Interviewing an author is not as straight forward as you might think. Often they are coming in from out of town for 24 hours or less and have a fairly tight schedule while they are here.
Sometimes the authors have been affected by the congestion and general purpose ickiness that is Atlanta traffic.
Sometimes the schedule is plagued by the questionable info on the various mapping websites that often will lead them to some place other than our office.
And sometimes they arrive at the right place and the right time and for some unknown reason the recording equipment will decide not to work.
Alas – on the scheduled date of my interview with Jasper Fforde, it was the airline that got in the way. We were supposed to meet at noon that day. He was to come to straight to our offices after getting off a flight from Miami. But the plane broke. Okay – I’m sure it was more technical than that, and probably less dramatic, but you get the idea. Our poor author had to spend something like 4 hours on the tarmac while the plane fixers did their thing.
In our final installment on the outlook for 2010 and beyond, CEO David Murphy takes a look at the bigger picture. As we look forward to this new decade, we know that in order to be successful everything has to line up just so. In our earlier installments we took a look at the people and the foundation of our company. In today’s post David takes a look at the market:
The book industry is changing rapidly, from Kindles and iPads to publishers and authors fighting to stay afloat and looking for new distribution channels. With disruption comes opportunity. We are constantly evaluating each new trend with two things in mind. You – our customer, and our literacy partners. As always we are looking to bring you the best deal on books while helping improve world literacy. I believe we are nimble, innovative and entrepreneurial enough to examine each trend and find the RIGHT opportunities. It’s in our DNA. Read more…
In our continuing series on the outlook for 2010 and beyond, CEO David Murphy takes a look at the foundation of Better World Books and why it matters.
We’ve been at it for more than a few years now and we’ve certainly had to make some course corrections along the way…as any good company does. In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, I am so proud of the strong foundation we have to stand on. Sure it’s about technology and infrastructure so I’ll talk to that first, but it’s really about so much more than that.
TECHNOLOGY & INFRASTRUCTURE – We have invested millions of dollars in building out a superior technology footprint….and we are getting smarter everyday in understanding the value of a used book and how that will benefit our customers. We have developed core competencies in Logistics, Analytics, Web Dev, Operations, Book Acquisitions and so much more……and it should continue to show up in the quality and breadth of our book selection, the overall buying experience of our customers, our pricing, delivery, customer care…..everything as seen through the eyes of our customers.
PARTNERSHIPS, TRANSPARENCY & TRUST – We have thousands of individuals, groups, institutions who provide us books…..tens of thousands per day. They believe in us, in our ability to generate consistent levels of funding for our non-profit literacy groups and library partners. Read more…
According to the Associated Press, legendary author J.D. Salinger passed away yesterday, January 27th, 2010 of natural causes. He was at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire where he had lived in self-imposed isolation for many years.
In a three part series starting today, our fearless leader, CEO David Murphy explains his optimistic outlook on the new year and the new decade.
Hard to believe it is already 2010. It’s not just a new year, but a new decade and there is so much opportunity in front of us! Why am I so bullish? Well I have three good reasons, the first of which is:
Those who believe in us:
Our customers. Our customers see great value in what they are getting from us and they let us know. We are adding thousands of new customers every week. They like our selection, our prices, our great service. They keep coming back; they actively promote us to others (we have raving fans!) and they are helping us build a brand that stands for something good, something that is making a positive difference in this world, something they believe in. They enthusiastically support our mission and are passionate in letting us know what they think. We are far from perfect but my promise to all of our customers is that we will keep trying to get better; to truly earn their faith and their business each and every day; to deliver on the brand and the mission we are building together.
Our employees. The most talented, diverse and enthusiastic group of employees with whom I have ever worked. Period. I am both honored and humbled to serve each and every one of them.
Our non-profit literacy partners. The true heroes on the front lines who are delivering every day on our mission to promote and support literacy and education here in the U.S and around the world.
Do not underestimate the power of man’s best friend! The winner of the first Readers’ Choice Literacy Grant is an innovative program that uses therapy dogs to help improve kids reading, the Intermountain Therapy Animals (ITA) R.E.A.D. program.
The reading-challenged kids in the program often suffer from low self-esteem and view reading as a chore. But dogs don’t judge, so reading to them removes inhibitions and helps a child focus. It makes reading fun and creates a positive, memorable experience that stays with kids for a long time.
In the R.E.A.D. program, each child reads aloud to a therapy dog in either their local library or school. The books are age and level appropriate, and often animal related in topic. After a child accomplishes the reading of ten books (which may take weeks, depending on skill level), they receive a brand new book of their choice that can be “pawtographed” by their canine reading companion. Thus, books are sent into the homes of the children. You can read all the details about the program here.
I had the pleasure of calling Kathy Klotz, Executive Directory of ITA, to deliver the news. (That was fun – it’s not every day I get to give away $20,000!). After she caught her breath, Kathy was good enough to compose a statement for our press release:
We are simply overjoyed to be chosen as recipients of the Readers’ Choice Literacy Grant, and so grateful to Better World Books and every single person who voted for R.E.A.D. We know the competition was tight and every finalist had great merit. Our goal is for every child to grow up loving books and reading, as the foundation for a lifetime of learning. Because of the great power of the human-animal bond, reading to a dog is an ideal way to build skills, confidence and, not least, great enthusiasm.
Well said, Kathy! Especially when referring to the competition participants – we received a host of proposals from so many organizations that are passionate about literacy – it was wonderful. You can read all the finalists’ proposals here. I’d like to thank everyone who participated, it is inspiring to see so many people out to improve our world through literacy!
Ask any overnight success how easy their success really was and they’ll tell you it certainly didn’t feel overnight to them. Janice Y. K. Lee is no exception to that.
THE PIANO TEACHER is Janice’s debut novel and she admittedly didn’t have too much trouble finding a publisher, but she did spend 5 years writing the book as well as several years in a graduate writing program and several years reviewing and reading books for Elle and Mirabella magazines.
As with any artist Janice wasn’t sure she could write a novel let alone get it published and she is thrilled about how well the book has been received. And with good reason.
THE PIANO TEACHER takes place in Hong Kong during WWII and then in the period 10 years after the war. It is a story of the glamorous seeming British Read more…
Today’s guest blogger Aaron King, one of our most amazing Better World Book Getters fills us in on the Invisible Children book drives and the impact your books are having in Northern Uganda.
Invisible children recently told me that we have 20 days left to “raise” 100,000 books.
And I was like, “What? You want me to hold a box of books up over my head”?
Ok, Ok… I understand the program: thousands of IC supporters across the country are feverishly collecting books which they ship to Better World Books’ warehouse where they are sold to generate funds to promote the peace process in Northern Uganda as well as rebuild and strengthen local schools.
And yes, whoever “raises” the most books wins a free trip to Uganda. But that is actually not important in the grand scheme of things. The real power of this program is the combined efforts of hundreds of book drives across the country.
Chase Bank is giving away $5 million to various charities through its Community Giving program and our partner Invisible Children is in the running. Check out the video to see how they’ll use the money!
Cash donations to the relief effort in Haiti can be made at www.feedthechildren.org or by calling 800-328-2122.
We have supplied partner agencies Operation Compassion, Children’s Hunger Fund, Lifechurch, First Haitian Church, Kingdom Resources, Reach Out America, Healing Hands International and Family Outreach Ministries with product from our distribution centers in California, New Jersey, Texas, Indiana, Tennessee and Oklahoma. Included in that cargo is sleeping bags, water, coffee, team, bags of flour and Crocs shoes. We have also purchased duffle bags and flashlights to include in the shipments. This cargo adds up to almost a million pounds of supplies that are being sent.
Office Depot, Crocs, Glory Foods and Carolina Beverage are some of our partners providing product and monetary donations to help the effort.
Our medical clinic in Carrefour suffered extensive damage, but we have been able to salvage two and a half tons of Vitameal from the facility and it has already been distributed to the people. That distribution will provide 60,000 Supplies there are running low but we are shuttling more in through the Dominican Republic. Our clinic has been in operation in Haiti since 1981 and we normally serve 7-8,000 people per month, dealing with basic medical needs and providing food. Right now, they are providing medical assistance in the streets and transporting victims to field trauma centers.
Hello and welcome to the Better World Books Blog. Here you'll find author interviews, book reviews and general ramblings from employees of the "Online bookstore with a soul." But we didn't make this blog as a soapbox... talk back!
Interviewing an author is not as straight forward as you might think. Often they are coming in from out of town for 24 hours or less and have a fairly tight schedule while they are here.
In our final installment on the outlook for 2010 and beyond, CEO David Murphy takes a look at the bigger picture. As we look forward to this new decade, we know that in order to be successful everything has to line up just so. In our earlier installments we took a look at the 
Ask any overnight success how easy their success really was and they’ll tell you it certainly didn’t feel overnight to them. Janice Y. K. Lee is no exception to that.
Invisible children recently told me that we have 20 days left to “raise” 100,000 books.
Chase Bank is giving away $5 million to various charities through its Community Giving program and our partner Invisible Children is in the running. Check out the video to see how they’ll use the money!
