Industry News

ABA announced today that phase one of the Campaign for Reader Privacy (www.readerprivacy.com/) petition drive would culminate and conclude with a CRP presentation sometime during BookExpo America, which will be held from June 2 - 6 at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago. Booksellers are urged to continue to collect signatures (and periodically mail them to ABA) through the weekend of May 15, and on May 17 mail all remaining petitions to ABA.

The Book Sense Book & Author Luncheon, previously called the Book Sense 76 Luncheon, one of the highlights of the annual ABA Convention, will be held on Friday, June 4, at this year's BookExpo America at Chicago's McCormick Place Convention Center. The free noontime event, which is open to all bookstores with Book Sense, provides a special opportunity for booksellers to meet dozens of authors whose books they have helped make past or present Book Sense Picks. Reservations are required and are limited to two per bookstore.

A remarkable amount of media coverage of Richard A. Clarke's Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror (Free Press) has created a demand that booksellers are struggling to supply. A March 26, page-one story in the New York Times led with a description of the "literary phenomenon" of the book at Washington, D.C.'s Politics and Prose Bookstore.

BookExpo America (BEA) has announced that this year's trade show, to be held from June 2 - 6 at Chicago's McCormick Place Convention Center, will feature a Religion & Spirituality Day, a focused educational program and special author event, on Friday, June 4.

New Manager Begins at Concord Bookshop

The Concord Bookshop of Concord, Massachusetts, after months of discord between the owners and the staff, has a new manager. As reported in the Concord Journal on March 25, John Netzer, with nine year's experience as manager of a bookstore in New Canaan, Connecticut, and book buying and managing stints at other New England bookstores, including the now defunct Reading, International in Harvard Square, began work at Concord in mid-March.

Publishers Weekly recently launched an On-Sale Calendar, providing a seasonal overview of the biggest adult hardcover titles and their on-sale dates, on its Web site, PublishersWeekly.com. The calendar, which is available to Publishers Weekly subscribers only, will feature reviews and publisher and author information, as well as Web site links.

The student-staff at the Colby (College) Bookstore in Waterville, Maine, has been eagerly awaiting the announcement of the 2004 Book Sense Book of the Year finalists. According to Barb Shutt, the store's assistant director, this is the second year the store is having the students on staff read the finalists and then rate them to come up with the store's vote for the Book of the Year Awards.

More than 20 people attended an ABA Booksellers Forum, held in conjunction with the Great Lakes Booksellers Association (GLBA) on Tuesday, March 30, at Emmis Books in Cincinnati, Ohio. The forum -- the second to be held in the Great Lakes region this season (the first was on January 15 in Chicago) -- was conducted by ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz and COO Oren Teicher, with ABA President Ann Christophersen of Women & Children First in Chicago and Board member Karl Pohrt of Shaman Drum in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The American Booksellers Association is inviting booksellers to attend a forum to be held in conjunction with the New England Booksellers Association (NEBA) in Amherst, Massachusetts, on April 22. The second ABA/NEBA forum of the season will be held at the National Yiddish Book Center on the grounds of Hampshire College, from approximately 3:15 p.m. - 5:30 p.m., at the conclusion of NEBA meetings.

A retirement for anyone is bound to be a bittersweet thing, and for Dick Noyes and his wife, Judy, the decision to close their bookstore of almost 45 years is no exception. When the Chinook Bookshop opened in 1959 in Colorado Springs, independent bookstores had a wide-open future, Dick Noyes told BTW. Now, he said, with the onslaught of big box retailers over the past 10 years and the more recent success of Internet retailers, that is not the case anymore.

On Friday, March 26, at the Small Press Center's General Society Library, Morgan Entrekin, the president and publisher of Grove/Atlantic, Inc., received the Small Press Center's Ben Award (formerly known as the Poor Richard's Award) for his outstanding contribution to the field of independent publishing. The award was presented to Entrekin by Grove/Atlantic author, Francisco Goldman. Friday's Ben Award presentation inaugurated the 16th annual Small Press Book Fair, which took place on March 27 - 28.

Friday, April 2, is the deadline for the:

Due to a recent rate change by the Visa and MasterCard associations, Bank of America Merchant Services has increased its rates for credit card transactions by 0.11 percent, effective April 1.

The rate for ABA members participating in the ABA/Bank of America credit card program has risen to 2.07 percent from 1.96 percent. All bookstores participating in the program should have received notice of this increase from Bank of America.

On Friday, March 26, the Colorado Senate voted by a count of 21 to 14 to strike down House Bill 1078, a "minors' access" bill that would have made it illegal to allow a minor access to, and would have banned the display of, materials considered "harmful to minors." The bill had members of the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association (MPBA) up in arms because, they said, it was vague, would have been impossible to uphold, and could have placed severe restrictions on the availability of constitutionally protected materials.

Carol Seajay, former bookseller and publisher of the now defunct Feminist Bookstore News, launched a newsletter in September titled Books to Watch Out For. Available in two editions -- The Lesbian Edition and The Gay Men's Edition -- the e-newsletter, also available in print, features book reviews, industry happenings, and other book news for readers interested in gay, lesbian, and feminist literature.