can share anything you see on booktv.org easily by clicking share of the upper left side of the page and select in the format. book tv streamlines of life for 48 hours every weekend. >> you're watching book tv on c-span2, 48 hours a books every weekend. as 2011 comes to a close with of would take this opportunity to look back at the year in publishing, look at the publishing industry as well as some of the best sellers of the past year. sarah one man is the news editor of publishers marketplace. if you would start by telling us, giving us just little bit of a snapshot of the publishing industry in 2011, if you had to read a paragraph for to on what the publishing industry did this year. >> where to begin. the best way to look at what

happened to the publishing industry this year is the increasing ride a digital bucks, digital market share, and also just a tremendous transformation of the physical book market. for example, i guess i really good way to look at it is true the almighty prism of amazon. for example, amazon introduced just a couple months ago some new devices. for example, the kindle fire, which is there answer to the tablet market. it is priced at 199, and to offer up the orders and shipments alone perry's analysts have predicted that it will reach number two in sales behind apple's ipad which is of course priced at the lowest tender for 99. the thing with emma's of the kindle fire is that it is also in direct competition with bonds and noble, which we will get to in a little bit. but amazon also introduced some

other lower-cost kindle devices. kendall is by amazons reckoning the number one best-selling the reader. it is also by analysts as well. of course amazon is not going to tell anybody exactly how many it is sold. they're going to keep sticking with that because it makes so much money. they clearly feel that they can get away. but in any case the kindle fire has been received somewhat mixed reviews. a lot of people like it because it is in immediate consumption device for people play video games and watching movies and getting access to various things through amazons prime service where you pay $79 get things shipped in today's.

a whole bunch of other things but there are also some people who are like it is too slow and lagging. so it will be very interesting to see if some of the projections that i think one analyst says is going to ship almost 4 million units between november in the end of the year, the christmas holiday is going to be a really big factor as to how it's going to do. it will be interesting to see if that will actually hold into the new year. amazon, of course, is not just about devices. it is also moving very aggressively into the publishing world as well. for example, just this week news broke that they had bought many titles, about four under and 50 titles of marshall cavendish which is a children's book and educational publisher, so they have now bought the rights to the titles, and there going to be incorporating it with their recently launched n.y.-based imprint which is run by laurence kirsch palm, was the ceo of time warner books.

and also most recently a literary agent as well. so is amazon has been aggressively moving into publishing, both from a traditional standpoint, but there have also been doing a lot of stuff with respect to people who can publish directories will. so as a result publishes rightly or wrongly feel perhaps a little wary of what amazon is doing, but they have been moving so aggressively that they have been competing in terms of trying to buy titles. the new york unit, for example, has been spending large advances for titles by the likes of director and comedian penny marshall. amazon will be one to watch and to the new year. i hope i haven't gone on too long with a to everything amazon, but it's hard not to let the publishing talking about them at length. >> so publishers have kind of a love-hate relationship. would that be fair to say?

>> i think that's a good way of characterizing it. one way i have also looked at it is that they are in front of me because on the other and amazon competes with them in terms of being publishers. it competes with them in terms of marketing and the light, but at the same time publishes need them because amazon is a very big player in the online resells service. and so publishers want to have their books starts on amazon as well. so i think everybody is still trying to kind of figure out how they can have multiple courses of relationships for like a better chance. on the one hand there is some some biases on the other hand there is some competition and everybody can kind of move along accordingly, i suppose. >> propofol we show some figures from 2011 on book sales in general i wanted to ask you about two large book companies to booksellers, barnes and noble

and their new notes and the demise of borders in 2011. >> let's first look the barns and nobles. for example, they had said in a recent earnings report that the digital business to which includes note, the neck tablet, which has just recently come out and is now priced at 249 ps of a direct competitor. barnes and noble predicted the digital business to the approximately $880 million. and in the most recent fiscal quarter, which i think was the first quarter 2012 at digital business was about $220 million. the digital business is going like gangbusters for barnes and noble. if you walk into new york city the largest in the city. what they have done is in the

back there is this gigantic kiosk devoted to all things neck. you walk around, various demos, the tablets and notes for people to try out. it is so clear just in the way that they have been remodeling the stores around the country that, you know, note is where they want their business to go. there ceo has said repeatedly that barnes and noble accounts for her anywhere between 26 and 28% of the overall digital market. so they have been moving aggressively, but to the flip side of what has been happening on the hillside, of course another physical side, what can you macy books rarely available. they have also been expanding their toys and games department, trying to figure out how we keep evolving when does it keeps

rising and the physical but space keeps falling. now, one thing that bonds and noble as that every now and then is that the expected pick-up of the significant business on the physical side from borders recent bankruptcy. borders has been having many, many problems for many years. i mean, this goes back to late 90's to all sears o.c. of changes to 2001 when they outsource their online business to amazon. did not actually take it back in house until 2008 to just a lot of bad leases that there were locked into that there were pink, you know, very expensive rates on. so by the end of 2010 the writing was very much on the wall. they finally declared chapter 11 bankruptcy on february 16th, and then when it went its way to the courts and look like it might be bought by a potential buyer. that fell through, and then finally in the summer in us there were going to liquidate all the remaining stores. i mean, chapter 11, 642 stores.

and slowly they just all disappear so that by september he would walk by and see going out of business signs 90 percent off. i mean, it's a very terrible story of how essentially 10 percent of the book market just vanished of the face of europe. and it remains to be seen whether that will ever be accounted for again. a digital be able to pick up the slack? will want to know will be able to pick up the business from potential customers? there has been some indications that that might be happening, but i think we will have a better sense of what is going on perhaps in the first quarter of next year. >> what about independent booksellers? how is their year in 2011 overall? >> well, if you ask independent booksellers on the case by case basis some of them have done rather well. now, granted i lived in new york and i think that that creates a certain selection bias because

there are a number of great independent bookstores and especially brooklyn, and they all seem to be doing very well. they carry their selections very selectively. and as a result that think there really understand what their customers want, but they don't charge and a surly overreached. another example, i think, is what the best-selling writer is doing. when she went out on book tour for her new novel which did phenomenally well and garnered a great many great reviews, she talked about what her next project would be, which is to open an independent bookstore in tennessee which had lost a whole number of different stores of big box chains as well as independents. the parent company filed for bankruptcy. even though the kid was doing well because the parent company was not there when out of business. and so it's just a few weeks ago

they opened up a much smaller bookstore. but i think by virtue of them being involved and also just the sense that people in nashville really wanted to have an independent bookstore and also that they are starting small, four dozen scurfy, there is a sense that even though people might call her crazy to open an independent bookstore when things are changing so rapidly that digs in moving so fast and the digital front that as long as she and haze and their staff can be very savvy of what the start and which doctors they have been for signings and how they approach the selling of bucks they do stand a very good chance. they stand as good chances in the business that opens. there is always a high probability one can close, but i am an optimist at heart. i like seeing these independents battle and stay afloat. another thing that i think has

up to independence not so much on a statistical fraud, but perhaps just for my share from is that many independents are able to sell the-books, and that is because of their association with the american booksellers association signed on. they became partners. google would enable them to sell the books in the store. now independence are not about to stalk kindle books. if you as an independent bookseller about amazon going to give all slew of any responses. that certainly would warrant and lied about the news of the marshall cavendish and also an apt that amazon is doing where you can, i guess, on saturday you can walk into other types of retail stores, and if you tell them what the prices will give you $5 off. there were none the less upset. so even though i've still out of

waiting on the precise data about health much of the digital market share in the been the booksellers have, they have some skin in the game. i think it speaks very well to, you know, just having a chance and not being completely disregarded with respect to the business side. ,. >> a recent headline in publishers weekly. the book's sales doubled in september, mass-market taint was that line here is the association of american publishers in 2011. adult paperbacks sales were down 18%. adult hardcover sales down 18%. adult mass-market down nearly 30%. but up 144%. >> yes. it is what i was saying before

the digital side is certainly the fastest growing. all the things that i mentioned, borders, the general shrinking of physical books, even barnes and noble has been closing some stores, largely due to the onerous leases but they're trying to find a way not to be a part of any more. now, that said, there is always a caveat with respect to the association of american publishers, which is that the data that they receive this up reported by publishers and it does fluctuate from month to month. so even though it does appear that mass-market sales are taking, and there are certain to be down in large part because they're not being stocked in the same way that they once were. there aren't as many outlets, but it is, i think, important to point out that the special even on the design the number of publishers that report of a month-to-month basis does change i think will ultimately be helpful is to look at it from a yearly basis. eventually the ap in association

with the book industry study what is going to release another edition of a new venture, and is to just go venture, and that will give a much clearer snapshot of what the actual book industry statistics are at the moment. in the most recent one it appeared that digital sales in 2010 were closing in on the 10 percent mark. we know for sure that sometimes there well in excess of 20% on a month-to-month basis. suffice to say that it is hovering around 20 percent mark. especially in the opening we can be much, much higher in the 40 to 50% range. but i think it will have a much more clear picture of what the stats are when the next iteration comes out, which i believe will be in a multitude. i'm not certain as of yet. i suspect it will be one of those things that will lend an e-mail and we will have to post very quickly in order to determine what is really going on.

>> what to sales to for profits for publishers and authors to act. >> it is funny you mention it because it especially for the largest, which has moved to something called the agency model where if you have a total piece of the pie 30 percent of the pie goes to the retailer, the amazon or barnes and noble or apple. retailers. that is 75 percent open, left over to the publisher which then distributes 25% net of that to the author, which roughly translates to about 17 and a half% of the overall royalties. yes. so what has happened is that with those publishes moving toward the a dissing model because they're getting a larger piece of the pie than it would have under a different model, many other publishers are still using , but which has a

completely separate business model, publishers are making money off of e-book. if you look at the various attorneys reports from the largest houses the reason why some of the profits of been going up is in large part because of the-books. so as a result they are certainly happier with how things going. of course would like to make more money, everybody does. but the move to the agency model was a way for publishers to mitigate against a downward pricing trends and also enable the profit margins to stay hire and build. >> this is book tv on c-span2, 48 hours of nonfiction books every weekend. our guest is will look at 2011 in review. she is the news editor of publishers marketplace. publishes a marketplace dud, mr. website. one more piece of publishing is

before we look at some specific books. what is the status of the coup will but settlement? >> that is a very good question. it is a byzantine and from the film's. for example, on december 5th to will have moved to dismiss the authors guild which have been separated itself from the association of american publishers. originally there were part in together, but after the judge expressed his displeasure with how these are going basically everybody had to kind of go back to the starting gate. so with that move, the judge has set a dec. 23rd deadline for approval to then file a motion to dismiss. the fight to cut the plaintiffs response, at january 23rd. and kugels responses than two on february 3rd. now, at the same time the authors guild is trying to determine whether this 210 game class action status.

there are these parallel tracks that are happening with the do bullboat lawsuit. we are still, of course upon schedule if they keep going according to the trial schedule or a child may happen at the end of 2012, believe. so basically there are a lot of hearings that are being scheduled, a lot of motions being filed, and it remains to be seen as too where things will go from here. >> according to the new york times best-seller list hard-cover nonfiction, here are 2011 best sellers. laura ellen brand, and broken his number one. thirteen weeks at number 150 weeks on the new york times best-seller list. in the garden of beast. third for the year. twenty-five weeks on the new york times best-seller list.

the greater journey. americans in paris. seventeen weeks on the best-seller list. number five, howard weisman, c and temple, seal team six memoirs of an elite navy seals sniper. what was her book about? >> she talked about a man named louis center in the you had been an athlete and then ended up in world war ii, believe, he was a prisoner of war. at least as of the few months ago he was still alive and was well into his 90's. of course of fascinating story because she has chronic fatigue syndrome and often cannot leave the house. she was conducting a lot of research from her house and through prodigious telephone calls and outsourcing of people helping her to bring in documents and things like that.

and from that she produced this tremendous piece of not only scholarship and research but also this very inspiring story that was released at the end of 2010, and as you noted, rose to the best-seller list. so i think it is an indication of how people really respond to these stories of team spirit. told extremely well, and i suspect that just like her previous books, it will keep selling into 2012. >> says she has chronic fatigue syndrome and is now leave the house often, she cannot really go on tour like other authors to correct? >> that's right. but i think it is an indication of just how strong the story was also, i believe that he was available for interviews. such a year from indirectly was also very inspiring. even though she herself could not go out and about to promoted there were work around.

she did do some interviews as long as there were set of and took special care within needs. there are a lot of ways to promote books, especially banks to the internet ran author does not necessarily have to go out on a national book tour anymore. unfortunately this is where using physical bookstores also impress the effective and of the torque. there are fewer places to go. less likely a chance to even have a tour. >> is there proof that if an author goes on to or more books console? >> i don't necessarily think that is the case. and it also depends on the book. i think that while readers do like to be -- need some others, i have seen this myself and the literary fiction writer initially appears that various bookstores and even though he was at four different stores in new york city, all of them were standing room only, some even

attracted several hundred people, but to extrapolate that to everybody is not something that i think anybody can do. it really is a case by case basis. >> if you look at the new york times best-seller list and you combine print and e-book the number-one bestseller in 2011 was heaven is for real, little boys astounding story of his trip to have an impact. laura helen brennan came in second. the immortal life of an rea. a 2010 title that was on the new york times best-seller list for 41 weeks. and then tsa when. be best-selling nonfiction the book. and you know, printless as well.

do you have any idea how many copies of those books got so? >> it is funny you mention. i feel like, especially as the diesel market share keeps rising , find the statistics that one can rely on, it becomes increasingly more difficult. i'll give an example. neilson has a service call books and which checks anywhere from 70 to 75 percent of prince sales. now even as far back as three years ago when the kindle was still new in the book sales were barely into the single digits, one could look and at least get a pretty good snapshot of how a book was selling. it depended on what outlook there were reporting. they still don't report on certain ones, but again, it was at least a fairly good relative snapshot. but because it does not report

dismal sales the promise that there will be, but so far that has not come to fruition. as a result, 70 to 75% print. again, as i said earlier in the broadcast, for some best-selling titles the book sales make up far more than the 20% average overall. it can be 40%, 50 percent, sometimes even higher. so they're not been accounted for. the numbers don't have the same have done the same power that they once did. and because publishers, of course they know what the sales figures are, but with amazon not wanting to reveal what devices are being sold and how many e books are being sold by is a noble has taken that up and turn so there is just a lot of not reporting at the moment. one can certainly look at the new york times list. the only started tracking earlier this year and have their own system which may be a

combination of hard data and flights of fancy as the hardcover and paperback will sometimes proved to be. it would appear that heaven is for real which has sold a tremendous quantity, i believe, well in excess of billion copies , but i do think that it appears to be a strong e bookseller as well. >> to religious books and religious theme books sell well? >> absolutely. also i think why another one of the big publishing stories which would play out into 2012 was what harpercollins bought thomas nelson which happens to publish seven is for real. relatively recent statistics indicate that harpercollins was the fourth largest book trade publishing house, and thomas nelson was the seventh largest degrees of this is a big deal. harper, i believe, only bella more than about $200 million to buy thomas nelson.

and harper, of course, also is a religious publisher in its own right. they own or have a very strong stake in sun derbent which also publishes a lot of religious books in the bible, various rivals and the like. so the combination creates this tremendous religious publishing powerhouse under the harpercollins umbrella. and i do think -- one can look back to how the left behind busted several years ago. of course no licking it happen is for real, i suppose this may be another instance of a case by case because the idea that a little boy has seen have been in and came back to tell about it is an irresistible tell. especially when we are still mired in the economic doldrums. people need to be uplifted. perhaps there is also a small cross over element where we are not just sitting there religious segment but the larger book world as well.

so but i do think that we cannot count as a religious publishing circle for big publishing stories coming in the new year. >> 2011 pulitzer prize winners for fiction, a visit from the dunes quad, history. the fiery trail. abraham lincoln and american slavery. biography or autobiography. poetry, the best of it and general nonfiction the emperor of maladies. did you have a chance to read that? >> you know, i didn't, and i had picked up an early copy when it was featured at book expo america to read it came at the end of 2010 to may 2010, so already the publisher had been targeting this as one of the big titles for the fall, and it is easy to

see why. talks about the totality of cancer. and noted cancer specialist, i believe. immemorial from gathering in new york city. he is certainly an expert in the subject. from what i can tell he imparted this knowledge with a tremendously human way. it was very well written. and it was as the result of the were well received. it won the pulitzer and it also won awards of the other side of the elastic. it passively been garnering tremendous acclaim, and that think it is because it is a definitive and how it treats the subjects. >> winning a pulitzer of sales? >> absolutely it does. i would venture to say that the pulitzer prize more than any other prize in america boost sales. certainly did on the fiction side wins and 41. visit from the goon squad has attracted some attention when it was released in june of 2010. certainly among various

independent bookseller communities online. everybody i pretty much talk to love this book and was recommended in left and right. there was this tremendous momentum that was built up near the end of the year. eagan won the national book critics circle prize as well. but it was the pulitzer that really catapulted a visit from the gun squad from the cells and point. the paperback it just come out. it was about to come out, and that also helps. a portable edition of this award winning but the people and pick up, and i do believe that its sales increased over time. ..

>> in our coverage this past year, you can go to booktv.org and in the upper left-hand corner is a search function. you can type in the name of the author, and you can>omiq! it online whenever you want. we covered eric foner, ron chernow and siddhartha knew car gee, well, the last time we talked to sarah weinman was at the national book awards, and the national book award winners for 2011, fiction. jasmine ward, "salvage the bones." nonfiction was stephen green great, "the swerve." sarah weinman, what does the national book award do for sales? does it have the same impact?

>> it doesn't have the same impact as the pulitzer, but it does lead to some sales boost as well. like, for example, with "salvage the bones," even though bloomsbury had wrought it out, it had not received much attention prior to winning the national book award. "the washington post" gave it a rave review, but that was after she was nominated. since then there's been additional coverage from the guardian, los angeles times, npr's onboard as well. bloomsbury increased their print run by another 50,000 copies, and it's taken a while. i think it's more of a slow build in large part because it deals with hurricane katrina, and so it's a very tough subject. but i think those who have the staying power will find that it's a very rewarding read.

truth be told, i think that the national book award win withers are perhaps a little more off the beaten track than you may find with the pulitzers. i do know that when nicky finney won for poetry, she gave such a tremendously enfiring speech -- inspiring speech, i think many in the crowd wanted to just stand up and cheer for her. it was with such passion and such fire that i think it really caused people to go, you know, who is this woman, and i should be reading more of her poetry. with stephen greenblatt, you know, he's dealing with a big subject as well, the very concept of modernity. so it's good that the national book awards recognize this. >> and booktv covered the national book awards this year. again, go to booktv, use the search function, and you can watch the entire ceremony.

i wanted to talk about some of the biographies that have come out in the past year including one very recent one, currently number one on "the new york times" bestseller list, walther ice actson's -- isakson's steve jobs. >> oh, yes. i very much enjoyed reading that. i started it, i think, about two or three days after publication date. i read nonfiction more slowly because there's such a tremendous amount to absorb,px7d isakson, clearly, he talked to a great many people. he, of course, talked to steve jobs several times including the last interview in august just weeks before his death in october. so the portrait that isakson painted of steve jobs is a tremendously complicated one. this is not a guy who was about roses and puppies by any stretch

of the imagination. he was driven. he could be brutal. he could be tremendously demanding. but one could argue that that type of driven personality produces results. all you have to do is look at how many people carry around their iphones or their ipads or type on mac book airs. i mean, apple certainly, especially after jobs came back in the late '90s, became a force to be reckoned with. so it was a fascinating portrait of this very driven man who turned around a company and made it so much his own. and, of course, there's this arc where he and steve wozniak had created it, and then jobs was forced out, and he was in the so-called wilderness, but his wilderness was in creating, in buying pixar and turning it into a multibillion dollar company as well. so it's just an amazing portrait of, i guess, american capitalism

ultimately too. >> how much cooperation did steve jobs give to walther isakson in that book? and the original publication date was moved up from march 2012, wasn't it? >> yes, it was. i think it was originally moved up to the end of the year, and when it became very clear that jobs' health was not good, it was also moved up again, i think, a couping of days after jobs' death. what's interesting, too, even though it's clearly been selling tremendously well, simon & schuster has not released sales figures. i did attempt to ask them several times why this was the case, but they just felt it was not in their best interests to do so. but it's very clear that it's selling just tremendously well and, yes, jobs did cooperate. he granted several interviews to isakson, and he also had said,

basically, that he wasn't going to fight him for, on any unflattering portraits that emerged. he wanted, essentially, i believe the quote was i wanted my kids to know me, he wanted his chirp to know him as he truly was so they could understand some of the decisions he made in order perhaps to stay much later at the office or spend that much time turning apple into the juggernaut that it is. it certainly accomplishes that, i believe. >> well, viking had a biography out this year about the late manning marable, malcolm x. >> that's right. marable had been working on this for, i believe, a decade if not more. and unfortunately, he passed away just days before the biography's publication date. whether that influenced coverage is not for me to say, but certainly it received great

reviews and also some controversy because it did put forward some additional or alternate theories as to what really happened to malcolm x when he was assassinated in 1965. but certainly, i mean, it was a finalist for the national book award as well, it's been on many best-of lists so far this year, it certainly was one of the most notable biographs that was released in all of 2011. >> and three other autobiographies came out beginning with donald condoleez, dick cheney, "in my time" came out in 2011 as well, as did donald rumsfeld's "known and unknown: a memoir." do you know how well these books sold and what the rank was? >> although i believe all of them placed fairly highly on the

bestseller list, they just didn't seem to have the staying power that other political autobiographies had. the benchmark simply seems to be bill clinton's "my life," even going back many years, hillary clinton's "living history." even last year with george bush's "decision points," that was the top-selling nonfiction book of 2010. these books just didn't quite work as well. and perhaps it was an indication of why could be found in some of the reviews which felt that each of these particular political figures didn't seem to be as forth coming as, perhaps, critics and readers had hoped, that they weren't necessarily holding themselves fully accountable for what actually transpired during the bush administration, that there was perhaps more, you know, trying to be an apologist for what happened as opposed to, you know, just looking at what

actually happened and trying to come to terms with it. of course, that's their right. this is their story, and each of them can feel free to tell it how they choose to tell it, but it also mean that the critical reception will go accordingly. >> well, you mentioned former president bill clinton who also had another book this year, november of 2011, "back to work: why we need smart government for a strong economy." did this book get a good reaction? >> i think in large part because, um, its publication date was announced very close to the actual publication date, i think there was only about a two month lead time to the best of my recollection it did seem, and this is just my own impressions talking, that the overall reception, it just didn't seem to be quite as much fanfare, and maybe it's just, of course, that it cannot possibly have as much as clinton's "my life."

i mean, that was, you know, several hundred page, if not a thousand page biography which he wrote and which really took a full accounting of his presidency. this book was not even 200 pages long, it's more of a working paper about what governments should do and how, essentially, the parties should stop fighting and work together to come up with some reasonable ways to not only get people back to work, but also some green technology so there can be, you know, more environmentally-sound ideas coming in the future. and it was more ideas driven. so i think as a result once the ideas had kind of been disseminated, that was it for the book. does that mean it couldn't have another life down the line? i'm sure it could. but it did seem as if impact wasn't quite as forceful as clinton's previous tomes. >> other political books that came out this year include ann coulter's demonic, mark stein's

"after america: get ready for armageddon, henry kissinger, tom friedman and michael mandelbaum teamed up for "that used to be us," and toure, "who's afraid of post-blackness?" conservative books in general seem to sell very well, sarah weinman. >> they do seem to be selling very well, but as with any segment, there is some attrition. again, it seemed as if ann coulter's newest book didn't have the same impact as previous book. stein may have had some, but it's also interesting just to take a larger view of this that even though there are so many nonfiction books that are being produced, the advent of some new digital companies that specialize in shorter tomes,

companies like byliner, what they're doing is they're publishing primarily nonfiction that run between, say, 10,000 and 30,000 words, and it'll be interesting to see if some of these political books which at least to my mind feel that they're stretched out a little bit, that they could have a really concise argument in about 100 pages or 20,000 words or thereabouts instead of being padded. you know, will they go over to an online-only outlet? we're also seeing as we move into 2012 and the election year some partnerships between web sites and publishers to produce shorter e-book first publications. for example, random house and politico are partnering on a series of election-oriented titles, the first one just came out, and i believe there will be three more before november of 2012. there are also other partnerships that are forming or about to be formed along those lines as well.

so will it change the political nonfiction landscape where especially because it's so easy to just get news online and even analysis online, how will we think of how a book is packaged? do we want ann coulter or other pundits to impart what they feel they need to say in book format, or are they better served in an electronic context? it remains to be seen, but it'll be something i'm watching out for. >> well, speaking of political books, coming out next year is david mare us in' book on barack obama, "blam -- barack obama, the story," is what it's called. what have you heard about this? >> well, i believe this has been in the works for at least a couple of years. as with any book about any major political figure like the sitting president, it will be interesting to see not only new information that he uncovers,

but whether that information will remain secreted away until the book's publication, or will it be leaked out to various other publication cans well in advance to trum can up some advance -- drum up some advance attention? certainly, it will be interesting to see what this book will uncover about barack obama. >> and that is due out in june of 2012. another partial memoir that came out this year, michael moore, "here comes trouble." how did this do, sarah weinman? >> the impression i got is that it, again, did rather well but didn't quite measure up to his previous books. now, granted, moore has not published in book form for well over a decade, so the announcement of a new book was certainly greeted with some -- no small degree of fanfare. he was, also, at the bookexpo america trade show reading an excerpt from his book, and i do

know the reaction from booksellers and other industry people in the crowd was, by and large, positive. so certainly that, i think, led to additional coverage as the book was released. >> both ann coulter and michael moore appeared this past year on booktv's "in depth." again, booktv.org is the place to go if you want to watch that online. just use the search function in the upper left-hand corner, type in the author's name, and you can watch it online. sarah weinman, if people go to publishers marketplace.com, what will they find there? >> well, they'll be able to find the news blog in which we look at the top stories of the day. publishers marketplace also has a deals database. we also have many other databases related to bestsellers and reviews. it's basically an online exchange for all things related to the book publishing industry

and for the book community. >> two other books that came along a little off the beaten path, so to speak, and if you could speak to these as well. beginning with amanda foreman, "a land on fire," put out by random house this past summer. and candice millard, "destiny of the republic." by doubleday. >> um, what i can speak to is the fact that both these books, i believe, have appeared on sears best-of lists. i believe the foreman actually made "the new york times" book review or perhaps the daily publication's ten best list. so certainly, you know, looking back in history perhaps the appeal of these books is just if we know what went on many decades or centuries before us, perhaps we can glean some wisdom as to what's been happening now. certainly, when i read books on history, one of my favorite books of the year, for example,

was robert k. massey's katherine the great biography. i mean, here was a woman who had to contend with monarchy-related machinations and a coup that took her husband out of power so she could ascend to the throne, and also just trying to find a way to overcome the serf problem unsuccessfully as it turned out. so there are certain political, economic and historical antisee departments to what we can see today and try to figure out if we've learned anything from those centuries past. in some cases we have and are thankful that we do. >> you also put on your list that we asked you for in advance of this taping, you also included t.j. english, "the savage city." what is that book about, sarah weinman? >> english was chronicling new york during 1963 and 1973, and

what i really liked about it was he was looking at the city in tremendous turmoil. there was one case of a black man who was accused of the brutal murder of two women, and the way he was treated by police was just, it just was not right. and, ultimately, it turned out that he was not the culprit. but it would take several years to work its way through the courts before he was ultimately exonerated. he also contrasted this against the rise of the black panthers, especially in harlem. and so it was just really interesting for me to learn about an aspect about the city that i knew something about, but not enough to have any real knowledge of it. and i just felt that it really enriched what i know and love about new york. and also how it's changed as well. i mean, one can only look at times square and the billboards and the loudness and the sense of total corporatism and

contrast it with the seediness that predominated in the '60s, '70s and even the '80s. >> and those are two of sarah weinman's picks for 2011, robert massey's "katherine the great," and t.j. english, "the savage city." several major works of economic books came out, and i just want to show a couple here beginning michael lewis, "boomerang travels in the new third world," sylvia nasser, "grand pursuit," and ron suskind. and gretchen morgenson with joshua rosner. >> i think in all those incidents and i'd include nasar

in this, she's trying to trace the roots of how we got to where we are, so michael lewis, of course, he had done the big short which had sold tremendously well and still is. boomer rang is a come pend yun of -- compendium of pieces he did to kind of look at how the economy was both effected and affected by what was happening in those outposts as well. and suskind, he was talking about the treasury department as well as the top investment bankers and telling various stories that might help to illuminate why the economy tanked so tremendously in 2008 and why we're still ri covering from this -- recovering from this and also whether there's still some unexploded bombs that are set to drop anytime soon. the same, i think, would go for

the morgan seven and the rosner too. i think we're going to see several more volumes trying to make sense of what led to the economic crash, what led to all sorts of malfeasance and the bailouts and all of those things which, certainly, not only america, but every place around the world is trying to get a grip on. one need only look at what's happening in europe at the moment and with the precariousness of the euro zone to see that we're nowhere near out of the woods. and sometimes books are the best way to kind of get a sense of what's going on and perhaps anticipate what will happen next. >> well, one history book on economics was mary gabriel's love and capital, carl and jenny marx. this one did quite well, didn't it? it got notable on several different lists?

>> it also was nominated for the national book award. i mean, to my mind how can you not win by combining the story of karl marx and his wife against the larger backdrop of changing economic times, his theories about socialism which led to communism. you know, contrasting love and money is a great way to find a way in to write a biography, and it sounds to me like gabriel spent a great deal of time parsing everything about the marxs' relationship but also what marx worked on. and it's certainly a very thorough volume as a result. >> well, we've only got a few minutes left, sarah weinman, and i wanted to look ahead to 2012. here are some of the titles that booktv is tracking, coming out in the next couple of months including south carolina governor nikki haley's "can't is not an option: my american

story." and that's being published by sentinel press. neil degrasse tyson is coming out with space chronicles, and robert care row is coming out with the years of lyndon johnson, the passage of power. that's coming out in may, and that's the fourth in his lbj biographical set. sarah weinman, what's caught your eye for early 2012? >> well, certainly the caro. i remember when the announcement was made i think i did the internet virtual equivalent of a happy dance. i mean, his books are so good. he's just managed to document and plug every depth of lynn don johnson so far, and, of course, his first book, "the power broker," about robert moses continues to be a water shed bench mark for how to write a biography. so understandably, this new

volume which i believe still only gets us into the vice presidency and not even into his presidency proper yet, so even though caro who is not getting younger by any stretch of the imagination has been working on lyndon johnson for, you know, almost three decades i believe now, um, his next volume he's going to have to address the presidency, and it'll be interesting to see how quickly he'll be able to produce it. so certainly i think this fourth volume is exciting on its own, but it's also exciting for what additional research and scholarship and new material he'll be able to present about lyndon johnson's presidency some years down the line. >> and finally, let's return to where we began, sarah weinman. the publishing industry, and what changes are we going to see in 2012? and i know that's kind of a dumb question, but what are you going to be looking for? >> well, i think it's -- it's more, i think, a very

complicated question. certainly, it will be very interesting to see how amazon contends as a publisher. for example, as i noted earlier in the broadcast it had a new new york-based decision, but it also has several imprints mostly focused on genre based out of seattle. so what i'm wondering is whether amazon's culture of, essentially, looking at data and algorithms, how it will contend with a more traditional publishing type of imprint which is what the new york-based one is. another thing with respect to amazon is that for the moment because they're so content to have exclusives, will they be able to get their books stocked in barnes & noble? i think a good example is what happened with a title called "the hangman's daughter" which, actually, was one of my favorite crime thrillers of 2011.

amazon had published the e-book edition which sold north of 250,000 copies, and then they struck a deal to produce the trade edition. the trade edition sold all right, i think about 30,000 copies all told. but it wasn't stocked widely, if at all, in barnes & noble because barnes & noble's attitude was we're not going to stock books that are only available exclusively on a digital level. we want a chance to have our own digital edition. so what we may be seeing are more exclusive deals not just with amazon, but barnes & noble has done some as well, other retailers may be trying this in turn. will there just be more at theification of how books are published? will we also see authors opt to leave their publishing houses for different pastures be it fully self-published or in some

partnership with a larger retailer? it remains to be seen. will we see barnes & noble reduce the number of stores? that may be a prospect as well. it'll just be interesting, ultimately, to see how further the digital market share will grow especially after christmas and whether the physical book declines will be able to be offset by the growth in digital. >> sarah weinman is the news editor of publishers marketplace. thank you for being on booktv and helping us with our 2011 year in review. her web site, publishersmarketplace.com. you can also go to booktv.org if you would like to watch any of the authors or many of the authors that we've talked about in the past hour. ms. weinman, thank you for joining us from our new york studio. >> thanks so much for having me on again, peter. >> you're watching booktv on

c-span2, 48 hours of authors and books every weekend. >> recently, "the new york times" released their top ten best books of 2011. here are the five nonfiction titles.