PW says that two former employees of dearly departed Washington D.C. bookseller Olsson's are starting a business called Offsite Books, Inc. Offsite Books will "set up bookselling operations at local venues, like nonprofits and law firms, as well as at private parties." It's basically a bookstore that only sells books at events, orders the books from publishers or distributors just for the events, and then returns the books as soon as the event has passed. They don't carry any inventory at all.

Seattle already has one of these companies: Kim Ricketts Book Events. Ricketts used to work at the University Book Store in the events department before breaking off on her own to sell books and organize special events like the Words and Wine series at the W Hotel.

Lots of local booksellers are incredibly annoyed by this model. Many of them have complained to me that selling books at events only is like being a vulture: it's only fair, they say, to let the bookstores that carry the author's books all the time, and pay the various costs necessary to run a bookstore, have the author events. And most of the bookstores in town will (and do) gladly sell books at offsite events for free.

But publishers love these sorts of companies because they generally offer higher book sales per event than a regular bookstore reading—Words and Wine, for instance, always sells out, and every $45 ticket comes with a copy of the book. As publishing profits go down, the traditional bookstore reading, which is not a profitable enterprise, looks pretty anemic compared to these sorts of pre-organized, sales-heavy events.