Starbucks takes a novel approach

NEW YORK — Music and movies were only the beginning. This fall, Starbucks will have something else on sale at the coffee bar: Mitch Albom’s latest novel, “For One More Day.”

“This is the next step of our entertainment strategy,” Starbucks Entertainment President Ken Lombard told the Associated Press on Monday. “Our plan has been to start with music, take the next step into film and add books as the third leg of the stool.”

Already offering a growing variety of CDs and DVDs, the coffee-chain has been quietly selling the children’s classic “The Little Engine That Could” and officially launches its book “strategy” with “For One More Day.” Promotion will include an online video conversation with Albom and an eight-city author tour.

Starbucks will contribute $1 from each sale — and a minimum of $50,000 overall — to Jumpstart, an educational organization that works with preschoolers.

“I am honored that Starbucks has chosen my book, and I am proud to support any effort that helps bring people together to read,” Albom said in a statement released by Starbucks.

“Over the years, I’ve spent many hours myself reading in Starbucks. It’s a fine environment to absorb and discuss a good book. And funding literacy efforts for our nation’s youngest readers — a key part of this for me — helps ensure a future where books and writers remain integral to our culture.”

Albom’s sentimental narratives are far from the Beat poetry traditionally associated with coffeehouse culture, and from CDs by Coldplay, Antigone Rising and others that Starbucks has sold. But Lombard said the author’s new book, the story of a son reunited with his late mother, “embodies Starbucks values.”