Industry News

On Sunday, April 25, at the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association's (NAIBA) Spring Workshop in Philadelphia, ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz discussed the 2003 ABACUS study and how bookstore owners and managers can use the results to make better operational decisions. The session kicked off a full day of NAIBA programming at the Sheraton Society Hill.

For the ninth year in a row, tens of thousands of book-lovers from all over Southern California gathered at the UCLA campus this past weekend for the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. With temperatures near 90 degrees on both Saturday and Sunday, an estimated total of 130,000 attended the two-day free event. Nearly 300 exhibitors occupied booths along campus quads; and over 400 authors (among them T.C.

The Chicago Sun-Times recently named Women & Children First bookstore owners Linda Bubon and Ann Christophersen as among "Chicago's 100 Most Powerful Women." The rankings focused on the 10 most powerful women in 10 categories: arts, business, politics, nonprofits, law, sports, philanthropy, healthcare, education, and media. The Sun-Times listed Bubon and Christophersen together as one of the Top 10 most powerful women in the Arts category.

Young adult readers are a powerful market force in the book industry -- teens spend $94.7 billion per year, increasing by $1 billion each year (Jupiter Research). Most booksellers have sections devoted to young adult or teen readers, but increasingly the lines between age ranges and target audiences are blurred. Can labeling a book 'teen reading' turn off potential readers over 14? Do the very characteristics that publishers require for YA books limit the books' ability to generate interest for those seeking complexity rather than straightforward moral lessons?

In the following letter, addressed to ABA members, the association's Board of Directors is announcing that, after lengthy deliberations, it has decided to sell the ABA headquarters property in Tarrytown, New York, to a prominent Westchester-based real estate company.

To: ABA Membership
From: ABA Board of Directors

We are writing to share some important news with the membership concerning possible changes in the ownership of the ABA headquarters property in Tarrytown, New York.

At this weekend's New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association's (NAIBA) Spring Workshop in Philadelphia, ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz will discuss the 2003 ABACUS study and how bookstore owners and managers can use the results to make better operational decisions. Scheduled from 10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, April 25, the session will begin a full day of NAIBA programming at the Sheraton Society Hill.

This week, BTW shines the spotlight on three bookstores in Albuquerque, New Mexico: Bookworks, Bound to Be Read, and Page One. Each has created a niche in the state of enchantment with its own style of community involvement. And one common practice they share is working with other local independent businesses to build their consumer base, share advertising costs, and contribute to the independent tenor of Albuquerque.

Lawrence, Kansas, Resolution Condemns Patriot Act

This week, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that, on April 19, 1929, John Howell of San Francisco submitted a resolution to the Western division convention of the ABA advocating the establishment of a permanent library in the White House with an original gift of 500 books. Howell noted that, on the night of President Herbert Hoover's inauguration, there was no White House library and his own books had not yet arrived, so the President had to borrow a book from one of the guards there, the Chronicle wrote.

After Betsy Burton of the Kings English in Salt Lake City wrote the following opinion piece, which appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune, the store was swamped with customers who wanted to sign the Campaign for Reader Privacy petition calling for an amendment of Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

Six new bookseller volunteers are joining the American Booksellers Association's Booksellers Advisory Council (BAC) this June, and one will join the council in January 2005. The BAC is designed to provide the ABA Board of Directors with a broad cross-section of views from within the community of independent booksellers. The council is composed of 25 members, each of whom will serve an average two-year term.

BAC members joining the council in June are:

Michael Levinson does not own a business in St. Louis, but he firmly believes he has a stake in the well-being of local independent businesses. Today, he is doing all he can to help call attention to the value they bring to the community. The 24-year-old Levinson -- a self-described "regular Joe" -- grew up in St.

Here, BookSense.com Director Len Vlahos provides an update on the latest improvements and enhancements to BookSense.com.

Greetings BookSense.com Bookseller! There is a lot of BookSense.com news in this edition of On the Move:

By Robin Whitten

Yikes! The dreaded Summer Reading List is almost upon us. Teachers want to keep building their students' skills and parents want their children to excel, so the list arrives like clockwork every June. Kids, however, wish it would just disappear. But savvy booksellers make plans now to help out.