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redgoldsparks · 8 months

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My very last comic for The Nib! End of an era! Transcription below the cut. instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my book / redbubble

The first event I went to with GENDER QUEER was in NYC in 2019 at the Javits Center.

So many of the people who came to my signing were librarians, and so many of them said the same thing: "I know exactly who I want to give this to!" Maia: "Thank you for helping readers find my book!" While working on the book, I was genuinely unsure if anyone outside of my family and close friends would read it. But the early support of librarians and two American Library Association awards helped sell two print runs in first year.

Since then, GENDER QUEER been published in 8 languages, with more on the way: Spanish, Czech, Polish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portugese and Dutch.

It has also been the most banned book in the United States for the past two years. The American Library Association has tracked an astronomical increase in book challenges over the past few years. Most of these challenges are to books with diverse characters and LGBTQ themes. These challenges are coming unevenly across the US, in a pattern that mirrors the legislative attacks on LGBTQ people. The Brooklyn Public Library offered free eCards to anyone in the US aged 13-21, in an effort to make banned books more available to young readers. A teacher in Norman, Oklahoma gave her students the QR code for the free eCard and lost her job. Summer Boismeir is now working for the Brooklyn Public Library. Hoopla and Libby/Overdrive, apps used to access digital library books, are now banned in Mississippi to anyone under 18. Some libraries won’t allow anyone under 18 to get any kind of library card without parental permission. When librarians in Jamestown, Michigan refused to remove GENDER QUEER and several other books, the citizens of the town voted down the library’s funding in the fall 2022 election. Without funding, the library is due to close in mid-2024. My first event since covid hit was the American Library Association conference in June 2022 in Washington, DC. Once again, the librarians in my signing line all had similar stories for me: “Your book was challenged in our district" "It was returned to the shelf!" "It was removed from the shelf..." "It was moved to the adult section."

Over and over I said: "Thank you. Thank you for working so hard to keep my book in your library. I’m sorry you had to defend it, but thank you for trying, even if it didn't work." We are at a crossroads of freedom of speech and censorship. The future of libraries, both publicly funded and in schools, are at stake. This is massively impacting the daily lives of librarians, teachers, students, booksellers, and authors around the country. In May 2023, I read an article from the Washington Post analyzing nearly 1000 of the book challenges from the 2021-2022 school year. I was literally on route to a festival to talk about book bans when I read a startling statistic. 60% of the 1000 book challenges were submitted by just 11 people. One man alone was responsible for 92 challenges. These 11 people seem to have made submitting copy-cat book challenges their full-time hobby and their opinions are having an outsized ripple effect across the nation. WE NEED TO MAKE THE VOICES SUPPORTING DIVERSE BOOKS AND OPPOSING BOOK BANS EVEN LOUDER. If you are able too, show up for your library and school board meetings when book challenges are debated. Send supportive comments and emails about the Pride book display and Drag Queen story hours. If you see a display you like– for Banned Book Week, AAPI Month, Black History Month, Disability Awareness Month, Jewish holidays, Trans Day of Remembrance– compliment a librarian! Make sure they feel the love stronger than the hate <3

Maia Kobabe, 2023

The Nib

#maia kobabe #banned books #library funding #comics #book challenges

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fuckyeahgoodomens · 1 month

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Oooh! A great Gavin Finney (Good Omens Director of Photography) interview with Helen Parkinson for the British Cinematographer! :)

HEAVEN SENT

Gifted a vast creative landscape from two of fantasy’s foremost authors to play with, Gavin Finney BSC reveals how he crafted the otherworldly visuals for Good Omens 2.

It started with a letter from beyond the grave. Following fantasy maestro Sir Terry Pratchett’s untimely death in 2015, Neil Gaiman decided he wouldn’t adapt their co-authored 1990 novel, Good Omens, without his collaborator. That was, until he was presented with a posthumous missive from Pratchett asking him to do just that.

For Gaiman, it was a request that proved impossible to decline: he brought Good Omens season one to the screen in 2019, a careful homage to its source material. His writing, complemented by some inspired casting – David Tennant plays the irrepressible demon Crowley, alongside Michael Sheen as angel-slash-bookseller Aziraphale – and award-nominated visuals from Gavin Finney BSC, proved a potent combination for Prime Video viewers.

Aziraphale’s bookshop was a set design triumph.

Season two departs from the faithful literary adaptation of its predecessor, instead imagining what comes next for Crowley and Aziraphale. Its storyline is built off a conversation that Pratchett and Gaiman shared during a jetlagged stay in Seattle for the 1989 World Fantasy Convention. Gaiman remembers: “The idea was always that we would tell the story that Terry and I came up with in 1989 in Seattle, but that we would do that in our own time and in our own way. So, once Good Omens (S1) was done, all I knew was that I really, really wanted to tell the rest of the story.”

Telling that story visually may sound daunting, but cinematographer Finney is no stranger to the wonderfully idiosyncratic world of Pratchett and co. As well as lensing Good Omens’ first outing, he’s also shot three other Pratchett stories – TV mini series Hogfather (2006), and TV mini-series The Colour of Magic (2008) and Going Postal (2010).

He relishes how the authors provide a vast creative landscape for him to riff off. “The great thing about Pratchett and Gaiman is that there’s no limit to what you can do creatively – everything is up for grabs,” he muses. “When we did the first Pratchett films and the first Good Omens, you couldn’t start by saying, ‘Okay, what should this look like?’, because nothing looks like Pratchett’s world. So, you’re starting from scratch, with no references, and that starting point can be anything you want it to be.”

Season two saw the introduction of inside-outside sets for key locations including Aziraphale’s bookshop.

From start to finish

The sole DP on the six-episode season, Finney was pleased to team up again with returning director Douglas Mackinnon for the “immensely complicated” shoot, and the pair began eight weeks of prep in summer 2021. A big change was the production shifting the main soho set from Bovington airfield, near London, up to Edinburgh’s Pyramids Studio. Much of the action in Good Omens takes place on the Soho street that’s home to Aziraphale’s bookshop, which was built as an exterior set on the former airfield for season one. Season two, however, saw the introduction of inside-outside sets for key locations including the bookshop, record store and pub, to minimise reliance on green screen.

Finney brought over many elements of his season one lensing, especially Mackinnon’s emphasis on keeping the camera moving, which involved lots of prep and testing. “We had a full-time Scorpio 45’ for the whole shoot (run by key grip Tim Critchell and his team), two Steadicam operators (A camera – Ed Clark and B camera Martin Newstead) all the way through, and in any one day we’d often go from Steadicam, to crane, to dolly and back again,” he says. “The camera is moving all the time, but it’s always driven by the story.”

One key difference for season two, however, was the move to large-format visuals. Finney tested three large-format cameras and the winner was the Alexa LF (assisted by the Mini LF where conditions required), thanks to its look and flexibility.

The minisodes were shot on Cooke anamorphics, giving Finney the ideal balance of anamorphic-style glares and characteristics without too much veiling flare.

A more complex decision was finding the right lenses for the job. “You hear about all these whizzy new lenses that are re-barrelled ancient Russian glass, but I needed at least two full sets for the main unit, then another set for the second unit, then maybe another set again for the VFX unit,” Finney explains. “If you only have one set of this exotic glass, it’s no good for the show.”

He tested a vast array of lenses before settling on Zeiss Supremes, supplied by rental house Media Dog. These ticked all the boxes for the project: “They had a really nice look – they’re a modern design but not over sharp, which can look a bit electronic and a bit much, especially with faces. When you’re dealing with a lot of wigs and prosthetics, we didn’t want to go that sharp. The Supremes had a very nice colour palette and nice roll-off. They’re also much smaller than a lot of large-format glass, so that made it easy for Steadicam and remote cranes. They also provided additional metadata, which was very useful for the VFX department (VFX services were provided by Milk VFX).”

The Supremes were paired with a selection of filters to characterise the show’s varied locations and characters. For example, Tiffen Bronze Glimmerglass were paired with bookshop scenes; Black Pro-Mist was used for Hell; and Black Diffusion FX for Crowley’s present-day storyline.

Finney worked closely with the show’s DIT, Donald MacSween, and colourist, Gareth Spensley, to develop the look for the minisode.

Maximising minisodes

Episodes two, three and four of season two each contain a ‘minisode’ – an extended flashback set in Biblical times, 1820s Edinburgh and wartime London respectively. “Douglas wanted the minisodes to have very strong identities and look as different from the present day as possible, so we’d instantly know we were in a minisode and not the present day,” Finney explains.

One way to shape their distinctive look was through using Cooke anamorphic lenses. As Finney notes: “The Cookes had the right balance of controllable, anamorphic-style flares and characteristics without having so much veiling flare that they would be hard to use on green screens. They just struck the right balance of aesthetics, VFX requirements and availability.” The show adopted the anamorphic aspect ratio (2:39.1), an unusual move for a comedy, but one which offered them more interesting framing opportunities.

Good Omens 2 was shot on the Alexa LF, paired with Zeiss Supremes for the present-day scenes.

The minisodes were also given various levels of film grain to set them apart from the present-day scenes. Finney first experimented with this with the show’s DIT Donald MacSween using the DaVinci Resolve plugin FilmConvert. Taking that as a starting point, the show’s colourist, Company 3’s Gareth Spensley, then crafted his own film emulation inspired by two-strip Technicolor. “There was a lot of testing in the grade to find the look for these minisodes, with different amounts of grain and different types of either Technicolor three-strip or two-strip,” Finney recalls. “Then we’d add grain and film weave on that, then on top we added film flares. In the Biblical scenes we added more dust and motes in the air.”

Establishing the show’s lighting was a key part of Finney’s testing process, working closely with gaffer Scott Napier and drawing upon PKE Lighting’s inventory. Good Omens’ new Scottish location posed an initial challenge: as the studio was in an old warehouse rather than being purpose-built for filming, its ceilings weren’t as high as one would normally expect. This meant Finney and Napier had to work out a low-profile way of putting in a lot of fixtures.

Inside Crowley’s treasured Bentley.

Their first task was to test various textiles, LED wash lights and different weight loadings, to establish what they were working with for the street exteriors. “We worked out that what was needed were 12 SkyPanels per 20’x20’ silk, so each one was a block of 20’x20’, then we scaled that up,” Finney recalls. “I wanted a very seamless sky, so I used full grid cloth which made it very, very smooth. That was important because we’ve got lots of cars constantly driving around the set and the sloped windscreens reflect the ceiling. So we had to have seamless textiles – PKE had to source around 12,000 feet of textiles so that we could put them together, so the reflections in the windscreens of the cars just showed white gridcloth rather than lots of stage lights. We then drove the car around the set to test it from different angles.”

On the floor, they mostly worked with LEDs, providing huge energy and cost savings for the production. Astera’s Titan Tubes came in handy for a fun flashback scene with John Hamm’s character Gabriel. The DP remembers: “[Gabriel] was travelling down a 30-foot feather tunnel. We built a feather tunnel on the stage and wrapped it in a ring of Astera tubes, which were then programmed by dimmer op Jon Towler to animate, pulse and change different colours. Each part of Gabriel’s journey through his consciousness has a different colour to it.”

Among the rigs built was a 20-strong Creamsource Vortex setup for the graveyard scene in the “Body Snatchers” minisode, shot in Stirling. “We took all the yokes off each light then put them on a custom-made aluminium rig so we could have them very close. We put them up on a big telehandler on a hill that gave me a soft mood light, which was very adjustable, windproof and rainproof.”

Shooting on the VP stage for the birth of the universe scenes in episode one.

Sky’s the limit

A lot of weather effects were done in camera – including lightning effects pulsed in that allowed both direct fork lightning and sheet lightning to spread down the streets. In the grade, colourist Spensley was also able to work his creative magic on the show’s skies. “Gareth is a very artistic colourist – he’s a genius at changing skies,” Finney says. “Often in the UK you get these very boring, flat skies, but he’s got a library of dramatic skies that you can drop in. That would usually be done by VFX, but he’s got the ability to do it in Baselight, so a flat sky suddenly becomes a glorious sunset.”

Finney emphasises that the grade is a very involved process for a series like Good Omens, especially with its VFX-heavy nature. “This means VFX sequences often need extra work when it comes back into the timeline,” says the DP. “So, we often add camera movement or camera shake to crank the image up a bit. Having a colourist like Gareth is central to a big show like Good Omens, to bring all the different visual elements together and to make it seamless. It’s quite a long grade process but it’s worth its weight in gold.”

Shooting in the VR cube for the blitz scenes .

Finney took advantage of virtual production (VP) technology for the driving scenes in Crowley’s classic Bentley. The volume was built on their Scottish set: a 4x7m cube with a roof that could go up and down on motorised winches as needed. “We pulled the cars in and out on skates – they went up on little jacks, which you could then rotate and move the car around within the volume,” he explains. “We had two floating screens that we could move around to fill in and use as additional source lighting. Then we had generated plates – either CGI or real location plates –projected 360º around the car. Sometimes we used the volume in-camera but if we needed to do more work downstream; we’d use a green screen frustum.” Universal Pixels collaborated with Finney to supply in-camera VFX expertise, crew and technical equipment for the in-vehicle driving sequences and rear projection for the crucial car shots.

John Hamm was suspended in the middle of this lighting rig and superimposed into the feather tunnel.

Interestingly, while shooting at a VP stage in Leith, the team also used the volume as a huge, animated light source in its own right – a new technique for Finney. “We had the camera pointing away from [the volume] so the screen provided this massive, IMAX-sized light effect for the actors. We had a simple animation of the expanding universe projected onto the screen so the actors could actually see it, and it gave me the animated light back on the actors.”

Bringing such esteemed authors’ imaginations to the screen is no small task, but Finney was proud to helped bring Crowley and Aziraphale’s adventures to life once again. He adds: “What’s nice about Good Omens, especially when there’s so much bad news in the world, is that it’s a good news show. It’s a very funny show. It’s also about good and evil, love and doing the right thing, people getting together irrespective of backgrounds. It’s a hopeful message, and I think that that’s what we all need.”

Finney is no stranger to the idiosyncratic world of Sir Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

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ineffablelunatics · 3 months

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You ever think that Crowley isn’t a bookseller and refuses to even act like one because Aziraphale doesn’t like to sell books? He won’t act like a “bookseller”, because Aziraphale doesn’t like selling books. That’s Aziraphale’s safe place and he doesn’t want to somehow mess it up.

“Are you a bookseller?” “Not even at gunpoint.”

Sitting right across from Aziraphale, he says that he wouldn’t sell books even when he was being threatened. Yes, it’s Crowley being over dramatic, but it’s also a reassurance. He doesn’t even let the books burn in 1941. He didn’t have a choice in 2019. Crowley might not run a bookshop, but he’ll keep it safe. Even if keeping it safe just means not letting anyone buy books from a bookshop

#good omens #good omens 2 #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #yes I know he throws them around #but this is more of a cute headcannon than anything else #also he was being a bit petty because Aziraphale took the Bentley and started messing with it #I also think he may have been fixing what Gabriel was doing but still was petty

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suzypfonne · 1 month

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Identifying Ethereal, Occult, and Celestial Beings - Field Notes:

Name: Aziraphale

Alias(es): A Z Fell, Dr. McFell, Brother Francis, Michael Sheen

Species: Angel

Date of Creation: Before the Beginning

Date of Destruction: 2019 cancelled

Occupation: Guardian of the Eastern Gate Principality doctor bookseller retired Supreme Archangel

Height: 5' 10"

Hair color: bleach blond, cloud-white

Eye color: variable (documented: blue, green, brown, and grey); often heart-shaped in defiance of corporeal design plans

Physical Description: angel soft humanoid

Identifying Features: thousands of eyes; white, beige, brown, blue, or tartan coverings generally 50-200 years out of style by human standards; indescribable nose shape; gold pocket watch; gold signet ring

Relationship Status: smitten single smitten single married divorced it's complicated

Diet: omnivore

Gender: male-presenting

Pronouns: he/him

Sexuality: Crowlisexual

Religion: Under Review

#good omens #aziraphale #good omens text post #celestial beings #field notes #michael sheen #neil gaiman

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equatorjournal · 1 year

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Fête des baleines à Point Barrow Alaska, 1923. Photo by Leo Hansen (1888-1962). "The Nalukataq consists of the dancer maintaining the most graceful position when propelled into the air from a trampoline." "The catalog Inuit features early twentieth-century portraits from the archive of the writer-journalist Victor Forbin: half of the 350 photographs they had bought in 2019, on a whim, from Yves Bouger, a well-known gallery owner and bookseller based in Granville. They originally belonged to Victor Forbin (1864–1947), who thought himself an “adventurer,” and who assembled a personal iconography to illustrate his articles, translations, and books (his first novel, Les Fiancées du Soleil, came out in 1923). When they were confronted with “this vanished world,” the Jacquiers had known nothing about the Arctic or about polar expeditions, such as the Canadian Arctic Expedition led by the ethnologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879-1963), between 1913 and 1918, and the 5th Thule Expedition led by the Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen (1879–1933) between 1921 and 1925. Although they could see at once that, by their very subject, the photographs were of great value, and not just sentimental, they were yet to document their discovery. This they did during the first months of lockdown, consulting online libraries and Northern museums, moved by these portraits of the Inuit, and the “reciprocal gaze” exchanged between the photographed and the photographer. “It is true, we were touched by this gaze devoid of exoticism,” emphasized Philippe Jacquier, “by the presence of the Inuit, their power in the endless white landscapes. These photos are more than a century old, and yet they seem so close… Those who took them understood that photography is an indispensable tool.” https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp3NPKjth47/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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fandomtrumpshate · 2 months

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Unlisted fandom challenge!

Since our numbers post earlier today, we've had more than 30 signups, including write-ins for 2 more fandoms, bringing the total of unlisted fandoms to 155 ... for now ...

At the top of the list we have a 3-way tie for 1st, a 5-way tie for 2nd, and a 6-way tie for third ...

5 Danny Phantom

5 For All Mankind

5 Yu Yu Hakusho

4 Ace Attorney

4 Ted Lasso

4 Goblin Emperor Series - Katherine Addison

4 Stanley Parable

4 Tortall

3 Greek Mythology/Religion

3 Bungo Stray Dogs

3 Call of Duty

3 Dragon Ball

3 Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb

3 Mummy (1999 franchise)

A single sign up could change all that ...

The rest below a cut for length -

2 Alan Wake/Remedyverse

2 Ghosts (TV)

2 Buffyverse

2 Cosmere

2 CSI

2 Detective Conan

2 Dracula

2 Dune

2 Firefly

2 Formula 1 RPF

2 Glee

2 Guardian (2018)

2 HBO War

2 Hermitcraft/The Life Series SMP

2 Imperial Radch Series

2 Mob Psycho 100

2 Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury

2 Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint

2 Persona Series: 3-5

2 Professional Wrestling

2 Riverdale

2 Saw

2 Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab

2 Slow Horses

2 Stormlight Archive

2 Bear (TV)

2 Empyrean - Rebecca Yarros

2 Folk of the Air (Holly Black)

2 Radiant Emperor Series

2 Undertale

2 Venture Bros

2 Voltron

2 Wolf Pack

1 1670

1 a league of their own (TV series)

1 A Plague Tale (Videogame Series)

1 Adventure Zone: Balance

1 Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across 8th Dimension

1 Adventures of Tintin

1 American Gods

1 Among Us

1 Artful Dodger

1 Bendy (and The Ink Machine/Dark Revival)

1 Billabong - Mary Grant Bruce

1 Bioshock 1&2

1 Blue Beetle

1 Breakfast With Scot

1 Bunny - Mona Awad

1 Buzzfeed Unsolved/Watcher Entertainment RPF

1 Cabin Pressure

1 Cats the musical

1 Charlie's Angels (2019)

1 Cherry Magic

1 Chronicles of Narnia

1 Cobra Kai

1 Coffee Talk (Video Game)

1 Criminal Minds

1 Death Note

1 Dexter

1 Dice Punks (podcast)

1 Digimon

1 Dimension 20

1 Discworld - Terry Pratchett

1 Divergent

1 Donten ni Warau / Laughing Under the Clouds

1 Dungeons and Daddies (podcast)

1 Fallout Video Game (Bethesda)

1 Falsettos

1 Fargo FX

1 Farscape

1 Fire Emblem (4-10, 13, 14, 16)

1 Five Nights at Freddy's

1 Friends at the Table

1 Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

1 Good Place

1 Grantchester

1 Green Creek

1 Greenhollow Series - Emily Tesh

1 Grey's Anatomy

1 Grimm

1 Gundam (see below for details)

1 Hatchetfield

1 Hawaii 5.0

1 Hello From The Hallowoods

1 Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

1 Hollows - Kim Harrison

1 Honkai Star Rail

1 Horizon Zero Dawn

1 Horror

1 Inception

1 Inspector Morse

1 IT (Movies - Muschietti)

1 Jeff Satur - music videos

1 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

1 Julie and the Phantoms

1 Last Kingdom

1 Law and Order

1 Left-Handed Booksellers of London - Garth Nix

1 Legend of the Galactic Heroes

1 Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4)

1 London Spy

1 Lunar Chronicles

1 Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic

1 Magnificent Seven

1 Mechanisms

1 Mrs. Davis

1 My Little Pony

1 Nancy Drew (CW Series)

1 Narcos (TV)

1 Nine Worlds Series - Victoria Goddard

1 NU: Carnival

1 Omori

1 One Direction

1 Orphan Black

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1 Pacific Rim

1 Pairing (Casey McQuiston)

1 Re-Animator

1 Saint of Steel

1 Sex Education (TV)

1 Shadow Campaigns - Django Wexler

1 Simon Snow Series

1 Skins (UK)

1 Slam Dunk

1 South Park

1 Starry Musical

1 Succession

1 Super Sentai

1 Sweeney Todd

1 Team Starkid

1 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

1 Terror (TV 2018)

1 Three of Hearts

1 Tin Can Bros

1 Tower of God

1 True Detective

1 Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold

1 Wayfarers (Becky Chambers)

1 Westworld (TV)

1 Yellowjackets

1 Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters

#fth 2024 #fandom trumps hate #fanworks charity auction #unlisted fandom challenge #signups are OPEN

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macrolit · 6 months

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Forbes article: "How Struggling College Bookstores Found A Way To Beat Amazon"

Oct 20, 2023,06:30am EDT

A new sales model adopted by hundreds of universities limits students’ ability to shop around for textbooks.

By Lauren Debter, Forbes Staff

As fall semester dawned at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, senior Olivia McFall turned to Amazon to shop for books — not only because its prices were better for certain titles, but so she could get her course materials quickly. The campus bookstore could sometimes take a week or two. Unacceptable.

“Teachers will start assigning reading on the first day,” McFall, a 22-year-old fashion-merchandising major, told Forbes. “You get behind if you don’t have that textbook. If I buy it on [Amazon], it’s usually because I can get it faster than the bookstore.”

For decades, Amazon’s lower prices and speedier delivery have blown a crater in the college bookstore business. Given the option to shop around, students only buy about one-third of their course materials at the campus store.

Now the bookstores are fighting back. They say they’ve hit on a plan that would, almost magically, quash competition from online rivals like Amazon. T.C.U. is among the colleges considering a model that would automatically charge students for textbooks on their tuition bills, which can be covered by financial aid, and get them to students by the time classes begin. Books are typically discounted 30% or more, said the bookstores, who negotiate volume discounts. Students must return materials at the end of the semester.

Despite reservations from education advocates who worry it limits purchasing options for students, the plan, dubbed Inclusive Access, is spreading like kudzu. It rose out of a 2015 rule from the U.S. Department of Education that permitted universities to include the cost of textbooks with tuition, as long as prices were under competitive market rates and students could opt out.

Bookstores latched onto the idea during the pandemic. They were looking to boost sales at a time when they were hamstrung by closures, declining enrollment numbers and the seismic shift to digital textbooks — and still are.

In the 2022-23 academic year, Inclusive Access already captured the business of 44% of students, worth an estimated $1.4 billion annually, according to the National Association of College Stores.

Illinois-based Follett Corp., a privately held company (annual sales: $1.6 billion) that operates roughly one-third of college bookstores, said the number of its campuses that have adopted the Inclusive Access model has tripled to 450 since 2019. New Jersey-based Barnes & Noble Education (annual sales: $1.5 billion), which spun out of the bookseller chain in 2015 and also runs a third of campus bookstores, said it has over 150 schools signed up for Inclusive Access, up from just four in 2019. (The colleges themselves operate the other one-third of campus bookstores.)

Overnight, schools that switched to Inclusive Access brought guaranteed revenue to booksellers. Sell-through rates, which measure the percentage of course materials students purchase at the campus bookstore, skyrocketed from about 30% before Inclusive Access to north of 80 or 90%, according to Follett and Barnes & Noble Education. Few students opt out, the companies said, because they like the prices and convenience.

It’s a clever way to beat Amazon. Unable to compete, Follett and Barnes & Noble Education separated their customers from the open marketplace and bundled their products with something Amazon couldn’t sell — college tuition. The bookstore gets the customer without ever having to go up against the online behemoth, which is currently being sued by the Federal Trade Commission for its own alleged anti-competitive practices. (Amazon has said it disagrees with the allegations, and will contest the lawsuit.)

“It’s a significant volume increase because you’re capturing all of the course material market share in an institution,” Jonathan Shar, who oversees campus stores operated by Barnes & Noble Education, told Forbes. “Plus, it’s much more predictable.”

Amazon Prices

An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the impact Inclusive Access is having on its textbook sales. Amazon said it may offer discounts to schools that buy books in bulk, but it’s been winding down certain aspects of its textbook business. In April, it stopped renting physical textbooks to students and in 2020 it stopped buying textbooks back from students.

Last year, 37% of students purchased books from Amazon. That’s down from 46% in 2019, according to the National Association of College Stores.

Selling textbooks isn’t the business it used to be. A decade ago, students spent $4.8 billion a year on textbooks, according to research firm Words Rated. Today, it’s about $3.2 billion. During the 2022-23 school year, students spent an average of $285 on course materials, the lowest figure since the National Association of College Stores began tracking spending 16 years ago.

That’s partly the result of a rapid shift to lower-cost digital textbooks, with 55% of course materials now digital, up sharply from 15% prior to the pandemic, according to Emmanuel Kolady, Follett’s CEO. More textbooks are being made available online for free from sites like OpenStax, too. Nearly three-quarters of students say they were assigned at least one free course material in the latest academic year, according to the National Association of College Stores.

Company’s ‘Cornerstone’

Barnes & Noble Education, a publicly traded company that runs 800 campus bookstores, has described Inclusive Access to investors as a “cornerstone” of its plan to return to profitable growth, noting that course-material revenue rises more than 80% and gross profit nearly doubles after schools switch to the new model.

The company has lost a cumulative $600 million since 2018. Last year’s sales were 23% below pre-pandemic levels. This summer, it had to negotiate an extension on its loan payments because it couldn’t come up with enough cash. As part of the deal, it gave up two board seats and said it would explore selling the company. Its stock price has lost 90% of its value in the last two years, tumbling to less than $1 a share.

“It feels like this is their first, second and third priority,” said Ryan MacDonald, an analyst at Needham who covers Barnes & Noble Education, referring to Inclusive Access, which the company calls “First Day Complete.”

Benefits For Students

The booksellers claim the program saves students money. Follett said that students spend an average of 30% less than if they were to buy new books and are better equipped for classes as Inclusive Access gets them their materials before the semester begins.

At New York University, for instance, where Follett runs bookselling, students are automatically billed for books unless they opt out. Most are digital rentals. A textbook for an introductory biology class is priced at $36.75, which gives students access to a digital copy for the semester. That’s 20% less than if they went directly to the publisher’s website and rented it for the term. It’s 40% less than on Amazon, which only offers the option to buy the digital version, not rent it.

The math, however, is not always transparent. According to a report from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, which analyzed 52 book-buying contracts, it’s “hard, if not impossible” to figure out how deep the discounts are because schools don’t make it clear what the discount is based on.

Savings can be less meaningful for students who would have otherwise bought used books or borrowed books, said Nicole Allen, director of open education at SPARC, a nonprofit that advocates for more course materials to be free. The one-quarter of students who intentionally skip buying certain books each semester, usually because they don’t think they need it, are also charged, she said. As more schools migrate to Inclusive Access, Allen questions whether discounts will disappear since publishers have a long history of raising prices.

“This is already a captive market because students are told what to buy,” Allen told Forbes. “Inclusive Access makes it an even more captive market by telling students how they’re going to buy it.”

Even without Inclusive Access, students can be limited in their comparison shopping. More and more professors are assigning books with single-use access codes, available for an additional fee, which students use to access quizzes, homework and other materials online. Promoted by publishers who benefit from the new revenue stream, they’re often sold exclusively by the campus bookstore and cannot be resold.

Follett’s president Ryan Petersen predicts that a newer variant of the model called Equitable Access, where students pay a flat fee for their materials regardless of the courses they’re taking, will be adopted by most schools in the next five years.

“We’re having this conversation with every campus we can,” Petersen told Forbes, “potentially even to campuses who are sick of hearing about it.”

#forbes #university #book store #book stores #college #amazon #text books #article

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awesomecos · 8 months

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We had a great time!

Armor // @awesomecos Pest Mask // @tartecosplay Koomote // @fae2day Paper Bag // @pkIove Kendo // @15jellies Video // @zoomsplays

#Instagram #Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san #Skull-Face Bookseller Honda-san #cosplay #skeleton #Honda #Honda-san #paper bag #Kamibukuro #Koomote #Kendo #Armor #Pest Mask #acen #anime central #acen 2019 #anime central 2019 #video

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theinquisitxor · 2 months

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February 2024 Reading Wrap Up

I read 8 books in February, and overall had a great reading month. I had three five-star books, which is a lot for me in one month. I read 2 audiobooks and 6 physical books. I read 5 fantasy, 2 nonfiction, and 1 historical/literary fiction.

1.The Throne of the Five Winds (Hostage of Empire 1) by SC Emmet 5/5 stars. This was my Random TBR pick from January, which I finished up in Feb. This book had been on my tbr since 2019, and it was a fantastic courtly political fantasy. This is set in an ancient China inspired setting, with several different countries and cultures. The story follows two young women (one, a princess in an arranged marriage) as they travel to a neighboring empire to become integral in the court life there. I was surprised by how much I loved this book, and it's become a new favorite.

2.House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City 3) by SJM, 4/5 stars. The Crescent City books have been favorites for several years now, and I was very interested to see how this book (and the series) would develop as a crossover. I enjoyed this quite a lot, and it is very stereotypical SJM writing and plot. I love any sort of crossovers, portals, and traveling between worlds, so this book was a treat to me. However, it felt like things came together too quickly and easily at the end, and it rushed towards a conclusion, and I wasn't as impressed with this book as much as I wanted to be.

3.The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscripts that Illuminated the Renaissance by Ross King. I read this on audio and this was a huge deep dive into the world of the bookmarkets and booksellers in Florence. If you want a big dose of book history, this one is it. I didn't really enjoy the audiobook narrator unfortunately.

4.Blade Breaker (Realm Breaker 2) by Victoria Aveyeard 3/5 stars. I enjoyed this a little bit more than book 1, and this series has captured my attention so I want to see how it ends. I think I would be enjoying these books more if I were 16 or 17, but reading these in my mid-twenties is maybe not the target age range for this series. I enjoy the worldbuilding and characters the most.

5. A God In Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie 3/5 stars. This was every type of historical fiction that I enjoy: Early 20th cen. setting, Archeologists searching for an ancient artifact, WW1 book, Ancient and classical texts, Non-Western setting and examination of British Empire and colonialism. This was my Random TBR pick for the month of Feb, and this book has been on my tbr since 2020. I was glad to read it, and I tend to enjoy these types of novels. This feels like half literary fiction, half historical fiction.

6. The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden, 5/5 stars. This was as hauntingly horrific and beautiful as I hoped it would be. I had been waiting as patiently as I could for a new Katherine Arden adult novel, and this was well worth the wait. This book encapsulated WWI and the horrors well, with good characters, and a speculative/fantasy twist that I enjoyed.

7. What Feasts at Night (Sworn Soldier 2) by T Kingfisher, 4/5 stars. This is a followup horror novella to What Moves the Dead. This had more of a woodsy, folkloric horror than book 1. I think it was a little stronger than the first novella, since it wasn’t a retelling. I look forward to whatever else T Kingfisher writes, and I would enjoy more of these novellas!

8. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe, 5/5 stars. This was my second audiobook for the month, and I was very impressed by this. I only knew a summery-level about The Troubles, but this was a great introduction for me.

That's it for February! I started (but did not finish) Us Against You by Frederick Backman, so I will finish that up in March.

My March TBR

Us Against You by Frederick Backman (Beartown 2)

The Poison Prince (Hostage of Empire 2) by SC Emmet

The Prisoner's Throne by Holly Black (releases March 5th)

Random TBR pick: An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors by Curtis Craddock

Knowing What We Know by Simon Winchester

Song of the Huntress by Lucy Holland (Releases March 21st)

The Hedgewitch of Foxhall by Ana Bright (Releases March 24th)

North Woods by Daniel Mason

The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown

I'm definitely not going to get to all of these, but this is the list I'm going to be reading from!

#reading wrap up #March reading wrap up #fantasy books #books #bookblr

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tornrose24 · 2 months

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TGAMM Aladdin AU ideas part 1

Was thinking of those TGAMM Aladdin AU doodles I made and thought of adding more details to that AU:

-This version of Agrabah used to be ruled by a tyrant (the Chairman) with an iron fist until the Chen family overthrew and disposed of him. While Reuben and Esther are far more benevolent in comparison as rulers, the kingdom is still slowly recovering and is a shadow of what it once was.

-Jinx liked how things were ran under the old ruler and wants to overthrow the Chen family and claim the throne. This is where her need to find the lamp would come in.

-The McGees aren’t poor, but they are just barely getting by. Pete desires to restore the kingdom to its glory days and he and Sharon do whatever they can to make money. Molly is the same way. Darryl is still getting into shady stuff to make money the easy way, but tends to get cheated out of whatever he makes.

-Esther and Reuben are seeking potential future brides for their son and to form a political alliance that could help the kingdom. Ollie would rather focus on restoring the kingdom without resorting to that. June is more of an inventor who keeps to herself and has no interest in getting married off either.

-Molly and Libby are still good friends, and Libby’s mother is also barely getting by as a bookseller and poet for hire. Especially after her husband abandoned their family.

-Andrea is one of the potential brides who doesn’t make the cut. (She’s secretly relieved because she already has her eye on someone else).

-I did not assign anyone to Dalia’s role, because I’m leaving that spot open for anyone’s self-insert/oc.

-The way Molly and Ollie meet up would be like in the 2019 film, which would also involve trying to get her brother out of trouble. (Again.) Like in the 2019 film, she would sneak into the palace to meet up with Ollie, who is trying to pass himself off as a servant. Molly is aided by her brother and Libby in sneaking into the palace.

-The two bond over wanting to help the kingdom's people and to restore it back to what it used to be.

-Molly sneaking into the palace is what gets Jinx’s attention. The woman has Molly, Libby, and Darryle captured and claims that she will only let them go without being reported on IF Molly enters the Cave of Wonders. She doesn’t bother mentioning the real identity of the boy Molly visited since its a waste of her time.

-The trio do find a magic carpet.

–Molly finds the lamp. However Darryl is the one who tries to take some treasure for himself, which triggers the collapse.

-While the magic carpet gets Darryl and Libby out of the cave, Molly gets knocked off at one point and becomes trapped. The carpet leaves so fast that Jinx doesn’t see it happen and assumes that her efforts were all for nothing.

-So yeah, no surprise–Scratch is the genie of the lamp. And he is NOT happy that his new master is a very excited young girl who is delighted to have made a new friend who has magic.

-She still manages to trick him into getting her out of the cave and back home though.

-So desperate to get rid of Molly, Scratch tells her about the three wishes and fully intends to screw her over with each one. Except there’s 2 problems. One is that Molly realizes that she has way too many wishes (mostly to better her kingdom) and cannot narrow them down to save her life. The other is that she doesn’t want to lose Scratch THAT fast and refuses to actually make any wishes until she knows for sure what she wants.

-Naturally, he is NOT HAPPY ABOUT THIS.

-Scratch has a much easier time granting wishes of Molly’s very shocked, but also delighted family, though they quickly wise up to the fact that he’s screwing them over on a few.

-He has even less luck with Libby who is VERY genre savvy about genies. She has to coach Molly on how to approach the matter when she is ready.

-Eventually Molly remembers Ollie and tries to go see him, only to find out that he is in fact the crown prince. She is crushed since she hasn’t seen him since before the cave, but there’s no way she can see him if she’s not even a child of nobility.

-However she knows that he cares about the kingdom as much as she does, and decides upon a wish that can do a lot of good. One that can be both selfless AND selfish.

-Molly tells Scratch that she wants him to turn her into a princess. One wealthy enough to gift the kingdom with enough money and goods to keep it going for a decade or two. If she gets the royal family’s attention, she can visit Ollie once more. Scratch is not entirely impressed with the plan, especially after realizing Molly has a crush on the boy, but hey she’s finally making a wish.

-Molly then makes an offer–since she’s had a hard time coming up with wishes, she will use her final wish for Scratch. Whatever he truly wants, she will wish it for him. He admits that he doesn’t exactly enjoy being forced to grant others wishes and wants to be freed from the job. He’s surprised at Molly’s offer, though he’s sure it won’t come to pass.

-However what he does NOT tell Molly is that if he is freed from the lamp, he will be reduced to a powerless mortal capable of dying and without a place to call home, and that idea terrifies him.

-So Scratch grants Molly’s first wish, even if he’s pretty sure its not entirely going to end well. He turns himself into a human and passes himself off as her advisor to keep an eye on things (and to get a front-row seat because this is BOUND to be somewhat entertaining). Libby also wants in and is made Molly’s handmaiden since she doesn’t want a large role that also forces her into the spotlight.

As for what happens next… well, keep an eye out for part 2.

#the ghost and molly mcgee #aladdin au #molly mcgee #scratch the ghost #libby stein torres #ollie chen

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thoughtportal · 19 days

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youtube

The Booksellers is a 2019 American documentary film that was directed, edited, and produced by D.W. Young. It was executive produced by Parker Posey, who also provides narration in the film. The film explores the world of antiquarian and rare book dealers and their bookstores. It focuses primarily on booksellers in New York City, including Adina Cohen, Naomi Hample and Judith Lowry, the three sisters of the Argosy Book Store; Stephen Massey, founder of Christie’s NY Book Department; and Nancy Bass Wyden, owner of the Strand Bookstore. Other prominent people featured in the film include Fran Lebowitz, Gay Talese, Justin Croft, Zack Hample, Susan Orlean, William S. Reese, A. S. W. Rosenbach, Jay S. Walker, and Kevin Young.

#movies #documentary #watch this #books and libraries #books and reading #books and literature #film #books #rare books #new york #video #Youtube

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ebookporn · 18 days

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Treasure Hunt Stories

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A panel discussion with veteran and young ABAA members. They shared their experiences with book scouting, memorable moments as a dealer in the trade, the ups and downs of a book dealer, and much more!

Moderator: Lizzy Young, Lizzyoung Bookseller (member since 2016) Lizzyoung Bookseller sells Rare Books, Ephemera, and Manuscripts with a focus on Food & Drink History, Women's History, Cultural History, Children's Books, and anything else that makes her smile. A former pastry chef, Lizzy caught the bookselling bug when she started working for her father, Roy Young Bookseller. The rest is history.

Panelist: Jim Cummins, James Cummins, Bookseller (member since 1981) A lifelong collector, Jim started James Cummins Bookseller in 1978 after running the rare book department at Brentano's. He is a prominent and well respected figure in the antiquarian book world and a fixture at auctions. His expertise is wide and is reflected in the breadth of stock at his namesake firm. You can see Jim in action in the 2019 documentary, The Booksellers.

Panelist: Megan Bell, Underground Books (member since 2024) Megan Bell is the co-owner, along with Josh Niesse, of Underground Books, ABAA in Carrollton, Georgia. One of the newest members of the ABAA, Megan is also a proud alumna of the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS), Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, and the ABAA Women's Initiative Mentorship Program. In addition to a rare and collectible online bookstore at UndergroundBooks.net, she also helps run two open brick-and-mortar general bookshops in Carrollton and Serenbe. Megan is passionate about decorative publisher's cloth bindings; fairy tales, folklore, and mythology; popular science and natural history; the intersection of all of the above (as seen in her monthly rare book newsletter and her 2022 catalogue, The Fairy-Land of Science); and, most recently, fine press books (catalogue coming soon!).

Panelist: Greg Gibson, Ten Pound Book Company (member since 1986) Greg Gibson received his BA from Swarthmore College in 1967. Greg enlisted in the United States Navy and worked as a shipfitter until 1971. After his discharge, he moved to Gloucester, Massachusetts, and was variously employed as a house painter, cab driver, and construction worker. In 1976, he opened Ten Pound Island Book Company and began his career as an antiquarian book dealer. Greg is also an author and has published several titles.

Panelist: Hélène Golay, Capitol Hill Books (member since 2021) Hélène Golay started working with rare books at the Cushing Memorial Library & Archives at Texas A&M University in 2010. She transitioned to the trade two years later and has been a bookseller in Minnesota, New York, Virginia, and Washington, DC, where she is now the rare book specialist and co-owner of Capitol Hill Books, as well as a member of the ABAA.

#antiquarian books #book scouts #booksellers #antique books #rare books #book lover #bibliophile #librarians #Youtube

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ukulelekatie · 1 year

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ukulelekatie, the queer dating scene in boston is slowly killing me....what do i do

what if we just dated each other? haha just kidding... unless?

seriously though, you're definitely not alone. I deleted all dating apps out of frustration in 2019 and then a pandemic happened and I've been too busy ✨working on myself✨ to even think about dating since then. but maybe check the events at Trident Booksellers? I went to a queer lady board game speed dating event there once. didn't have any luck but it was at least a fun time playing jenga with strangers.

anyway if you figure it out, let me know!

#queer boston dating support group

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grits-galraisedinthesouth · 2 months

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Meghan Markle's employer saved from Chapter 11

May 11, 2021 Paper Source Acquired by Elliott

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210511005710/en/Paper-Source-to-Be-Acquired-by-Elliott

Elliott investment supports Paper Source for a bright future of its own and in teaming with Barnes & Noble

CHICAGO & NEW YORK & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Elliott Investment Management L.P. (“Elliott”) announces today that funds it advises have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets and business operations of Paper Source Inc.

The acquisition of Paper Source by Elliott allows the stationery and gift retailer to emerge from Chapter 11 with the support of a well-capitalized owner committed to the development and growth of the business. Following the Chapter 11 process, Paper Source will benefit from significantly less debt on its balance sheet. It will operate from approximately 130 stores across the US, from Papersource.com, as well as its wholesale division, Waste Not Paper by Paper Source.

Elliott is also the owner of Barnes & Noble, the leading bookseller in the US with bookstores in every state. The businesses are highly complementary, with shared product ranges and a common commitment to excellent customer service. While the businesses will continue to operate independently, considerable opportunities exist for mutually beneficial retail partnerships.

Barnes & Noble has enjoyed a strong performance since its acquisition by Elliott in September 2019, overcoming a number of pandemic-imposed challenges. Elliott now looks forward to the continued progress of both retailers. James Daunt, CEO of Barnes & Noble, will have oversight responsibilities for both companies.

James Daunt, CEO of Barnes & Noble said: “I look forward to working closely with everyone at Paper Source. This is a wonderful brand, with a unique culture and community. With Paper Source’s management team, we will support and accelerate the brand’s strategic growth initiatives. Alongside this, the opportunities for Paper Source to work with Barnes & Noble are tremendously exciting for both businesses.”

Winnie Park, CEO of Paper Source said: “All of us at Paper Source are delighted with Elliott’s investment in the brand and look forward to working with them, and with James and the team at Barnes & Noble. I am so grateful for the community who have supported Paper Source through both the pandemic and the Chapter 11 process – our amazing teams, our incredibly loyal customers, landlords, and our partner and vendor community.”

Paul Best, Portfolio Manager and Head of European Private Equity at Elliott said: “As the country’s leading specialty retailer of stationery, cards and gifts, we see tremendous future potential in Paper Source’s business. We look forward to working closely with the management team to position the brand for continued growth coming out of the pandemic.”

About Paper Source

Founded in 1983, Paper Source is a premier lifestyle brand that offers a curated selection of fine papers, gifts, crafts, party supplies, wrap, greeting cards and an exclusive collection of envelopes and cards. With a mission to inspire people to Do Something Creative Every Day, Paper Source offers a creative aesthetic with a unique color palette and proprietary designs that are hand-illustrated by an in-house art and design team, as well as over 1000 artists and makers around the world. Paper Source is an iconic brand with approximately 130 stores across the U.S., a direct-to-consumer eCommerce business, and a robust wholesale network. For more information, please visit www.papersource.com.

About Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest retail bookseller in the United States, and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products. The Company has over 600 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 50 states, as well as the Nook Digital business and one of the Web’s premier e-commerce sites, BN.com. General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be found on the Company's website at www.bn.com.

About Elliott

Elliott Investment Management L.P. manages more than $42 billion of assets. Its flagship fund, Elliott Associates, L.P., was founded in 1977, making it one of the oldest funds under continuous management. The Elliott funds' investors include pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, foundations, funds-of-funds, high net worth individuals and families, and employees of the firm. Elliott Advisors (UK) Limited is an affiliate of Elliott Investment Management L.P.

Media Contacts

Paper Source (Chicago)

Noreen Heron

Heron Agency

[email protected]

Elizabeth Owens

Paper Source

[email protected]

Barnes & Noble (New York)

Amelia Mulinder

Barnes & Noble

[email protected]