A heart-warming love letter to books and bookshops, by an amenable fellow turned antisocial old misanthrope“I was in here two years ago and you had a book by Roger Penrose. Do you know what happened to it?” Shaun Bythell – owner of the Book Shop in Wigtown, Galloway – has 100,000 books in stock, sells 20,000 a year, and has handled nearly 1m second-hand books since he bought the shop in 2001. Unsurprisingly, the Roger Penrose volume had not stuck in his mind.Before he entered the book trade at the tender age of 31, he was “amenable and friendly”. Now, after many years of fielding bizarre questions, constant haggling over prices (why is it “acceptable to try to screw the profit out of struggling small businesses” but not supermarkets?), and struggling to survive despite Amazon’s “icy grip” on bookselling, he has been forced to embrace the stereotype of the “impatient, intolerant, antisocial proprietor”. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2019-08-24 10:58:38 UTC ]
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Word-of-mouth has long been a driver of small business success (and failure), and these days it takes the form of online customer reviews. But the relative anonymity provided by the Web has added a new wrinkle: review fraud. In fact, fake reviews have been a real problem on Yelp. Last fall the... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2013-09-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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It may be astonishing that a print publication devoted to book reviews still exists, but it does — and Kirkus Reviews wants to give you a free literary trip to NYC. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-09-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#book reviews
Sherman Alexie is encouraging authors to spend a day working in a bookstore handselling their own books, but some authors already feel overstretched. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-09-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#indie booksellers
#sherman alexie
#day working
The ABA's CEO sent an open letter to independent booksellers encouraging them to publicize Amazon as a company "detrimental" to the book business and buyers. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-08-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#american booksellers
#fight amazon
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Benchmarks are the best way to gauge a notebook’s prowess with applications such as office suites, photo and video editors, video players, games, and the like. Aesthetics are another important consideration, because you'll likely be staring at the thing for the next several years. By those... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2013-08-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#fair share
Two HarperCollins titles top the Booksellers Association Christmas picks, chosen by independent... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-08-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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As a book critic Jane Ciabattari had been writing and reading online for years. As an author, she was more accustomed to print. So publishing her first ebook was a trial by fire. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-08-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#reading online
President Obama appeared as scheduled at a Chattanooga, Tenn., Amazon warehouse and praised the business, causing even more independent booksellers to express their displeasure with his endorsement. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-08-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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President Obama has angered the American Booksellers Assn. with a planned appearance Tuesday at an Amazon warehouse.President Obama, who faithfully shops at independent bookstores when given the chance, has angered the American Booksellers Assn. with a planned appearance Tuesday at an Amazon... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-07-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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President Obama will highlight Amazon as 'a perfect example of the company that is investing in American workers and creating good, high-wage jobs,' according to the White House. Independent booksellers aren't pleased. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-07-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Bookseller is to publish a monthly ebook ranking with sales figures supplied by all the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-07-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Booksellers say they are unable to get print stock of Robert Galbraith/J K Rowling's The... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-07-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Bookseller's fiction previewer Cathy Rentzenbrink writes... Having just finished The... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-07-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Britain’s economic “recovery,” which the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition that has run the country since May 2010 once promised would be well in hand by now, has receded beyond the horizon. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-07-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#economic recovery
Library campaigners are braced for a further round of cuts as the Government unveils the latest... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-06-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#library closures
#library campaigners
This portable app's website says "Bright Snippet Sire," but everybody calls this open-source favorite Briss for…er…short. Briss crops a section of a PDF file and creates another PDF file of the cropped area. You can crop unwanted areas from PDFs with Briss. It's free, open-source, and portable,... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2013-06-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#cropped area
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Waterstones managing director James Daunt has come out against the removal of the recommended... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-06-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Daily Mail's consultant literary editor Jane Mays has predicted that reviewing... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-06-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#daily mail
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Caffeine Nights Publishing has acquired more than 30 titles in the backlist of horror writer... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-06-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#horror writer
While a high-calibre jury of writers and critics ponders the nominees for this year's Children's Book Awards, we have asked the true experts. Continue reading at Stuff
[ Stuff | 2013-06-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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