Five by Five PR: Online publicity tips and tools, especially pertaining to books, authors, and the publishing industry.

With print on demand (POD), books are not published until a customer actually makes the purchase. Among its advantages are cost savings for the publisher and less waste and environmental damage.

Amazon.com recently decided to only sell POD titles that are printed using its subsidiary, BookSurge.

BookLocker.com, a POD publishing business based in Maine, is suing Amazon over this decision, based on antitrust laws. “Amazon.com has a tremendous amount of market power in the online sale of books,” said Seth Klein, BookLocker’s attorney. “They are improperly trying to leverage that power to dominate the POD market.” BookLocker’s owner, Angela Hoy, says that about half of her sales are through Amazon.

Hoy’s lawsuit seeks class action status for the roughly 4300 potential class action members, an injunction to prevent Amazon’s from implementing the POD changes, and monetary damages.

To read more on this story, check out The Seattle Times, or the Bangor Daily News, which is located in Hoy’s hometown. You can also view a PDF of the complaint at BookLocker’s site.

David Unowsky has written a great article with tips for getting your books into bookstores and for scheduling promotional events, too. He knows his stuff. He owned an independent bookstore for over 30 years, has worked in publishing, and currently works as the Events Manager at Magers & Quinn Booksellers.

Unowsky says you need to make sure that three important areas are covered in order to entice bookstores to work with you:

1. Quality Of the Book - In addition to just writing a good book, pay attention to presentation, copyediting, etc.

2. Appropriate Pricing - Don’t put an astronomical price on your book that will make no one want to buy it. Also remember that bookstores need to purchase the books at a 45-47% discount off of the retail price.

3. Marketing and Publicity - The bookstores want to know that if they stock your book, they have help trying to sell it. One of Unknowsky’s suggestions: “Take advantage of every relevant on-line resource to post information about your book.”

He also gives some tips for successfully navigating your promotional events in the bookstores. You can read more at the Minn Post website.

I’m sure by now that you know that Barbara Walters has just published a memoir, entitled Audition. I mean, even if you didn’t want to know, you probably know. It’s one of those rare books that is just riding a huge publicity storm.With Walters’ name attached, the book was sure to get quite a buzz on its own. It doesn’t sit too well with me that her publicity team appears to be trotting out her 30+-years-old affair with a married Senator, especially since that man is still alive.

They were both in the wrong, but why hang out someone else’s dirty laundry to promote your book? It’s bad enough to even publish it in the memoir. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Edward Brooke isn’t giving comments.

Apparently, I am not the only one who thinks her actions are gross and entirely classless.

Cathy Lanier, Police Chief in Washington, D.C., has started a book club of sorts in an attempt to lower crime rates in the nation’s capital. She made Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point required reading for her commanders, and held a community book club meeting on May 1 to discuss it.Read more about it at Bloomberg.com.

Tidbits of some of the publishing industry news and other book business articles this week:

1. Children’s author says “serendipity” most important to publishing success. (The Daily Iowan)

2. “Why is Random House CEO Peter Olson stepping down?” (The Week Daily edition)

3. Memoirs: fact or fiction? “Now, when people think of memoir, they begin to associate it with lying.” (The Christian Science Monitor)

4. “At 99, New Hampshire man becomes a first-time author” (The Boston Globe)

5. “Sex sells, so do scandals” (The Daily Vidette - Illinois State University)

6. “Borders turns page on old bookstores” (The Union Tribune - San Diego)

The Los Angeles Times reported recently on a round of scam attempts hitting bookstores. Con artists are calling bookstores, pretending to be touring authors, and trying to elicit money from the store owners. They invent situations like, “Oh, my car is impounded and I need you to send me money to get it out so I can make it to my scheduled appearance at your store.”

Who comes up with these ideas?? Plus, it doesn’t seem like there’d be a whole heck of a lot of money in it.

A recent New York Times article quoted stats from a National Endowment for the Arts report that stated 53 percent of Americans who participated in the NEA survey did not read a single book in a year’s time. As the NYT reporter Rachel Donadio writes, this is “a state of affairs that has prompted much soul-searching by anyone with an affection for (or business interest in) turning pages.”

The article continues with some interesting stats about the book business, such as an increase from 300,000 titles published in 2006 to 400,000 titles published in 2007. The bulk of the article is about the self-publishing phenomenon and how it is affecting the publishing industry.

Renaissance Learning, “the world’s leading provider of computer-based assessment technology for pre-K-12 schools,” released a report of the most read books by children in those grade levels. Results are based on over 3 million school children’s reading habits last year.

Among the top books are Harry Potter (of course), Charlotte’s Web, and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, by my childhood favorite, Judy Blume. Dr. Seuss is still a beloved standby for the youngest folks.

The entire 56-page report is in PDF format here, or you can read a summary of the list at The Washington Post site.

My fellow New Orleanian, Bill Loehfelm, was announced the winner of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award earlier this month. Loehfelm wrote the winning novel, Fresh Kills, after his return to the city following Hurricane Katrina.

According to Publishers Weekly, “The action plays out on the mean streets of Staten Island and its famous garbage dump, Fresh Kills, and the author evokes the particulars of lower middle class life with great understanding.”

The novel will be published by the G. P. Putnam’s Sons imprint of Penguin Group (USA) in Summer 2008, and is available now for pre-order on Amazon.com.

Congratulations, Bill!

Who Is It That Can Tell Me Who I Am?, a non-fiction account of Jane Haynes’ life as a psychotherapist, has made the shortlist for the PEN/Ackerley Prize for memoir and autobiography. It is the first self-published book to do so.

The prize was first awarded in 1982, in honor of author Joe Randolph Ackerley, who was long-time literary editor of The Listener magazine. His sister Nancy endowed the prize in his memory, and it is funded through Acklery’s posthumous royalties.

The other finalists for the prize this year are The Islamist by Ed Husain, In My Father’s House by Miranda Seymour, The Presence by Dannie Abse and Family Romance by John Lanchester.

The winner will be announced on June 10.