Literary Strife

Bookstores discover the power of a word

by Nina Willdorf

Words are important to booksellers, but the New England Booksellers Association was surprised recently to realize just how important.

The word in question is "discover," the subject of a cease-and-desist letter from the national chain Barnes & Noble.

NEBA, a nonprofit trade association, runs a promotional program called Discovery of the Month, under which a panel of volunteers votes on promising new books. NEBA promotes the chosen books by sending postcards, press releases, and enlarged book jackets to its 500 member bookstores in New England and New York, four of which are actually Barnes & Noble stores.

To Barnes & Noble, this is a rip-off of its 11-year-old program Discover Great New Writers, under which the chain devotes certain shelf space to a new batch of books each season.

In a letter dated April 17, Todd Braverman, an attorney for Barnes & Noble, warned NEBA that Discovery of the Month infringed on a trademark the chain had established. "It is our belief," reads the letter, now posted on NEBA's Web site (www.newenglandbooks.org), "that NEBA has adopted a mark in which the dominant portion is nearly identical to Barnes & Noble's mark, and thus, creates the same overall commercial impression."

B&N is asking NEBA to tell its member stores to tear down their Discovery of the Month plexiglass easels, throw away the enlarged book jackets, and discontinue the program.

Maryellen Keating, a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble, says the issue is a serious one for the company, and that "intellectual property" is at stake. "We believe that they have confused authors and publishers with the name of their program," Keating says.

Wayne Drugan, executive director of NEBA, is confident that "there's no customer that's ever been confused."

"What they're doing," says Drugan, "is so antithetical to what everyone is about in this business -- connecting readers with books."