Riot New Media

Book Buyers Begin Receiving Price-Fixing Settlement Credits

Credits from the settlement of Apple’s ebook price-fixing lawsuit started hitting reader accounts this week. Amazon was the first out of the gate. (I got $25.67.) Barnes & Noble and Kobo said that their customers’ credits should be coming soon. Basically, if you bought ebooks from any of the major U.S. retailers over the last few years, go check your accounts. You get a credit of $6.73 for every NYT bestseller and $1.57 for all other ebooks. I’m not sure why popular books are so disproportionately reimbursed, but that’s the deal they struck. You have a year to use them up, so get to it.

The Best-Selling Books from the First Half of 2016

Business Insider plumbed Amazon’s depths to find the 20 best-selling books of the first six months of 2016. As is often the case, seeing a list of the books that people are actually buying shows just how scattered (and backlist-heavy) the titles are. Business, cooking, coloring books, children’s: in general, not the books that get talked about in book circles, but the books that provide the money that makes the publishing world go round. Strangely, the best-selling book hasn’t even been released yet. Can you guess? (Check your answer here).

Barnes & Noble: Hanging in There, Just

The still champ of U.S. brick and mortar book sales released its 2015 financial results this week, which are interesting to book lovers for one reason: we want to know if B&N is going to make it. The long and short of it seems to be: probably? Nook continues to be a millstone around B&N’s neck, but the stores themselves are holding up OK. I can’t help but wonder if Amazon’s recent push to try their own physical bookstores in a few affluent suburbs that are B&N’s bread and butter isn’t the corporate version of a vulture circling a struggling wildebeest.

Thanks to Sober Stick Figure by Amber Tozer for sponsoring This Week in Books:

Sober Stick Figure is Amber Tozer’s unflinchingly honest account of her three-decade long romance with alcohol, the eventual end of her addiction, and how booze almost destroyed her – all told with the help of subversively child-like stick figures. Amber writes about (and illustrates) the crazy, harsh, sometimes laughably ridiculous truths regarding addiction, denial, and getting sober. Dubbed by The Chicago Tribune as “a powerful and often hilarious reminder that we’re at our best when we’re not afraid to be ourselves,” Sober Stick Figure is the story of a long road to recovery, at once sweet, tragic, funny, and ultimately inspiring.

Bookstore Sales Gains Outpacing Retail Sector

Like many others, I have been following the rebound in physical bookstore sales with surprise and delight. My optimism has been cautious as I have wondered if the gains could be mostly attributed to the general economic improvement over the last few years. But a new survey says that bookstore sales to this point in 2016 have outperformed the broader retail market. For the first four months of the year, bookstore sales are up 6.8%, significantly outperforming the 3.9% growth for retail in general.

We’re still left with the question of why. Are people really returning in a significant way to physical books? Are people rediscovering their love of physical bookstores? Are coloring books enough of a draw to get people in the door? I suppose the most reasonable response is probably “a little of each.”

A  Syrian Refugee Opens a Bookstore for Refugees

Samer al-Kadri opened the first Arabic language bookstore in the Turkish city of Istanbul with the express purpose of serving the more than 3 million Syrian refugees like him now living in Turkey. A heart-warming and inspiring story about books, community, and outreach.

Expressing an Interest in Reading Might Make You More Attractive in Online Dating

Data released last week from the online dating service MyBae suggests that including reading-related interests in your online dating profile might make you significantly more attractive to other users. MyBae said that 21% of their matches had reading-related interests in common, much higher than the average of 15% for other entertainment categories.

What’s more, users who include reading were also much less likely to engage in problematic usage of the site. And if you are a romance reader (and say so in your profile), you are more likely than other readers to get a match.

This Week in Books is sponsored by This Calls for a Drink by Diane McMartin, published by Workman Publishing Co., Inc.

This Calls for a Drink by Diane McMartin is an inspired drinking guide that matches wines and beers to the significant—and not so significant—events in life. Binge-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Try a Riesling, refreshing but with depth. Dumped a jerk? Celebrate with a sparkling rosé. Here are hundreds of unexpected recommendations delivered in a voice that is fresh, hip, full of attitude, and as solidly informative as it is entertaining. It’s everything you need to know to drink like an adult, even if you don’t always behave like one.