Do you have $12,000 and dream of owning a small-town bookstore?

Less than two years after opening, Backbeat Books, Music & Gifts in Perth, Ontario, is up for sale. Due to undisclosed health reasons, John Pigeau, who owns the bookshop with his wife, Erin Daley, is hoping to find a buyer before the end of April, otherwise they will be forced to liquidate.

The shop sells new and used books, music, vintage merchandise, and gift items created by local artists. Record sales, in particular, are doing well. “The people who buy [the store] will have a niche market in Perth for vinyl junkies,” Pigeau says.

Backbeat has also gained a reputation for its First Edition Reading Series, which has brought a variety of authors to the Ottawa Valley, including Helen Humphreys, Roy MacSkimming, Tanis Rideout, Grace O’Connell, and bill bissett. Pigeau says Margaret Atwood is scheduled to read later this year.

“I will dearly miss our little shop,” says Pigeau. “I hope someone with a passion for books and music will come along and save it. Many good folks in Perth love it, as do many authors who have visited and read in the shop.”

 

The US Department of Justice has provided an unexpected Valentine to Penguin and Random House: The department notified Bertelsmann and Pearson "that it has closed its investigation into the proposed merger of Penguin and Random House, without conditions," according to a statement from Penguin. The swift approval is remarkable, particularly…

On the 31st anniversary of the Ocean Ranger disaster, Lisa Moore’s February (House of Anansi Press) has won this year’s CBC Canada Reads.

February explores loss and moving on as experienced by Helen O’Mara, whose husband, Cal, was on the Ocean Ranger oil rig the day it sank.

Representing the Atlantic provinces in the “turf wars” and defended by Trent McClellan, the book beat Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes (McClelland & Stewart), which represented Quebec and was championed by Jay Baruchel.

In a recent interview about February, Trent McClellan told Q&Q: “When you read a good story, you’re looking for something that’s primal, something that resonates with you.” That logic ultimately won over fellow panelists Carol Huynh and Charlotte Gray, whose vote broke a tie between the books. Ron MacLean voted against February.

A surprised Moore called into the studio from Newfoundland to thank McClellan. “I have to say I wasn’t expecting this at all,” she said. “Thank you so much [Trent] for talking about the book exactly how you felt.… You were fantastic.” Moore also thanked the panelists for their “respectful, smart, passionate … and honest” discussions.

February and Two Solitudes were the final contenders after panelists voted off David Bergen’s Age of Hope (HarperCollins Canada) at the end of the first debate, followed by Jane Urquhart’s Away (McClelland & Stewart) and Richard Wagamese’s Indian Horse (Douglas & McIntyre). The books represented the Prairies and the North, Ontario, and British Columbia and the Yukon, respectively.

In preparation for the spike in sales owing to the “Canada Reads effect,” Anansi is reprinting 20,000 copies of February and plans to hold events featuring Moore. As part of the competition, the publisher will also make a donation to Frontier College’s Aboriginal Literacy Program.

Anansi will publish Moore’s new novel, Caught, in June.

As you know, there's a bull market for overblown startups claiming to reinvent publishing. NetMinds is the latest of those to make a media tour, with a press release timed in conjunction with today's TOC conference and their first book set for publication in March (though the company was founded…

It’s not serendipity – it’s your Spotify Playlist Poem’s anti-haiku masquerading as the perfect, inexpensive gift. Sure you bought the flowers, chocolate, made dinner reservations, but can you honestly say you went above and beyond? If your guy or gal is a music lover, you might want to consider the art of digital mixtapes. You can make a CD and emblazon it with your craftiness, but the digital playlist can follow your lover onto any device.

Want a Valentine’s gift that’ll earn you brownie points well into Spring? Say hello to Playlist Poetry! Here you can create your very own love poem using song titles from the Spotify library. We’ll turn your lyrical masterpiece into a playlist you can send on to your sweetheart. Now that’s amore.

This could only get better if Siri can do this for me…

Me: Do you love me Siri?

Siri: Let’s just say you have my utmost admiration.

Me: Ok, can you just make me a Valentine’s Day playlist on Spotify and read me the playlist poetry with your hypnotically addicting voice? continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Dawn Davis will join the Atria Publishing Group on April 1 as vp, publisher of a new yet-to-be-named imprint, reporting to Judith Curr. Davis was most recently publisher at Amistad. "Dawn Davis has impeccable credentials, great taste, and a discerning eye that enables her to discover unexpected books and unknown…

Today is a day for lovers and a great day to get into some romance novels. To help you celebrate we’ve checked out the free eBook sites to give you a run down on where you can find the best free eBook romance novels.

Public Book Shelf is a great place to start. The site has lists of the best romance novels, the best contemporary romance novels, and even the top romantic suspense novels. You can find everything from Jane Austen to Linda Louise Rigsbee on the lists.

Amazon’s Kindle Store has thousands of free romance novels available and you can take a chance on a new author by checking out which titles are doing well. Here is a link to Kindle’s Top 100 Free romance novels. Apple’s new self-published books discovery engine Breakout Books has a couple of free eBook titles in the romance category including Bridesmaids Lotto by Rachel Astor and The Executive’s Decision by Bernadette Marie.

Smashwords has pages and pages of free romance titles and AllRomanceebooks.com also has some steamy free eBook picks.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Looking for a last minute date tonight? Don’t worry there may be another single person looking for a date tonight in your area. There are a bunch of dating apps designed to connect people based on their physical location. We’ve created a list of these various apps including a description of the app and a link to download them.

If you do use them, remember to stay safe. Consider double dating, group dates and remember to tell someone where you are going, since you are going out with a stranger. And don’t forget to turn off the location tool when you head home so that you don’t get followed!

 5 Location Based Dating Apps

1. SinglesAroundMe: “SinglesAroundMe (SAM) is the #1 social discovery mobile dating app designed for you to discover and meet single people around you, right now, anywhere on earth. It is an unusually fun-loving mobile app that appeals to our sense of meeting like-minded people around us, wherever we might be. Spontaneous, serendipitous, by-chance meetings are exciting and they remind us of moments when great romances begin.” continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Publishing projects on Kickstarter have a new set of tools as the company unveiled its new Kickstarter app.

As you can see, creators will have metrics and posting tools inside the app. Using the tool, you can upload video and picture updates directly to Kickstarter. AppNewser has more:

The popular social fundraising site Kickstarter has gone mobile with the launch of its first app. The iOS app lets backers browse projects by category and popularity and if you find something you like, you can back a project. The app supports videos, so you can watch project videos. It also taps into your GPS so that you can search for projects near your location.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Kleverbeast, a New York-based startup, has launched today, introducing a beta tool for building apps in exchange for a monthly fee.

The company’s platform lets you build apps for the iPhone, iPad and Android devices that can showcase photos, video, audio and text. The company’s platform has customizable templates to design apps from the ground up without having to do any coding. The platform can be used to make digital portfolios, eBooks, digital magazines and menus, for example. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Love, Rosie by Irish novelist Cecelia Ahern will be adapted into a film.

Lily Collins and Sam Claflin have been cast in the lead roles. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the story follows “a college-age girl who discovers she’s pregnant after one night with the most popular boy at school.”

Over in the United Kingdom, Ahern’s novel is known as Where Rainbows End. HarperCollins UK released it in 2004. For the United States market, the title was changed to Love, Rosie. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

• Horrible Histories author Terry Deary argues libraries “are no longer relevant”
• Blogger to review the bestselling book of the year for each of the last 100 years
• New York school to be named after Maurice Sendak
• Comparing U.K. and U.S. cover designs
• Leslie Kaufman on the success of Goodreads.com

Fantasy novelist Patrick Rothfuss posted photographs of dueling author inscriptions on his Facebook today, sparring playfully with Wheel of Time series co-author Brandon Sanderson.

In one reader’s copy of The Wise Man’s Fear, Rothfuss took a crack at a book written by Sanderson: ” more majestic than Way of Kings.” Sanderson wrote a funny comeback in a copy of The Way of Kings: “1000% less sex with random goddesses than Wise Man’s Fear.”

Rothfuss surrendered after this inscription, writing “Well played, Sanderson…. Well played….” on Facebook this morning. (Link via elquesogrande)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Ever wonder what Anne Rice does to celebrate this romantic holiday?

Washington Post Book World fiction editor Ron Charles asked a group of bestselling novelists how they will spend Valentine’s Day. Here’s Interview with a Vampire author Anne Rice‘s contribution:

I’m having a special dinner at home to avoid the Valentine crowds in local restaurants. Filet roast with potatoes and carrots. Just me and my little family. We do feel the holiday. And like all holidays, it causes me to reflect on my life and how much I love it, and how thankful I am for the great love affair I had with my husband for 41 years. He died in 2002. We’ll be toasting Stan Rice.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The popular social fundraising site Kickstarter has gone mobile with the launch of its first app.

The iOS app lets backers browse projects by category and popularity and if you find something you like, you can back a project. The app supports videos, so you can watch project videos. It also taps into your GPS so that you can search for projects near your location.

The app has tools for creators as well. Here is more from the Kickstarter blog: “The app has a bunch of great stuff to help creators manage their projects. It notifies creators of pledges as they happen. It keeps creators up-to-date on their project’s progress and stats with the project dashboard. Most excitingly, creators can take pictures and videos with their iPhone camera and post them as project updates straight from the app, bringing backers even closer to the creative process.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

February 14 is a day for singles – to commiserate. In fact, it has become synonymous with single awareness and relationship loathing events. This year, mobile apps like Killswitch are also getting into the act.

Are you still friends with your ex on Facebook? The makers of the Killswitch app want to help you with your recent heartbreak by removing any remnants of unwanted relations from Facebook.

Relationships ending and moving on is an essential, healthy part of life. And while Social Media intends to reflect many aspects of the human experience, it doesn’t yet easily reflect that key element–the end of relationships. With KillSwitch, we’re trying to fill that gap, bridge online with offline. To help people to move on in their digital lives as much as they want and need to in their personal lives.

Let’s say you don’t have an ex on Facebook, the app will discreetly remove photos, messages and shared links with any arch nemesis you are friends with. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Dawn Davis, the publisher of HarperCollins’ Amistad imprint, will move to Simon & Schuster’s Atria Publishing Group to serve as publisher of an as-yet-unnamed imprint.

She will assume her new post on April 1st. Davis had spent 12 years at HarperCollins, beginning as the editorial director of Amistad.

Here’s more about the new imprint, from the release: “The new imprint will draw on Ms. Davis’s strengths as an editor and publisher, with a list that will encompass the best in literary fiction, narrative nonfiction, journalism, memoirs and pop culture, and drawn from a wide range of authors of all backgrounds.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Department of Justice has closed its investigation into the merger of Penguin and Random House, removing a major roadblock in the merger process. The publishers hope to close the deal by the second half of the year.

Parent companies Pearson and Bertelsmann revealed the news in a statement, noting that the DOJ ended the investigation “without conditions.” Nevertheless, the merger still faces scrutiny from other groups. Here’s more from the release:

The proposed merger is currently under review by the European Commission, the Canadian Competition Bureau and various other antitrust authorities around the world. Pearson and Bertelsmann continue to expect the transaction to close in the second half of 2013, after all necessary approvals have been received. Following completion, Bertelsmann will own 53% and Pearson 47% of Penguin Random House. It will encompass all of Random House and Penguin Group’s publishing units in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa, as well as Penguin’s operations in China and Random House’s publishers in Spain and Latin America.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Back in the nineteen sixties when publishing was still the tweed jacket and pipe sort of business that it is still often portrayed as being; the tawdry process of making money was regarded with some suspicion. It was a life style choice for academics manqué attracted by the combination of long lunches and the publishing of low selling literary works untainted by popularity.

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