Are you an author, editor or publisher who constantly checks the sales rankings of titles on Amazon? If so, you’ll probably get a kick out of Title Z.

TitleZ allows you to retrieve historic and current sales rankings for many of the books on Amazon, so you can see how a title has performed over time. You can search for titles by keyword, book title, author’s name or publisher. Once you have a list of titles, you can select the ones you want to compare side-by-side.

TitleZ is in beta, which means they’re still working on it, and it does seem to have a few bugs as well as hits and misses. I entered my latest novel, Can’t Get Enough, and learned that its lowest ranking ever on Amazon was 645. The highest ranking was . . . well, we won’t go there.

However, TitleZ had no historical rankings for P.G. County, the prequel to Can’t Get Enough, or for You Only Get Better, a recent fiction anthology I participated in with two other authors. Oddly, it did have historical rankings for my first and second novels, Sisters and Lovers and Big Girls Don’t Cry. But they were both published before Amazon came along, so the historical rankings can only go back to when Amazon began to keep track of rankings. Of course, if Amazon had been ranking books back when Sisters and Lovers and Big Girls Don’t Cry were first published, we all know both novels would have ranked at like number 1 or 2. Right? Right.

I can’t say how accurate the information on TitleZ is, however, when I compared rankings on TitleZ with what is listed on Amazon, TitleZ was right on the money.

At any rate, it’s fun to spend a bit of time checking out various titles even now, and the site could be helpful if you need to research the current success of titles in a genre on Amazon, such as chick lit or mysteries, or to compare titles side-by-side.

But I think if TitleZ is ever going to be really useful in the publishing industry, it’s going to have to be far more thorough in terms of the titles it supports. Right now, it appears that the developers may have even abandoned the site. Although the Amazon title ranking data appears to be up-to-date, the Book News section on TitleZ, which includes links to publishing industry articles around the web, hasn’t been updated since 2006.

Hopefully, the lag is temporary—like an attempt to raise funds to take it to the next level or something—because TitleZ has real potential as a tool for authors and publishers who are hooked on Amazon. And there are many of us.

TitleZ for authors and publishers

Have you tried the new Borders bookstore website? It’s in beta (testing) now, but you can check out some of the sections.

You enter to what appears to be a bookshelf at a physical store and to the right you can click and look at various shelves (DVDs, books, music). This is sort of kin to selecting a general category at Amazon except you get a visual representation of the books listed, as if you were shopping at a physical store. Pretty cool, and I can imagine all sorts of ways this could be expanded in the future. Oprah is also front and center, with some exclusive video promoting her latest interest: Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth.

One of the most promising sections is Borders Media, where you can watch videos of authors discussing their books in various settings. For example—

Borders Book Club: authors discuss their books with small groups in a living-room-like setting. Currently viewable authors include Jodi Picoult, Lalita Tademy, Elizabeth Gilbert, Khaled Hosseini and others.

Borders Live at 01: one on one interviews with authors, recorded on location at Borders Store 01 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Currently up for viewing is Deepak Chopra discussing his newest book and other authors.

Borders Kitchen: where you can watch video of cookbook authors whipping up some of their recipes.

Borders Advice for Living: you can watch varied authors discussing their books, such as Robin Roberts, Donald Trump, and Bill Cosby and Alvin Poussaint. The theme for books featured here seems to be inspiration and motivation.

Many of the other sections—music, DVDs, kids—are not available yet but if they turn out to be as interactive as the media section, we could be in for a treat. Looks like Borders realizes that there’s something lacking in online shopping: other people. Not sure if this will ever replace getting out there and mingling, but Borders is obviously taking advantage of a lot of the newest bells and whistles available on the web to bring you a better online shopping experience.

They’re also trying to give Amazon some real competition. As much as I love Amazon, healthy competition is always a good thing.

Borders Beta

For more about innovation at Borders, see Borders Bookstore: Dinosaur Goes Digital

Photo credit: Pflorendo/iStockphoto

When Lee McDonald– director of marketing and events at Karibu Books–contacted me shortly after Karibu closed to let me know that she and Charlotte Reid (also of Karibu Books) would be taking on clients to help them with marketing, publicity, events and scheduling, I knew that I had to get the word out. If you’ve worked with Karibu, you know Lee McDonald and the excellent work she did for the bookstore and the many authors who appeared there over the years. No matter what the book market was doing, I could always count on a big crowd showing up–sometimes numbering in the hundreds–whenever I appeared for a book signing at Karibu. This woman knows her book marketing stuff.

For Connie Briscoe Presents, Lee shares what it takes to succeed in the book marketing and publicity business and what’s next for her after the closing of Karibu Books.

Connie Briscoe: How long did you work as director of marketing and events for Karibu?

Lee McDonald: I started Karibu in 2001. I dabbled in all areas of the business–sales, buying, warehouse, et cetera–and became the director of marketing and events sometime in 2002.

CB: Before we get into your new venture, can you tell us a bit about why Karibu closed?

Lee McDonald: Well, I don’t really want to speak on the behalf of either of the owners but I will say that there were differences in the vision and growth of Karibu, therefore the business suffered.

CB: Do you think it will ever reopen, and if so, when?

Lee McDonald: Connie, you know, that is a question I continually get! I do not know, but knowing the drive and passion that Karibu was built from, it would not surprise me to see a Karibu reappear in the future.

CB: Good. We’ve all got our fingers crossed. You handled book marketing and events for Karibu. For someone who might be interested in pursuing that kind of work, what kind of training and experience did you have?

Lee McDonald: Interestingly enough, my background is in hospitality/human resource and hotel management. With that said, I think if you have a background in selling, servicing and interacting with people that you can market and/or brand a product. The ability to effectively communicate with lots of people is very important. Many of the contacts you make will be about building relationships, so complete professionalism and timely follow up are also important. Lastly, of course, is results. You must have the numbers to compliment the relationships. I serviced approximately 600 events each year while working to market and brand Karibu as a household name, and with the help of the team we sold lots of books!

CB: Indeed you did. Tell us about this new venture you’re planning.

Lee McDonald: After the closure of Karibu, I started my own marketing and event consulting company, The Renaissance Group, LLC. My partner Charlotte Reid and I will service individuals and small business clients, including national and self-published authors. We will also service some of the literary events that are held each year. Currently, we are working with Harrine Freeman author of How to Get out of Debt, Dr. Leslie Browder, a life coach who is working on a new book, and Floyd Seymour a fitness expert who owns his own gym. And we’re working on programming for the Baltimore Book Festival 2008. We have some other pending clients and projects, so stay tuned for those. Lastly, we anticipate starting a newsletter, The Renaissance Review, very soon.

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You all know I love bookstores, right? No? OK, then I looooove bookstores. I can just hang out in one for a couple of hours, easy.

One of my biggest concerns has been that mortar and brick bookstores are going the way of the dinosaur once devices like the Amazon Kindle come down in price to around $50 - $100 or so, and the creators decide to make their money selling books rather than on the device. Remember record stores? Yeah, that’s what I thought was going to happen to bookstores. Not tomorrow or the next day, mind you. But within another 10 or so years.

Now there’s hope that I was entirely wrong. And this is one of those times when I’m glad to be wrong. But not for the reasons you may think. The reason is the new Borders concept stores due to debut during grand opening festivities on February 22 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the company’s hometown. According to Borders, it’s a 28,900-square-foot concept store–the first of 14 the company expects to open nationwide this year–and represents a big enhancement over existing Borders stores inside and out.

“This is a completely new shopping experience that sets Borders apart from every other store,” said Borders Group Chief Executive Officer George Jones. “We’ve stayed true to what our customers have always loved about Borders-deep and intelligent selection, knowledgeable staff, and a comfortable, welcoming atmosphere. Yet, we’ve brought a fresh new look and an exciting interactive dimension to the store with a Digital Center where customers can do everything from mix and make their own custom CDs, download books and music, publish their own books, explore their family history, and create photo books-all without being computer experts because we have trained people there to help every step of the way.”

The Digital Center sounds mad cool. Self-publish your own books? Create photo books? Sounds to me like Borders is saying, hey, don’t write us off so fast. We get it! You want digital. You want interactivity. You want control. Well, we got it!

Check out the video of what’s happening inside the new Borders bookstore. It’s so unlike anything you’ve ever seen in a bookstore. All I can say is, Borders please hurry and open one near me.

Borders Unveils First Concept Store

The African-American Heritage Bookstore in West Palm Beach, Florida, will close its doors permanently at the end of the month, according to Rhonda Swan at the Palm Beach Post.

Swan also mentions the closing of Karibu Books and a Palm Beach Borders. Could it be that all the African-American bookstore closings are just the beginning? When the Kindle and Sony Reader become cheaper and easier to use–will it be bye-bye mortar and brick bookstores?

Your local Borders and Barnes and Nobles could go the way of the record store unless they hit on some new magic formula. I certainly hope not; still I wouldn’t put my money on them being as plentiful as they are currently ten years from now. You can’t stop technology any more than you can stop progress.

Over the next few weeks, Karibu Books will close all five of its Washington, DC, metro area stores after 15 years of service.

This is very sad news for me. I first met Simba Sana, founder of Karibu Books, when his only location was a kiosk at a mall in Maryland and I watched with pride as he expanded to multiple locations throughout the area. I had some of my biggest and most enthusiastic crowds at the various Karibu branches. Sana and his staff were the best, and he and I often reminisced about how we started and grew together in this business.

Other African-American owned bookstores have closed over the past several years. This one truly feels like the passing of an era.

You can read Sana’s note to the public about the closing as well as the discounts on his inventory on the website.