Industry News

The Great Lakes Booksellers Association's (GLBA) Grass Roots Cafe, which debuted at the association's October 2003 fall trade show, has been developed into a permanent feature of GLBA's Web site, offering a menu of hyperlinks to elected officials in the four main states from which the association draws its membership.

Increasing bookseller participation in political issues, including efforts to amend the USA Patriot Act and to fight for e-fairness, is the goal, said GLBA Executive Director Jim Dana.

ABA's forum tour, which provides booksellers across the country with the opportunity to meet with representatives of the ABA Board of Directors and senior staff to ask questions, express opinions, and hear about the association's activities and plans for the future, will be going to California next week.

There are two important deadlines for booksellers to be aware of: Nominations for the Best of Book Sense 76 titles from the past five years are due in less than two weeks, on February 16. Additionally, nominations for the 2004 Book Sense Book of the Year (BSBY) Awards are due on March 8.

In an effort to give booksellers more time to make plans for BookExpo America 2004, to be held June 2 - 6 at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, ABA is providing below a preliminary programming schedule for the convention.

Highlights include:

In a recent e-mail sent out to all ABA-member bookstores, ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz strongly encouraged bookstores to submit their fiscal 2003 financial statement numbers to the "ABACUS Survey -- Year 2."

On January 29, Chief Judge J. Gavan Murtha of the U.S. District Court in Brattleboro, Vermont, issued a judgment and order that permanently enjoined a Vermont Internet law that would have prohibited the distribution on the Internet of non-obscene sexually explicit materials that are defined as "harmful to minors" if these materials could be accessed by persons under 18. The plaintiffs had claimed that the law violated constitutionally protected free speech rights and the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Amazon.com to Begin Charging Sales Tax in Kansas

On Wednesday, February 4, an e-mail was sent out to nonbook vendors who previously had a listing in the Booksellers Resource Directory (formerly the Source Guide). Please note that the deadline for submitting a listing to the directory has been extended to February 13.

Hardcover History, the partnership of Book Sense and The History Channel, will return in March with a new look, a new book, and a chance for booksellers to get lucky.

New from Brava (a division of Kensington Publishing) is a historical romance titled The Bookseller’s Daughter by Pam Rosenthal, a former bookseller and part-owner of the Modern Times Bookstore in San Francisco. Pam is currently a computer programmer and writer, while her husband, Michael, runs the store.

On Wednesday, February 25, in conjunction with the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA), ABA is holding its Bookseller Forum at Olsson's Books & Records in downtown Washington, D.C. Olsson’s is centrally located, with convenient access by car or public transportation.

Since early January -- when ABA launched a petition campaign to gather signatures of bookstore customers who support amending Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act -- booksellers have been actively collecting signatures toward an ABA-member goal of garnering at least one million signatures. ABA is now urging booksellers who have yet to join the petition campaign to do so, and is also strongly encouraging those booksellers who are participating in the campaign and are sending back signed petition lists to keep collecting signatures.

This month, ABA will be holding three Booksellers Forums in California: On Wednesday, February 18, in conjunction with the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) at its offices in The Presidio in San Francisco; on Friday, February 20, at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena; and on Saturday, February 21, at Four Points Sheraton Hotel in San Diego. The Pasadena and San Diego forums will be held in conjunction with the Southern California Booksellers Association (SCBA). Representing ABA at the forums will be CEO Avin Mark Domnitz and COO Oren Teicher.

On Friday, January 23, ABA President Ann Christophersen, of Women & Children First in Chicago, sent out a letter to non-ABA member booksellers, inviting them to join the association. The letter explains that if non-member booksellers join ABA in 2004, the association will pay their 2004 regional association dues. In addition, the letter states the new members will receive one free admission badge to BookExpo America 2004 and will also receive a free subscription to the electronic and hard copy editions of Publishers Weekly for one year, courtesy of ABA.

Recently, Penguin became the first major U.S. publisher to begin selling directly to consumers via its Web site, as first reported by Publishers Weekly. And while a spokesperson for Penguin Group USA told BTW that the move was meant to be "complementary rather than competitive," booksellers contacted nonetheless hoped the move was not a sign of things to come for the publishing industry.