wonderful mix of powerful pictures that showcase all of the diverse reasons why people love to read romance novels.

​Enjoy these photos, check out more on Twitter @SourcebooksCasa, and tell us why you read romance on social media by using the hashtag #ireadromance. 

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of joining a group of American book professionals (booksellers, publishers, distributors) visiting the Havana Book Fair in Cuba as part of the first US Publishing Mission (created by PublishersWeekly, the Combined Book Exhibit and PubMatch).
 
​The Havana Book Fair is a giant open-air book festival that takes place annually in the Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabana. There is music everywhere! Publishers exhibit in old prison cells (now turned into booths); authors launch new books and give talks to crowds of readers. It is a once-a-year opportunity to see the entire publishing market of Cuba in one place.

​"Many families only buy books once a year," says Zuleica Romay Guerra, President of the Book Institute of the Cuban Ministry of Culture. "You see families saving for months to go to the book fair and buy as many books as they can." (from Calvin Reid’s During Panels, Realities of Cuban Publishing Market Laid Bare)

The Cuban book business, being largely run and subsidized by the government, is extremely different from our own industry. A few examples (at least as I understood them):
​

•       The whole business is run through government subsidies
•       Every year, each publisher gives the government the publishing plan
•       The government pays for printing and runs the printing presses
•       The government pays the royalties to the authors, the government pays the employees
•       Distribution is based on population, so each region obtains their population ratio of the distribution of a new title
•       Books are typically only printed in paperback
•       A book typically costs less than a dollar

Some numbers as supplied by the Instituto Cubano del Libro:

•       11.3 million people in Cuba
•       313 bookstores (mostly used)
•       300 public libraries
•       170 publishers

 
This is an industry undergoing major change right now, and they recognize that it will likely take a generation to turn over to a different business model, but they are excited about the future.
“I know you will take this work seriously. And I can promise you that we will also be serious about it.”
— Zuleica Romay Guerra, Book Institute of Cuba

One of the challenges in Cuba is the availability and the cost of books. Fuentes says that while about 70% of Cubans are used to reading digitally, there is a shortage of digital reading devices available in Cuba. As their connectivity improves in the coming months and years, it will mean greater access to ebooks and digital reading.

"We have started but not as fast as our readers. Readers are actually ahead of us. It is one of our challenges."
-- Zuleica Romay Guerra, Book Institute of Cuba

As part of the final panel of the conference, we talked about what the digital transformation has looked like in the U.S. and what that has meant for our industry. In my presentation at the book fair, I highlighted that what is particularly relevant for the Cuban industry right now are what I called the 5 major outcomes of ebooks:

1.     The Self-Publishing Boom
2.     Lots more content = the challenge of discovery
3.     Development of mobile
4.     The global opportunity
5.     The development of new business models

 
One of the things I highlighted in my talk (as I have in other talks elsewhere) was the persistence and importance of print. As we know, in the US, we are part of an additive transformation, with ebooks and physical books co-existing in the ecosystem rather than ebooks replacing physical books. We also know that different categories of books behave differently with respect to ebooks. And that in our market, the ebooks revolution was driven by women who are also the key purchasers of books in Cuba. I covered a lot of these points as part of the final panel of the conference. 

I’ve posted the full presentation to Slideshare.
 
For more about this Cuban book journey, please see:
​

• The Publishers Weekly articles, which sum up various parts of the journey
• People en Español's editor in chief, Armando Correa, shares his feelings on his first journey back to his native country in 17 years
• The Publishing Perspectives article on the Cuban publishing mission as a whole
  

This morning President Obama is in Cuba. Over the weekend The New York Times had a fascinating photo-essay which may give you a sense of Cuba today.

​Publishers Weekly and many in the book publishing industry (including Sourcebooks) have urged an end to the Cuban book embargo. You can read about that in the Publishing Perspectives article on the background of the petition, and the content of the petition itself which was started by Publishers Weekly.

I was surprised by how much Cuba touched me—the people, the culture, the sense of change (both the excitement and the fear). I’ll leave you with my favorite picture of Cuba, which I took on the very first day.

Gracias!

Dominique

​P.S. A huge thank you to Cevin, Jon, Janet, and the many new friends we made in Cuba!

Anderson’s will receive a $3,000 grant and Page and Palette and Brilliant Books will receive a $637 grant each (the population of Broken Wheel, IA).

Publisher’s Weekly announced the winners this morning, including Anderson’s plans for the grant! And Shelf Awareness (Anderson’s Picked as Readers Favorite Bookstore) told us about the matching grant that Brilliant Books is creating for seven Michigan school libraries – fantastic!

​Bookstores make such a difference in our lives and we couldn’t be happier to present grants to all three stores. Thank you so much to everyone who voted, the support and love for your bookstores is heartwarming. We think that Sara and all of Broken Wheel, IA would approve.