One of our favourite moments at BEC was our visit from Lou Morin, General Manager at NeWest Press. After NeWest Press' Icefields made the list of Canada Reads 2008 finalists, the staff turned to the BNC Research Literary Awards to find out what to expect. Lou told us:

"[W]e poured over BNC Research Reports recounting the impact of literary prizes in Canada...as a result, we were able to navigate sales spikes with ease and with enough copies on warehouse and bookseller’s shelves. As it turns out, sales of Icefields closely paralleled the charted “blips” of previous Canada Reads contenders."

Lou's kind words have inspired us! Send media@booknetcanada.ca a note about how any of BNC's products or services have made your life easier or helped you navigate through a tricky situation and you could win one of three copies of The Canadian Book Market 2007!

The deadline to be eligible for the prizes is Friday, July 25th, 2008. All entries will be placed in a draw and three winners will be selected randomly. Click here to view the full contest rules and regulations. Your submission will be displayed on the BNC Blog, website and could be included in our Department of Canadian Heritage reports.

Send us your submission at media@booknetcanada.cabefore July 25th...

Read about the NeWest story here.

BookNet Canada is pleased to announce that four new retailers have recently become BNC SalesData contributors. Please join us in welcoming:

• Page and Turners - Barrie, ON


• The Miller's Tale - Almonte, ON


• Family Christian Bookstore - Burlington, ON


• Monkeyshines Children's Bookstore - Calgary, AB

So far this year, ten (!) new bookstores have started to contribute weekly sales information to BNC SalesData. It's a pleasure for us to continue to expand our retail panel.

Summer is officially here. It's a time for sand, surf, drinks with those little umbrellas and, of course, data goodness. What's coming up for BookNet this summer? We're so glad you asked!

• PubFight Titles 2008: The lists are ready and they'll be released to players across the land very, very soon. Stay tuned to the BNC Blog for updates on the titles that are getting big bids and big buzz as well as the thrills, chills and spills of the 2008 auctions.
  
• BNC Prospector Tutorial: It's not just PubFight that get the tutorial treatment. Coming soon, BNC Prospector gets its very own tutorial so independent retailers can be sure they are getting the most out of the module.
• BNC Research: Online Marketing for Books: Our next research study will be coming out later in the summer. This extensive report on opportunities for online marketing is one you won't want to miss (you might even be taking it to the beach with you - hey, we like research that much!).

Please contact us at media@booknetcanada.ca for more information.

Bibliographic Committee
July 3, 2008
1 - 4 PM

BNC Returns Study 2008
Summer 2008

eBook sales statistics for April 2008 have been released from the Association of American Publishers (AAP) who collects these statistics in conjunction with the IDPF.

Trade eBook sales were $3,400,000 for April 2008, a 19.9% increase over April 2007.

The statistics, historical data and information about the numbers can be viewed at:

http://www.idpf.org/doc_library/industrystats.htm

Champions of free content business models (not to be confused with Freedom Fighters or the Rebel Alliance) like Chris Anderson and Cory Doctorow will be thrilled with the Random House case study coming out at the fifth annual Making Information Pay conference hosted by the Book Industry Study Group.

Here's the summary - the full version comes out on May 9th, 2008 at MiP in New York City:

'[Senior Vice-President & Publisher, Spiegel & Grau] Julie Grau is very close to her bestselling author Suze Orman...Orman's book Women and Money enjoyed a very successful run, thanks, in large part, to the support it received on The Oprah Winfrey Show. So when Orman was scheduled to appear on Oprah last February, nearly a year after that book came out, she wanted to give back to the show and its viewers. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, Orman came up with a suggestion: Give away digital copies of the entire book in English and Spanish.

Grau steeled herself for corporate pushback but was pleasantly surprised. Her key colleagues were instantly supportive. And the experiment with this giveaway was an enormous success, measured in the most relevant way; one year after publication, Women and Money shot back up onto the New York Times bestseller list and, as of this writing in early April, it has remained there ever since.'

Read the full BNC blog post here...