Publishing Insider

LOL

This report from our Pacific NW rep of a display at Elliott Bay Books: Books That Make You Laugh Out Loud - include our titles: ANANSI BOYS, LAMB, GOOD OMENS, FIELD GUIDE TO EVANGELICALS, THIEF OF TIME, MONSTROUS REGIMENT.

China doll

A display idea courtesy of Joe Drayback of Chester County Books outside Philly: "I just unpacked a lovely book from Regan Books this morning:  CHINA CHIC by Vivienne Tam.  Chinese style comes alive in this unique and colorful celebration of cultural synthesis, featuring vivid images from the cutting edge of the East-West exchange.  With Hu Jintao, the President of China, currently visiting the United States, we thought that it would be the perfect time to dedicate an endcap display to all things Chinese.  We will be featuring this book from HarperCollins along with other volumes focusing on Chinese travel, business, cooking, biographies, history, general fiction, mysteries, interior design, art, and so on. We may even create a mobile with some paper lanterns."

Hot books in hot hands

A buyer at Tower Books, Scott, has been felled by whatever spring bug is going around, and sent this email to one of our sales reps: "I just finished ASK THE DUST, a fantastic book to read when you’re running a fever. That got me thinking about a new category of recommended reading: best fever reads. What do you think? THE BIG BAMBOO by Tim Dorsey comes to mind. When I was in the store, my rec card for Tim Dorsey said 'his books are vulgar, disgusting, and socially irresponsible. I can’t recommend them highly enough.' That always sold the customer!" Anyway, this theme really might be fun for cold & flu season.”

Bookstore theme displays

Just like those theme sets radio stations used to play (sun! blue!), I love bookstore themed book displays, as you may remember from my previous foot fetish blog item. Micawber's in Princeton once had a window filled with books with all predominantly yellow covers. Watermark in Anacortes, WA had one with snow on all the book jackets. Boulder Books just put up a shelf of books with dates as the title: 1491, 1776, 1421, and so on. My all-time favorite was a table in Barbara's in Chicago of books by long-dead authors; the sign read "Read 'em before you meet 'em." I love this sort of thing! Please, be you bookseller or booklover, tell me your ideas for such book display themes.

Footloose

I’m compiling a list of books with bare feet or empty shoes on the front cover. So far I have:

Nick Hornby's latest; BALZAC & THE CHINESE SEAMTRESS; Dan Chaon's YOU REMIND ME OF ME, and Elizabeth McKracken's GIANT'S HOUSE. What else?