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This holiday season, books are back

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The closing of Borders bookstores around the country may have proved a boon for other booksellers this holiday season, the New York Times reports.
Now that electronic readers like Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook have been on the market for a few years, long enough to become cheaper and more ubiquitous than ever, it’s no wonder that e-books have proliferated like mad.

Earlier this year, Amazon reported that its e-books for the Kindle were outselling regular books on its website, and Barnes & Noble shared the perhaps depressing news (for brick and mortar booksellers, anyway) that it sells three times as many e-books on BN.com as it does all categories of physical books combined.

And while the sinking of the bookseller chain Borders seemed like yet another signpost on the march toward the certain death of the actual, physical book, book retailers are actually singing a cautiously optimistic tune this holiday season, with pricey coffee table books and massive hardcover biographies flying off the shelves, according to a story in The New York Times.

Sales at Barnes & Noble were 10.9 percent higher during Thanksgiving weekend this year than they were during the same weekend last year, and the American Booksellers Association’s members experienced a 16 percent increase in sales during the week of Thanksgiving as compared with the same week last year, The Times reported on Tuesday.

“The initial weeks of Christmas shopping, a boom time for the book business, have yielded surprisingly strong sales for many bookstores, which report that they have been lifted by an unusually vibrant selection; customers who seem undeterred by pricier titles; and new business from people who used to shop at Borders, the chain that went out of business this year,” The Times said.

The Times spoke with a number of small book retailers across the nation, many of which reported that sales of print books were way up this holiday season in comparison with last year. The owner of the Next Chapter Bookshop in Mequon, Wis., told The Times that sales at her shop were 15 poercent higher this year, possibly because of the closing of a nearby Borders store, and that her store “was just going gangbusters and having a great time.” (She did also add that she was worried about sales in 2012, since “everybody’s going to open their electronic device for Christmas.”)

The story reported that non-fiction books have been very popular this holiday season, from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs to books written by media personalities like Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck.

And large, glossy coffee table books are also selling well, according to the owner of King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, who told The Times that her store was running through “$50 and $75 books that we’re selling hand over fist.”

Cathy Langer, the owner of Tattered Cover bookstores in Denver, told The Times that she thought customers were less reluctant to buy pricier, fancier books this year. “Maybe people are just tired of being afraid to spend money,” she said.

By Marisa Taylor  ; sursa: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/13/9416022-this-holiday-season-books-are-back
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