Local and Chain Bookstores Kick-off Holiday Shopping Season

               Both local and big-box booksellers kicked off their holiday season this Thanksgiving weekend, marked by Black Friday as well as Small Business Saturday.

                Barnes and Noble in Amherst, NY did a first, as many chain stores did, and opened at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, rather than wait until the next morning to start. Bookseller Melissa Genier said that though it was completely dead that night, as soon as the store opened the next morning it was ridiculously busy, all day.

“Pretty much everyone worked that time from 8 o’clock Thursday to Friday at some point,” Genier said.

                “Anything really movie-based like the Hunger Games or the new Lincoln movie sold real well. Anything Lincoln was popular. Teen, any teen book series is always popular and our Nooks, we sold like a billion,” said Genier on what topped the store’s sales this weekend.

                Movie based items are always a popular seller, especially around Christmas. Films such as “Lincoln” help create buzz around a new topic. Films based off popular teen books, such as Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” trilogy, act as gateway to for movie fans to become book fans.

                On the other side of town, “Small Business Saturday” went well in the Elmwood Village of Buffalo. Talking Leaves...Books on Elmwood had extra staffing on hand to help with the rush and offered special holiday gift wrap.

                “There’s usually only two of us but there were more people on this weekend. We put on extra help because we knew it would be busy,” said bookseller Doug Zerby.

                The store has also ordered a stock of E-Readers to sell soon, said Zerby. Including Talking Leaves…Books in competition with one of the season’s hottest gift items, and not just for literature junkies, but for casual readers as well.

             The Elmwood Village Association promoted the national day, created and sponsored by American Express, leading up to the weekend. The association also rewarded customers, including those at Talking Leaves…Books, who bought locally with “I Shop Local” buttons.

   “We had those buttons to hand out and those came from them [The Elmwood Village Association] said bookseller, Brittany Moroz, who opened the store on Small Business Saturday along with Zerby. 

The Elmwood Village Association announced that most of its stores have extended, seasonal hours now, and will remain open until 9 p.m.

National Novel Writing Month Challenges Thousands

Across the nation both amateur and professional writers are celebrating annual Nation Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo, by challenging themselves to write a novel by the end of the month of November.

                The mission statement of the non-profit organization is to help encourage ordinary people who have always wanted to write novels. NaNoWriMo values enthusiasm and perseverance over quality, editing and craft, allowing even the most basic writers, including high school students, to participate.

                The goal of the project is for writers to spend from Nov. 1 to midnight on Nov. 30 writing a 50, 000 word novel, which equates to about 175 pages. Former Buffalo State student Vera Snowman has been an off and on participant in the challenge since her time in high school.

“I remember in high school I kept it up for the entire year, and actually did about 50,000 words, just well outside the month-long time limit. Last year I got about 10, 000 words done before I lost my netbook,” said Snowman.

                The NaNoWriMo website offers lots of virtual help to its authors. There is a word count log to track progress, interactivity for pep talks and support, and ways to meet with fellow writers both online and in the real world.

Since its 1999 founding by Chris Baty and 20 others, the challenge has seen over 100 of its manuscripts published and as of this article’s publication the total word count for this year’s program is 1,521,860,915.

In 2010 over 200, 000 people participated in the challenge and more than 35, 000 of them finished by their deadline.

GoodReads.com Connects Readers and Authors

Authors, readers and publishers are taking notice that use of Goodreads.com, a social networking site for literature lovers, has exploded to 12 million registered users and are using it to their advantage.

                University at Buffalo junior, Kaitlyn Richter, joined Goodreads.com in September of 2011, when it’s application on the social media giant Facebook.com got her attention.

“You can keep track of all the books you’ve read. And it’s a good way to find new books and make recommendations or share your thoughts on books,” said Richter, a psychology major.

Goodreads.com, founded in January of 2007 by Otis Y. Chandler, has faced enormous expansion since its beginning. They now employ 30 employees and 6 books are added to its “bookshelves” per second. “Bookshelves,” are categories users can make to keep their reviews organized; they range from Amber Hayward’s “Capital-L-literature,” “crafts-housewifery,” to just basic “to-read.”

Users can also join online book clubs, give books a rating out of five stars, select their favorite quotes and get book suggestions from friends. The entire thing is connectable through Facebook accounts, making it easy and accessible to register.

Kellie Talebkhah, senior at the University at Buffalo joined, GoodReads.com in Sep. 2011 and loves it.

“It’s a wonderful way to create a lineage of your books, the good and the bad. The social networking aspect of it keeps you accountable to finish books you’ve said you started,” Talebkhah said.

One of her biggest problems with reading is that she will start a book and just suddenly stop, never finishing it. The social aspect of the website “peer pressures” her into finishing whatever she is reading.

Authors are now taking control of their profiles on the website and using them for things like blogging, posting videos, and promoting events such as book signings or running contests.  Young adult writer Ned Vizzini is one of the most active authors on the site.

Vizzini utilizes many aspects of the Goodreads.com author program. He regularly updates his blog, posts videos, keeps his fans updated on what he’s reading and does book giveaways, featuring signed copies of his books or early releases of his latest novel, “The Other Normal.”

Goodreads.com frequently hosts live chats with authors. Lois Lowry, author of “The Giver,” Barbara Kingsolver, author of the critically acclaimed “The Poisonwood Bible,” and Philippa Gregory, author of dozens of bestselling historical fictions are some of the big time authors featured in the live chats.

Publishers are excited about the website because it’s audience is 100% book lovers and consumers. They use the website to give away free copies of upcoming releases and increase awareness and reviews for recent publications.

                “We work with publishers all day long. That’s our business model: helping publishers launch their titles on Goodreads,” said Otis Y. Chandler, founder and CEO of the company, in an interview with digitalbookworld.com.