Some used items move fairly quickly and other items move very slowly. We’re going to have a mini-sale to try to move a few items that are taking up too much space and moving too slowly. All used magazines will be half the normal price; all older (but not yet used) magazines currently marked 40% off will instead be 70% off; all used audio books on cassette will be $5.00 each. The sale will run from Friday, May 28 through Sunday, June 6, and applies to in-store sales only, not to mail orders. At Uncle Hugo’s, the sale includes digest magazines (Amazing, Analog, F&SF, Galaxy, etc.), Cinefantastique, Doctor Who magazines, gaming magazines, Heavy Metal, Locus, Omni, Science Fiction Chronicle, Science Fiction Review, Starlog, various Star Trek and Star Wars magazines, Twilight Zone, etc. Uncle Edgar’s only has a few digest magazines (Alfred Hitchcock, Ellery Queen, etc.), but has lots of older issues of Armchair Detective, Drood Review, and Mystery Scene. If you don’t know where to find something, just ask.
Award News
The nominees for the Hugo Award for Best Novel are Boneshaker by Cherie Priest ($15.99), The City & the City by China Mieville ($15.00 trade pb), Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd Century America by Robert Charles Wilson ($25.95, $8.99 pb due early June), Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente ($14.00), WWW: Wake by Robert J. Sawyer ($7.99), and The Windup Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi ($24.95 hc or $14.95 trade pb).
The Locus Award finalists for Best Science Fiction Novel are The Empress of Mars by Kage Baker ($15.99), Steal Across the Sky by Nancy Kress ($7.99), Boneshaker by Cherie Priest ($15.99), Galileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson ($26.00), and Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd Century America by Robert Charles Wilson ($25.95, $8.99 pb due early June).
The Locus Award finalists for Best Fantasy Novel are The City & the City by China Mieville ($15.00 trade pb), Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett ($25.99), Drood by Dan Simmons ($15.99), Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente ($14.00), and Finch by Jeff VanderMeer ($14.95).
The Locus Award finalists for Best First Novel are The Windup Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi ($24.95 hc or $14.95 trade pb), The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry ($15.00), Soulless by Gail Carriger ($7.99), Lamentation by Ken Scholes ($7.99), and Norse Code by Greg van Eekhout ($7.99).
The British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel went to The City & the City by China Mieville ($15.00 trade pb).
The Philip K. Dick Award for best paperback original science fiction novel went to Bitter Angels by C. J. Anderson (aka Sarah Zettel, $7.99), with a special citation to Cyberabad Days by Ian McDonald ($15.98).
The nominees for the Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Award (for best sf/fantasy/horror first novel) are The Windup Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi ($24.95 hc or $14.95 trade pb), Dying Bites by D. D. Barant ($6.99), Soulless by Gail Carriger ($7.99), and Johannes Cabal, the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard ($25.00, $15.00 trade pb due in June.)
The finalists for the Prometheus Award, presented by the Libertarian Futurist Society, are Hidden Empire by Orson Scott Card ($24.99), Makers by Cory Doctorow ($24.99), The Unincorporated Man by Dani & Eytan Kollin ($15.99), Liberating Atlantis by Harry Turtledove ($25.95) and The United States of Atlantis by Harry Turtledove ($7.99).
The winners of the Edgar Awards are The Last Child by John Hart ($24.95 signed hc or $14.99 trade pb) for Best Novel; In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff ($24.95 hc or $14.99 trade pb) for Best First Novel by an American Author; Body Blows by Marc Strange ($11.99) for Best Paperback Original; The Lineup: The World’s Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives edited by Otto Penzler ($25.99) for Best Critical/Biographical.
The Dilys Award, presented by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, went to The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley ($15.00).
The Lefty Award for most humorous mystery went to Getting Old is a Disaster by Rita Lakin ($6.99).
The Bruce Alexander Memorial Mystery Award (historical mystery set before 1950) went to A Trace of Smoke by Rebecca Cantrell ($24.95).
The Panik Award for best Los Angeles noir book went to Death Was in the Picture by Linda Richards ($24.95).
The Agatha Award winner for Best Novel is A Brutal Telling by Louise Penny ($24.99) and the other nominees are Swan for the Money by Donna Andrews ($24.99. $7.99 pb due early August), Bookplate Special by Lorna Barrett ($7.99), Royal Flush by Rhys Bowen ($24.95), and Air Time by Hank Ryan Phillippi ($7.99).
The winner for Best First Novel is The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley ($15.00), and the other nominees are For Better For Murder by Lisa Bork ($14.95),Posed for Murder by Meredith Cole ($24.95), The Cold Light of Mourning by Elizabeth Duncan ($24.95, $7.99 pb due early July), and In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff ($24.95 hc or $14.99 trade pb).
The Thriller Award nominees for Best Hard Cover Novel are Vanished by Joseph Finder ($25.99, $9.99 pb due early August), Long Lost by Harlan Coben ($9.99), Fear the Worst by Linwood Barclay ($7.99), The Neighbor by Lisa Gardner ($25.00, $7.99 pb due early July), and The Renegades by T. Jefferson Parker ($26.95 signed hc or $9.99 pb).
The nominees for Best Paperback Original are Shadow Season by Tom Piccirilli ($7.99), Urge to Kill by John Lutz ($6.99), Vengeance Road by Rick Mofina ($7.99), The Coldest Mile by Tom Piccirilli ($7.99), and No Mercy by John Gilstrap ($6.99).
The nominees for Best First Novel are Fragment by Warren Fahy ($25.00, $7.99 pb due early July), Dead Men’s Dust by Matt Hilton ($7.99), Collision of Evil by John J. Le Beau ($25.95), Dracula: The Un-Dead by Dacre Stoker & Ian Holt ($26.95), and Running From the Devil by Jamie Freveletti ($24.99, $7.99 pb due early June).
The Minnesota Book Award in the genre fiction category went to Jelly’s Gold by David Housewright ($24.95 signed hc).
How’s Business?
by Don Blyly
The number of titles published in the U.S. topped 1 million titles for the first time in 2009. Last year the number of book titles published by “traditional” publishers went down by less than half of a percent, while the number of “self-published” books exploded. Publishers Weekly reports that 764,446 self-published titles were produced last year. This lead one Colorado independent bookstore to start charging authors to take their self-published books on consignment. For a $25 fee, the store will accept 5 copies on consignment; for $75, the store will feature the book for at least 2 weeks in the “Recommended” section; for $125, they will also list it in their newsletter, feature it on the Local Favorites page on the store website, and allow customers to order the book online; and for $255 the store will throw in an in-store reading and signing event. The store thought this would decrease the number of self-published authors wanting the store to take their books, but instead it increased the number of authors and most of the authors went for the more expensive options. Many other independent bookstore criticized them for selling spots in the “Recommended” section, since that’s the kind of thing the chains normally do but independents don’t.
The United Kingdom lost 104 independent bookstores in 2009, for an average of 2 stores per week going out of business. Plus, the entire Borders chain went out of business in the U.K. I read a blog from a manager of a large London independent that was going out of business, criticizing (among others) the “idiot publishers” who keep giving bigger discounts to discounters, so that they can undercut the prices of traditional booksellers on bestsellers. He wondered what the publishers are going to do when the only outlets they have left are discounters who will only handle bestsellers. How many editors and authors will the industry support if the discounters drive out of business everybody who is willing to display more than 30 titles at a time?
Things are not quite so grim in the U.S. yet, but I read one report that independent bookstores now account for only 5% of all book sales, less than the 11% accounted for by book clubs, and 8% accounted for by mass merchandisers. But that figure for book club sales sounds too high to me, and a few weeks later I read another report that independent bookstore account for between 9% and 10% of all book sales.
Road construction has made it a challenge to drive to the Uncles every summer since 2004. This year, there is already road construction on Chicago Avenue to our north, from Franklin Avenue into downtown, which is a complete tear-out of the street, the curbs, the sidewalks, replace the sewers, etc., so it will last into the fall. At some point this summer, there will a grind-down and resurface project on Chicago Avenue to our south, from 31st to 38th. This will probably only last a couple of weeks, but we’re not sure when it will start.
Many books were cut from the newsletter, mainly paranormal romances & true crime, but are on the website.
