Taking Care of Business at NCIBA Show

The 2004 Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) trade show was held at the Oakland Convention Center/City Center Marriott in Oakland, California, from October 1 - 3. Hut Landon, executive director of NCIBA, told BTW that attendance was slightly up from last year, though not as high as years past. "But the people who came really worked the show and used it well," said Landon. "The good news is booksellers who came, came to do business and placed lots and lots of orders and the Children's Author Breakfast had the largest turnout I can remember in the last 10 years of the show."

Starting off the educational programming was "The 2% Solution," presented by ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz. Amy Thomas owner of Pandora's Books in Berkeley said the session was "very helpful." She added, "The strategy is something like what we're trying to do already, but it's helpful to have a roadmap. It was useful and succinct." Thomas recommended that if booksellers didn't have the opportunity to attend "The 2% Solution," the online presentation was "excellent." (To see the presentation, click here.) Thomas also reported that all the workshops were of "very high quality."

ABA's programming at NCIBA also included BookSense.com and Book Sense Gift Card Users groups. Clark Kepler of Kepler's Books & Magazines in Menlo Park, which began selling Book Sense gift cards about a month ago, found the users group meeting useful to help "solve a couple of internal logistical problems." The BookSense.com session was beneficial because "knowing what the BookSense.com group is working on helps me integrate what I'm developing on my own site," said Kepler. "I'm delighted to hear that [BookSense.com] will be speeding up the server before the holidays. That's a bread and butter issue and an aspect that always needs to be top notch."

New bookseller Linda Rosengarten, of Cheshire Books in Fort Bragg, California, attended Jay Conrad Levinson's "Guerrilla Marketing for Independent Booksellers," where she gleaned some important marketing tactics. The session, which was sponsored by ABA, looked at the keys to maximizing a business' success with low-cost, high-impact strategies. Rosengarten said Levinson's approach was "perfect for independent booksellers," especially the focus on "getting customers to come in again and again instead of getting more people. In a small community like mine, that idea obviously resonates. Word of mouth is very important to me."

For Rosengarten, some of the highlights of the show were the Friday night Welcome Reception, listening to Malcolm Margolin of the independent publishing house Heyday accept NCIBA's Friend of Independent Booksellers Award, and walking the trade show floor, where she "learned how to do business" from very helpful vendors.

At 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, NCIBA held its General Membership Meeting where the association's activities and priorities were discussed, and Margolin and Small Press Distribution (SPD) were presented with their Friends of Independent Booksellers Awards. SPD's assistant director, Laura Moriarty, accepted the award for the independent press distributor.

At the third annual "Moveable Feast" on Saturday evening, booksellers were able to mingle with guest authors, who moved from table to table. Among the guest authors were William Vollman (Rising Up and Rising Down, Ecco); Harriett Scott Chessman (Someone Not Really Her Mother, Dutton); Monique Truong (Book of Salt, Mariner); Gary Erickson (Raising the Bar, Wiley); Marc Acito (How I Paid for College, Broadway); Lawrence Thornton (Sailors on the Inward Sea, Free Press); Gerard Jones (Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book, Basic); and Joshua Braff (The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green, Algonquin).

Many booksellers gave high marks to Sunday's "Children's Author Breakfast," which featured Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black (The Wrath of Mulgarath, Spiderwick Chronicles #5, S&S); and Lemony Snicket, aka Daniel Handler (The Grim Grotto, A Series of Unfortunate Events #11, HarperCollins), among others. About the breakfast Landon said, "The large turnout was a reminder that if you have top caliber authors, you can draw a sizable audience. The lineup was spectacular, and the booksellers responded to it."

Ann Seaton of Hicklebee's in San Jose said the breakfast was a favorite event. "There was the perfect mix of authors. It made me want to get out on the floor and take a look at books." --Karen Schechner