FeedPosted Oct 30th 2009 1:00PM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Competitive strategy, Wal-Mart (WMT), Amazon.com (AMZN), Target Corp. (TGT), Books
Small book retailers were buying in bulk from major online booksellers because they could really save some money. One was buying up to 70 copies of a particular title -- it was $5 less a pop from the big guys than it would have been from the publisher. Finally, however, the big retailers have become wise to the trend and taken action, according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required).
Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Target (NYSE: TGT) have decided to cap the number of books customers can buy online, a measure intended to prevent smaller competitors from treating them as partners. Walmart is limiting customers to two copies of a particular book, with Amazon placing the border at three and Target at five.
Continue reading Major booksellers didn't realize they were suppliers to rivals
Posted Mar 19th 2009 3:00PM by Zac Bissonnette (RSS feed)
Filed under: Books, Politics

We've all been wondering what President Bush would do after leaving office with the lowest approval ratings in history and now we have our answer: He's writing a book.
"I want people to understand the environment in which I was making decisions. I want people to get a sense of how decisions were made and I want people to understand the options that were placed before me," he told the Associated Press.
Continue reading Will you be buying George W. Bush's book?
Posted Mar 3rd 2009 5:00PM by Zac Bissonnette (RSS feed)
Filed under: Scandals, Books, Politics

Disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has
signed a six figure contract with Phoenix Books to write a book exploring "the dark side of politics that he witnessed in both the state and national level."
If by witnessed, you mean created, then yeah. Illinois state representative Jack Franks moved to preempt Blagojevich's effort cash in on his infamy by introducing a bill that would require politicians convicted of corruption charges to turn over the proceeds from any related book or movie deals to the state.
Continue reading Blagojevich signs a book deal
Posted Feb 23rd 2009 3:15PM by Zac Bissonnette (RSS feed)
Filed under: Walgreen Co (WAG), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), Altria Group (MO), Kroger Co (KR), Kimberly-Clark (KMB), Nucor Corp (NUE), Books, Wells Fargo (WFC)

Back in 2001, Jim Collins had a monster of a business bestseller with his book
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap. . . and Others Don't. In it, Collins explored companies that have become hugely successful and found that success generally comes as a result of focusing resources on things that you're good at instead of mindlessly diversifying.
Arkansas Business writer Jeff Hankins read the book again to see how the companies profiled have weathered the downturn. The companies profiled were
Abbot Laboratories (NYSE:
ABT),
Kroger (NYSE:
KR),
Kimberly-Clark (NYSE:
KMB),
Walgreens (NYSE:
WAG),
Altria (NYSE:
MO),
Nucor (NYSE:
NUE),
Pitney Bowes (NYSE:
PBI),
Wells Fargo (NYSE:
WFC) and tragically, Fannie Mae and Circuit City. Gilette was eliminated from contention because of a merger.
Continue reading From Good to Great to Bankruptcy: Jim Collins' book revisited
Posted Feb 4th 2009 12:45PM by Zac Bissonnette (RSS feed)
Filed under: Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Books

The honeymoon between Warren Buffett and the biographer he allowed access to his personal records has ended. For more than a decade, each
Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:
BRK.A) annual meeting has included a question and answer session between Alice Schroeder and the Oracle of Omaha.
The event -- held as a dinner at a local country club has been canceled, "apparently because of his displeasure with some aspects of Ms. Schroeder's 960-page encyclopedic best seller about his life,"
according to
The New York Times.
Buffett and Schroeder deny any particular rift and say that they still do communicate, though with less frequency because the work on the book is finished.
If Buffett is concerned about the public knowing intimate details of his life, he shouldn't be. The book has sold a lot of copies but at 976 pages, it's doubtful that the majority of buyers ever
actually read it.
Posted Jan 23rd 2009 5:30PM by Zac Bissonnette (RSS feed)
Filed under: Scandals, Business of sports, Books
Being the untalented brother of one of the greatest sluggers of all-time can't be easy. How is Jay McGwire dealing with it? By trying to sell publishers a on a book called "The McGwire Family Secret: The Truth about Steroids, a slugger and Ultimate Redemption."
If Jay is as bad at writing books as he is at coming up with titles, this one could rival Jose Canseco's
Juiced as one of the worst books of all-time. Jay claims that his brother Mark started using steroids in 1994, and that he personally injected him.
"Mark is a man I think most would like to forgive because his reason wasn't nefarious -- it was for survival," the proposal says,
according to Deadspin. "My bringing the truth to surface about Mark is out of love. I want Mark to live in truth to see the light, to come to repentance so he can live in freedom -- which is the only way to live."
Continue reading Mark McGwire's ne'er-do-well bro' says he shot him up
Posted Jan 10th 2009 4:40PM by Zac Bissonnette (RSS feed)
Filed under: Books
The first authorized sequel to A.A. Milne's beloved Winnie the Pooh series will make its debut this year. David Benedictus's "Return to the Hundred Acre Wood" will be in stores on October 5. Dutton Children's Books is the publisher, and executive Don Weisberg says the book will be a "huge seller for a long, long time."
To its credit, Milne's estate has carefully guarded the character -- they could have easily cashed in for millions years ago by authorizing sequel after sequel. That Mr. Benedictus was finally the one who convinced them would seem to suggest that the book will be quite good.
According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), "The troubled book industry, in need of titles that will pull readers into the stores, will get a much-needed jolt" from the title.
I somehow doubt that Winnie will be a big enough hit to provide much relief to booksellers. But he's a hard guy not to root for.
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