>> martyr wagner is the author of this new library of congress book, the illustrated timeline of the civil war. >> there's much more to the newly designed c-span.org. more video with 11 figure choices making it easy for you to watch today's events live and recorded. more features. you can quickly scroll through all the programs on the c-span networks and receive an e-mail alert when your program is scheduled to air. more access are more popular series and programs like "washington journal," booktv and american history tv. more availability. user and the channel finder to see where our three c-span networks are available on cable or satellite systems across the country. click on c-span products for dvds and books, and more.

at the all new c-span.org. >> and you're watching booktv on c-span2, 48 hours of books every weekend. as 2011 comes to a close, we thought we 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 weinman is the news editor of publishers marketplace. ms. weinman, if you would start by telling us, giving us just a little bit of a snapshot of the publishing industry in 2011 come if you write a paragraph or two on what the publishing industry did this year. >> oh, my goodness, where to even begin? i think the best way to look at what happened in the publishing industry this year is the increasing rise of digital books, digital market share, and also gives tremendous transformation of the physical

book market. for example, i guess a really good way to look at it is through the almighty prism of amazon. for example, amazon introduced just a couple months ago some new devices. for example, the kindle fire which is their answer to the tablet market. it is priced at $199, and just based off of pre-orders and new shipments alone, various analysts have projected that it will reach number two in sales behind apple's ipad which, of course, is priced at the lowest end at $499. the thing with amazon's kindle fire is that it's also interact competition with barnes & noble which we will get to in a bit. but amazon also introduced some other lower cost kindle devices. can. >> is like amazon's reckoning, excuse me, the number one best selling the reader.

it's also that reckoning by analysts as well. of course, amazon isn't exactly going to kill anybody exactly how many candles it has sold. they will keep sticking with that because they make so much money. they clearly feel that they can get away with not exactly parting sales figures. but in any case, the kindle fire has been received somewhat mixed reviews. a lot of people like it because it's a media consumption device where people can play video games and watching movies and getting access to various things through amazon's prime service where you pay $79 you get things shipped in today's service, a whole bunch of other things. but there's also some people who like to slow, lackey. so be interesting to see if some of the projections that i think one analyst says it will ship

4 million units between i guess november and the end of the year, the christmas holiday is going to be a really big factor as to how it's going to do. so it'll be interesting to see if that will actually hold into the new year. amazon of course is not just about devices. it's also moving very aggressively into the publishing world as well. for example, just this week news broke that they have bought many titles, about 450 titles, of marshall cavendish which is a children's book and educational publisher. so they now bought the rights to the titles and they will be incorporating it with the recently launched new york-based in print which is run by lawrence kirschbaum, once the ceo of time warner books, and also most recently a literary agent as well. so amazon has been aggressively moving into publishing, both seemingly from a traditional standpoint, but they've also

includes a lot of stuff with respect to people who can publish directly as well. as a result, publishers, rightly or wrongly, feel perhaps a little weary of what amazon is doing, but they've been moving so aggressively that they been competing in terms of trying to buy titles. a new york uniform sample has been spending large advances were titles by the lack of direct and commuting in marshall. and again amazon as always is going to be one to watch into the new year. so i hope i haven't gone on too long with respect to everything amazon, but it's hard not to look at the publishing industry without talking about them at length. >> publishers have kind of a love-hate relationship with amazon, would that be fair to say? >> i think that's a good way of characterizing it. one way i've also looked at it is they are frenemies. on one and amazon competes with them in terms of being publishers.

it competes with them in terms of marketing and the like, but at the same time publishers need them because amazon is a very big player in the online retail service. and so publishers want to have their books stocked on amazon as well. so i think everybody still trying to figure out how they can have multiple courses, relationships for lack of a better term. where on the one hand there's some symbiosis but on the other hand, there's some competition and everybody can kind of move along accordingly, i suppose. >> before we show some figures from 2011 on book sales in general i wanted to ask you about two large book companies, booksellers. barnes & noble in their new nook, and the demise of borders in 2011. >> yes. let's first look at barnes & noble. for example, they had said in a recent earnings report that

their digital business which include nook, it includes nook color. it now includes the nook tablet which is just recently come out and is now priced at $249. and it's interact competitor with kindle's kindle fire. across $880 million, and in the most recent this cookware which i think was the first quarter of 2012, that digital business was about $220 million. so the digital business has been going like gangbusters for barnes & noble's. if you walk into near cities union square barnes & noble, which is i believe their largest store in the city, what they have done is in the back there's this gigantic kiosk devoted to all things nook, we walk around and their various demos, tablets and nook's for people to try

out. all manner of accessories and other digital related things. so it's so clear just from the way that they been remodeling the store and other stores run the country back, you know, nook is where they want their business to go. they are ceo, william lynch, has said repeatedly that barnes & noble accounts for anywhere between 26 and 20% of the overall digital market. so they've been moving aggressively, but the flipside of what's been happening with barnes & noble on the digital side is of course the physical side, if you walk into a store you may see fewer books readily available. they've also been expanding their toys and games department. they are trying to can't figure how to keep evolving when digital keeps rising and the physical book space keeps falling. one thing that barnes & noble has done every death is expected to get significant business on the physical side from borders recent bankruptcy.

borders was having many, many props for many years. this goes back to the late '90s, goes back to a whole series of ceo changes to 2001 when outsourced to online business amazon but it didn't take it back in house until 2008. to just a lot of bad leases that they were locked into, very expensive rates on. so by the end of 2010, the writing was removed on the wall and then the declared chapter 11 bankruptcy on february 16. then it wind its way through the courts and it looked like it might be bought by potential buyers, that fell through and then finally in the summer they announce they're going to liquidate all the remaining stores. it started before chapter 11 with 142 stores, and slowly they just all disappeared, so that by september he would walk by and see going out of business signs, 90% off. i mean, it's a very terrible

story of how essentially 10% of the book market just vanish off the face of the earth. it remains to be seen whether that will ever be accounted for again. will digital be able to pick up the slack? will barnes & noble the the other to pick up business from potential borders customers? there's been some indications that that might be happening, but i think we will have a better sense of what's going on perhaps in the first quarter of next year. >> sarah weinman, what about independent booksellers? how was their year in 2011 alone? >> if you ask independent booksellers on a case-by-case basis, some of them have done rather well. granted, i live in new york and i think that that creates a certain selection bias because there are a number of great independent bookstores, especially in brooklyn. they all seem to be doing very well. they curate their selections very selectively, and as result

i think they really understand what their customers want when they don't necessary qaeda overreach. another example i think is what the best selling writer is doing. when she went out on book tour for her newest novel state of wonder, which diff anomaly well, garnered a great many 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, both big box chains as well as independence. for example, they had a david kid star whose parent company filed for bankruptcy. even though david kid was doing all, the parent company was not, they went out of business. so just a few weeks ago, in conjunction with others, opened up a much smaller bookstore. but i think by virtue of them being involved in the sense that people in national really want to independent bookstore, and

also that they are starting small, only going to be about 4000 square feet, there is the sense that even the people might call her crazy to open an independent bookstore when things are changing so rapidly and fix them up so fast on the digital front, but as long as she and hayes and their staff can be savvy about what they stock and which authors they might have imprecise, and how they approach the selling of books, i think they stand a very good chance. they stand as good a chance as any business that opens. there's always a high probability one can close, but i'm an optimist at heart and i like these independence battle and stay afloat and in some. another thing that is help independence not so much on a statistical front but perhaps just remind you about is that many independents are able to the e-books, and that's because

their association to the american booksellers association signed on with google books and it became partners, so that google would enable them to sell e-books through their store. now, and independents are not about to start kindle books. if you ask independent bookseller about amazon you're going to get a hold slew of angry responses. that certain was borne out this week in light of the news about those marshall cavendish and also an app 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 price is they will give you $5 off. it's not a physical bookstore but independent booksellers were nonetheless upset. so even though i'm still waiting on precise data about how much of a digital marjah independent booksellers have, the fact that they have some skin in the game i think speaks very well too,

you know, just having a chance. and not being completely disregarded with respect to the digital world. mimic there was a recent headline in publishers weekly, e-book sales double in september, mass market tanked. here are some figures from the association of american publishers. in 2011, adult paperback sales were down 18%. adult hardcover sales down 18%, and adult mass market down nearly 30%, but e-books up 144%. >> yes. i mean, what i was saying before, the digital side is certainly the fastest growing and all the things i have mentioned, the demise of borders, the general shrinking a physical book space, even barnes & noble has been closing some stores largely due to owners

leases that they're trying to find a way not to be a part of it anymore. now, that said, there's always a caveat with respect association of american publishers, which is that the data they receive is self-reported by publishers and it does fluctuate from month to month. so even though it does appear that mass-market sales were taking, and they are certainly down in large part because they're not being stocked in the same way that they once were. that are not as many outlets, but it is i think important to point out that especially even on the digital side the number of publishers that report on a month-to-month basis does change, and i think what will openly be helpful is to look at it from a yearly basis. eventually the aap in association with the book industry study group is going to release another addition of a new venture, a new physical venture called the stats. 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% market. we know for sure from figures reported that sometimes they are low on a month-to-month basis. suffice it to say, that it's having around 20% market, and for bestsellers especially in the opening week, much, much higher in the 40-50% range. but i think we'll have a clearer picture of what their stats are when the next book stats come out which i believe will be in a month or two. i'm not certain but i suspect it will be one of those things that will land in e-mail and will have to parse very quickly in order to determine what's really going on. >> want to e-book sales to for profits for and authors? >> it's funny you mentioned because, especially for the largest six houses which have

moved to something called the agency model, where if you have a total piece of the pie, 30% of that pie goes to the retailer, beat amazon or barnes & noble or apple. retailers that sell e-books. at least 70% left over to the publisher, which then distributes 25% net of that to the author, which roughly translates to about 17.5% of the overall royalty. yes. with those publishers moving towards agency model, because they are getting a larger piece of the pie than they would have under a different model that many other publishers are still using, but which has a completely separate business model. publishers are making money off of e-books. if you look at the earnings reports from the largest houses, the reason why some of the prophets have been going up is

in large part because of the e-books. so as a result, they are certainly happier without things are going. of course, what they like to make more money? everybody wants to make more money, but the move to the agency model was a way for publishers to mitigate against downward pricing trends, and also enable their profit margins to stay higher and build. >> this is book tv on c-span2, 48 hours of nonfiction books every weekend. sarah weinman is our guest, as we look at 2011 in review. she's the news editor of publishers marketplace. publishers marketplace.com is a website. one more piece of publishing news before we look at some specific books. what's the status of the google books settlement? >> that is a very good question. it is a byzantine and drama filled as ever.

for example, on december 5, google had moved to dismiss the authors guild suit which have been separated out from the association of american publishers are. originally they were partnered together but after judge chen expressed his displeasure with how things were going, basically everybody had to kind of a back to the starting gate again. so with google's move, judge chen has now set a december 23 deadline for google to then filed a motion to dismiss, and the plaintiffs respond to that being the ag. that is due january 23, google's response is then on february 3. now come at the same time the authors guild is also trying to determine whether their suit contain class action status. so there are these parallel tracks that are happening with the google books lawsuit at the moment, and we are still of course on schedule if things keep going according to the

trial schedule where a trial may happen at the end of 2012, i believe. so basically there are lots of hearings that are being scheduled, a lot of motions that are being filed, and it remains to be seen as too, where things will go from your. >> according to "the new york times" bestseller list, hardcover nonfiction, here are 2011 bestsellers. lorin hillebrand, unbroken is number one. 13 weeks at number one, 50 weeks on the new york times bestseller list. eric larson in the garden of beasts 26 weeks on the list. one week at number one. tina fey with bossy pants, 25 weeks on the new york times bestseller list. david mccullough, the greater jury, americans in paris, 17 weeks on the bestseller list. and number five, seal team six, memoirs of an elite navy seals

sniper. what was lorin hillenbrand spoke about, sarah weinman? >> she talked about a man named louis zamperini who had been an athlete and then ended up in world war ii where he was a prisoner of war. he, at least as of a few months ago, was to live and was well into his 90s. and, of course, laura hillenbrand is a fascinating story because she has chronic fatigue syndrome and often cannot leave the house. so she is conducting a lot of our research from her house and threw 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 it's very inspiring story that was released at the end of 2010 but as you noted has not

left the bestseller list but i think it's an indication of how people respond to the stories of human spirit, and told extremely well and i said that that just like her previous book, "seabiscuit" him it would just selling at the 2012 megs and she has chronic fatigue syndrome, doesn't leave the house very often, she can't really go on tour like other authors, greg? >> that's right. but i think it's an indication of just how strong the story was. and also i believe that zamperini was available for interviews as well. so to hear from him directly was also very inspiring. so even though she herself could not go out and about to promote it, there were workarounds. she did do some interviews as long as i think they were set up and took special care with her needs. that aren't a lot of ways to promote books, especially thanks to the internet where an author

does not necessarily have to go out on a national book tour anymore. and, unfortunately, this is where losing physical bookstores also impacts the effect of an author to as well. there are fewer places to go. there's a less likely chance to even have a two or. >> is the proof that isn't author goes on tour more books get sold? >> i don't necessarily think that's the case. and it also depends on the book. i think that while readers do like to meet some authors, i've seen with myself when the literary fiction writer david mitchell appeared at various bookstores last year, even though he was at four different stores in the city, all of them were standing room only, some of them 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" bestseller list and you combined print and e-books, the number one bestseller in 2011 was todd burpo's "heaven is for real," little boys a standing start of his trip to heaven and back. laura hillenbrand came in second. rebecca skloot, "the immortal life of henrietta lacks." this was a 2010 title that was on "the new york times" bestseller list for 41 weeks. and then tina fey with bossy pants and eric larson in the garden of beasts. sarah weinman, i know thi this t is difficult to find, but lorin hillebrand, best selling nonfiction book of 2011 according to the new york times. todd burpo, "heaven is for real," best selling on fiction e-book. and print list as well. you have any idea how many copies of those books got sold? >> it's funny you mention, i feel like especially as the

digital market share keeps rising, finding statistics that one can rely on it becomes increasing more difficult. i'll give an example. nielsen has a service called bookscan which tracks anywhere from about 70-75% of print scales. now, even as far back as i think three years ago when kindle the still new and e-book sales are barely in the single digits, one could look to bookscan at least a pretty good snapshot of how his book was selling. i mean, it depended on what outlook and they were reporting. they still don't report on certain ones. but again it was at least a fairly good relative snapshot. but because nielsen bookscan does not record digital sales, they promised that they will, but so far that has not come to fruition. as a result, 70-75% print but as i said earlier, for some best

selling titles e-book sales make up far more than the 20% average over all. it could be 40%, 50%, sometimes even hi. so if those e-book sales are not being accounted for think nielsen's number don't have the same power that they once did. and because publishers come 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, barnes & noble has taken that up in turn pick so there's just a lot of nonreporting at the moment. and so one can certainly look at "the new york times" list and, of course, the only started tracking e-books earlier this year. they have their own system which may be a combination of hard data and flights of fancy as the hardcover and paperback sometimes tend to be. so base off that it would appear that todd burpo's "heaven is for

real," which is sold in tremendous quantities, i believe well in excess of 1 million copies. but i do think that it appears to be a strong e-book seller as well. >> do religious books and religious themed books sell well? >> oh, absolutely. also i think what another one of the big publishing stories which will play out in 2012 was when harpercollins bought thomas dells which also happened to publish heaven is a real. relatively recent statistics indicate harpercollins was the fourth largest book trade publishing house, and thomas nelson was the seventh largest. so this is a big deal. harper i believe only paid a little more than about $200 billion 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 which also pubs a lot of

religious books, the bible, so the combination of thomas nelson creates this tremendous religious publishing powerhouse under the harpercollins umbrella. and they do think, one can look back as to how the other books its of years ago. and, of course, tell looking at heaven is a real, i suppose this may be another instance of a case-by-case bestseller because the idea that a little boy had seen heaven and in came back to tell about it is an irresistible tale, especially when we're still mired in economic ultram, people need to be uplifted. so perhaps there's also a strong cross over other words not just hitting the religious segment but also getting the larger book world as well. but i do think that we cannot count out religious publishing circles for big publishing stories coming in the new year in 2011 pulitzer prize winners,

for fiction, jennifer egan, "a visit from the goon squad." >> sarah weinman, did you have a chance to read the book on cancer? >> you know, i didn't and i picked up an early copy when it was featured at book expo america. it came out at the end of 2010. this was in may 2010, so already they had been targeting this is one of the big league titles for the full but it's easy to see why. it talks about the totality of cancer. he is serving an expert in the subject, and from what i can

tell, he in part of this knowledge with tremendously human way, it was very well written, and it was as a result being very well received. yes, it won a pulitzer. also won awards on the other side of the atlantic, too. its service been garnering tremendous claim. and i think it should be defended on how it treats its subject. >> does when he a pulitzer help sales? >> absolutely it does. i would venture to say that pulitzer prize won any other prize in america boost sales. it certainly did on the fiction side when jennifer egan one. "a visit from the goon squad" had attracted some attention when it was released in jun june 2010, certainly among very independent bookseller communities online. everybody ipod much talk to love this book and was recommending it left and right. so there was this tremendous

momentum has built up near the end of the year. she also won the national book critics circle prize as well but it was the pulitzer that really catapulted "a visit from the goon squad" from a sales standpoint. the paperback has just come out i was about to come up, and that also helps pictures and affordable addition of this award-winning book that people can pick a. i do believe it's sales tax increase over time. but the previous year when paul harding whose book, first novel was published by bellevue literary press, when he won a pulitzer, the same thing. his next books are going to be published by a larger house. i'm sure that that pulitzer prize when only help to boost not only his profile but also his sales. >> and booktv covered three of the pulitzer prize winners for 2011 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 watch it online whenever you want. the last time we talk to sarah weinman of publishers marketplace was at the national book awards and the national book award winners for 2011 fiction, jasmine ward, "salvage the bones," "the swerve." nikky finney, "head off & split," and thanhha lai, "inside out and back again." what is the national book award to four sales? >> the national will, it doesn't have the same impact as the pulitzer but it does lead to some sales boost as well. like, for example, with the

"salvage the bones," even though a notable publisher had bought it out it did not receive much in way of critical attention prior doing the national book award. i believe the "washington post" had given it a rave review but that review ran very close to win the awards were given out and after she was nominated. since then there's been additional coverage from "the guardian," the "los angeles times," i believe npr is on board as well. blueberry increase their print run by another 50,000 copies. and it's taken a while because 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 that those who have the staying power will find it's very rewarding read. truth be told, i think that the national book award winners are perhaps a little more off the beaten track and what you might find with the pillagers or even

the national book critics circle award later on. i do know that when nikky finney 14 poetry, she gave such tremendously inspiring speech. many in the crowd felt that they wanted to just stand up and cheer for her. it was such passion and such fire that i think it really caused people to go who is this woman? i should be reading more of her poetry. with stephen greenblatt, he is dealing with a big subject as well, the concept of modernity. so it's good for national book award judges recognized this, and this will undoubtedly boost his profile as we'll. >> and booktv covered the national book awards this year. again you can go to booktv.org, use the search function and watch the entire ceremony. i wanted to talk about some of the boxes that come out in the past year, including one very recent one currently number one on the new york times bestseller

list, walter isaacson's steve "e jobs." >> i very much enjoyed reading that. i started it i think about your three days after publication date, and for whatever reason i read nonfiction more slick than i do action protecting large part because there's such a tremendous amount to absorb. isakson clearly talked a great many people. he talk to steve jobs several times including the last interview in august just weeks for his death in october. so the portrait that he creates, 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 aroun arod the iphones author ipads, or type on macbook air. apple certainly especially after steve jobs came back in the late '90s, became a force to be reckoned with. so the fascinating portrait of this, this very driven man who turned around a company and made it so much is owed. and, of course, there's this arc what he and steve wozniak created and then jobs was forced out and he was in the so-called wilderness, but his wilderness was in creating come in buying pixar and turning it into a multibillion dollars company as well. so it's just an amazing portrait of a i guess american capitalism ultimately, to. >> how much cooperation did steve jobs give to walter isaacson in that book?

and 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 then when it became very clear that steve jobs is health was not good, it was also moved up again i think a couple of days after his death. what's interesting, too, is that even though it's clearly been selling tremendously well thomas simon and schuster has not released sales figures, i didn't tend to ask them several times why this was the case that they just felt that it was not and their own interest to do so. that it's very clear that it is selling tremendously well. and yet jobs did cooperative he granted several interviews to walter isaacson, and he also had said basically that he wasn't going to fight him on any unflattering portraits. he wanted essentially, i believe the quote was i wanted my kids to know me.

and by that it could be inferred he want his children to know him as he truly was and didn't understand some of the decisions he made in order perhaps to stay much wood as the office and spend that much time turning apple into the juggernaut that it is. it certainly accomplishes that i believe. >> viking had a biography out this year i delayed manning marable, "malcolm x." sarah weinman? >> that's right. that's right. he had been working on this for i believe a decade if not more that can afford to he passed away just days before the biography's publication date. whether that influenced coverage is not for me to say, but certainly when the biography was released, it goes to these great reviews and also some controversy because it did put forward some additional or alternate theories 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 bestseller lists so far this year. it certainly was one of the most notable biographies that was released in all of 2011. >> and three other autobiographies came out and they're all bush administration officials, beginning with condoleezza rice, the second half of her memoir, "no higher honor." dick cheney "in my time" came out in 2011 as well, as did donald rumsfeld's known and unknown, anymore. sarah weinman, do you know how will these sold and what the reaction was to these three books of? >> although i believe all of them plays fairly highly on the bestseller list, certainly soon after their release they just didn't seem to have the staying power that other political autobiographies had. the benchmark certainly seems to be bill clinton's it's my life,

even going back many years can hillary clinton's living history or and even as recently as last year with george bush decision point, that was up at 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 some other views which which felt that each of these particular political figures didn't seem to be a forthcoming as perhaps critics and readers had hoped, that they were not necessarily holding himself fully accountable for what transpired during the bush administration, that there was perhaps, you know, trying to be an apologist for what happened as opposed to just looking at what actually happened and trying to come to terms with it. of course, that's the right. this is their story and each of them can feel free to tell it how they choose to tell it. but it also means the critical

reception will go accordingly. been acute mention former president bill clinton that another book out this year, it just came out recently in november of 2011, "back to work" your that this book get a good reaction? >> i think in large part because its publication date was announced very close to the actual application date, i think there's only about a two month lead time to the best of my recollection. it did seem, and this is just my own impression talking, that the overall reception, they just didn't seem to be quite as much fanfare and maybe it's just of course that cannot possible have as much fanfare as clinton's it's my life. that was several hundred pages, biography which he wrote and which we 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 you at how essentially the party should stop fighting and work together to come up with some reasonable ways to not like get people "back to work" but also some green technology so there could be more environmentally sound ideas coming in the future. it was more ideas driven to i think as result, once the idea had been disseminated, and that was just -- that was it for the book. does that mean he could have and never live down the? i'm sure it could. but it did seem as if the impact wasn't quite as forceful as clinton's previous films. >> other poker books that came out this year include and coulters demonic, marks times after america, get ready for armageddon. henry kissinger on china. tom friedman and michael mandelbaum teamed up for that used to be us, how america fell

behind. and who is afraid of post-blackness? and culture, mark stein, conservative books in general but they 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 and coulters notebook didn't have the same impact as previous books. stein may have had some, but it's also interesting just to kind of 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 company that specialized in shorter tone, companies like by liner, what they're doing is they're publishing primarily nonfiction that run between, say, 10,030,000 words, and it'll be interesting to see if some these

political books, which at least to my mind feel as if they are stretched out a little bit, that it had a really concise argument and about 100 pages or 20,000 words or thereabouts. instead of being padded to two and 50-300 pages. will they go over to an online only outlet? were also seen as we move into 2012, an election year, some partnerships between websites and publishers to produce shorter e-books first publication. for example, random house and political our apartment on a series of collections oriented titles, the first one just came out and i believe there will be three more before november 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 announces online, that how we

will thank our 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 the electronic context but it remains to be seen but ill be something i am certain watching out for. >> speaking of political books, coming out next year's pulitzer prize winning "washington post" editor david marinus on barack obama, barack obama the story is what it's called. >> i believe this is been in the works for at least a couple of years. at me, as with any book, any major book figure like a sitting president ill be interesting to see not only what new information he uncovers, but whether that new information will remain embargoed or secreted away into the book's publication, or will it be leaked out to various other publications well in advance to drum up some advanced attention.

so certainly it will be interesting to see what this book will uncover of 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 too, sarah weinman? >> the impression i got is that it did rather well but didn't quite measure up to his previous book. granted, he has not published in book form for well over a decade at so the announcement of the new book was certainly greeted with some, no small degree of fanfare. he was also i think at book expo america trade show reading an excerpt from his book. and i do know that the reaction from the 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 both tvs in depth. again, booktv.org is the place to go if you want to watch that online. just go up and use the search function in the upper left hand corner, type in the author's name and you can watch it online. sarah weinman, as people go to market place.com, what were they find? >> they would be able to find a news blog in which we look at the top stories of the day. publishers marketplace also has a deals database to quit also many other databases related to bestsellers and reviews but it's basically an online exchange for all contrary to the book publishing industry. and for the book publishing community. >> two other books that came along, and little offbeat and path so to speak, and if you could speak to these as well. beginning with amanda foreman, a world on fire, put out by random

house this past summer. and candace millard, "destiny of the republic." >> what i can speak to is the fact that both these books i believe have appeared on barry's bestsellers list but i believe foreman made to bestsellers time book review, or perhaps a daily publications 10 best list. so certainly 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 into, for example, is catherine the great biography. here is a woman who had to contend with, you know, monarchy related assassinations, 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 this earth problem, unsuccessfully as it turned out. so there's political economic and historical as to what we can look at today, and try to figure out if we learned anything from those centuries past. in some cases we have and are thankful that we do get in many cases not so much that you also put on the list that we asked you for in advance of this taping them you also including teaching english, "the savage city." what is that book about, sarah weinman? >> english was chronicling new york during 1963 and 1973 but what i really liked about it is 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 the police was just, it was not right it and ultimately it was turned 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 has changed as well. one can only look at times square and the billboards and the loudness, and just this sense of total corporatism, and contrasted to the seediness that predominated in the '60s and '70s, and even in the '80s. >> those are two of sarah weinman's picks for 2011.

robert massey's catherine the great, and tj english, "the savage city." well, we touched on economics a little earlier, sarah weinman, but several major works of economic books came out and i just want to show a couple your beginning with michael lewis, "boomerang," grand pursued, "confidence men," and gretchen morgenson and joshua ross on "reckless endangerment." >> well, i think in all those instances, i would even put nasser in his because english is looking at the history of modern economic thought she's also trying to trace the roots of how we got to the where we are in his post 2008 crash world. so michael lewis, of course, so

tremendously well and is still selling tremendous well. "boomerang" is a compendium of pieces he did i believe largely for "vanity fair" where he traveled to other countries. i believe he went to germany, dubai, to kind of look at how the economy was both affected and effected by what was happening in those outposts as well. and he was taught by the treasury department as well as talking to bankers, and telling various stories that might help to eliminate why the economy tanked so tremendously in 2008 and why we are still recovering from this. and also whether there still some unexploded bombs that could drop anytime soon. the same i think would go for the morrison and the roster, too. through a number of books that had come out but i think we are still going to see several more volumes that are 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 need to look at what's happening in europe at the moment with the precariousness of the eurozone to see that we are 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. >> one history book on economics they came out was love and capital. this one did quite well, didn't? it got notable on several different lists, et cetera. >> it also was nominated for the national book award here coming, to my mind, how can you not when by combining the story of karl marx and his wife against the

larger backdrop of changing economic times, his theories about socialism which lead to communism. you know, contrasting love and money is a great way to find way into right of iraqi but it sounds to me like gabriel spent a great deal of time parsing everything about the marks relationship, but also what marks work done. it is certainly a very thorough volume as a result. pinnacle, we only have a few minutes left, sarah weinman, and i wanted to look ahead to 22 picture some some of the titles booktv is tracking, coming out in the next couple of months, including south carolina governor nikki haley, kant is not an option to my american story. that's been published i said no press. space chronicles in favor, a big -- strategic vision, america and

the crisis of global power. and the years of lyndon johnson, passage of power. that's coming out in may and that's the fourth in his lbj biographical centric sarah weinman, what has caught your eye for early 2012? >> well, certainly i remember the announcement and i think i did the internet virtual equivalent of the happy dance for me, his books are so good. he just managed to document, and, of course, his first book, powerbroker of a robert moses cause such a stir, and continued to be a watershed benchmark 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 to his presidency proper yet. so even though caro who's not getting any younger, has been

working on lyndon johnson for almost three decades i believe now. his next wife is going to have to address the presidency. in be interesting to see how quickly he will be able to produce it. so certainly i think this fourth one is exciting on its own but it's also exciting for what additional research and scholarship and nearly killed he will 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. has the publishing industry and, what changes are we going to see in 2012? i know that's kind of a dumb question, but what are you going to be looking for? >> well, it's more i think a very complicated question. certainly it will be very interesting to see how amazon content with the publishers. for example, as i noted earlier in the broadcast, it has a new

new york-based division, but it also has several imprints mostly focus 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 are so content to have exclusives, will they be able to get their books stocked at barnes & noble? i think a good example is what happened with a title called the hanged man's daughter which was one of my favorite crime thrillers of 2011. amazon of which the e-book edition which sold north of 250,000 copies, and then they struck a deal to produce a trade edition. the trade edition sold all

right, i think about 30,000 copies all told, but it wasn't stocked widely at all with barnes & noble because their attitude was we're not going to start 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 in turn. will there just be more stratification of how books are published? will we also see authors off to lead the publishing houses for different pastures, bfo self-published, or in some partnership with the larger retailer? it remains to be seen. will we see barnes & noble produce a number? that may be a prospect as a. it will just be interesting

ultimately to see how further the digital market share will grow, especially after christmas. and whether the physical book decline will be able to be offset by the growth in digital. >> sarah weinman is the news editor of osha's marketplace. thank you for being on booktv and helping us with our 2011 year in review. our website, 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 have talked about in the past hour. ms. weinman, thank you for joining us from our new york studio. >> thank you so much for having me on again, peter. >> is a booktv.org to watch any other programs you see here online. type the author or book title in the search bar in the upper left side of the page and click search. you can also shoot anything you see on booktv.org easily bike