Advocacy

Starting April 1, certain remote retailers will be required to collect and remit Louisiana sales tax, as a result of e-fairness legislation passed earlier this month.

Kevin Gillies of City Stacks Books & Coffee and Nina Barrett of Bookends & Beginnings will be using some of the many resources in ABA’s New Localism Toolkit to educate customers, elected officials, and others about the need for public policies that ensure the health of locally owned businesses and their communities.

In his monthly personal opinion column, ABFE Director Chris Finan discusses the similarities he finds in the government’s attempts to force Apple to unlock the contents of an iPhone and its past maneuvers to infringe on the reader privacy rights of bookstore customers.

In an op-ed that first appeared in the Daily Californian, Amy Thomas, the president of Pegasus Books, explains why we should all be concerned that Amazon continues to create an existential crisis that affects more than bookstores.

When Utah State Rep. Mike McKell withdrew an affiliate nexus sales tax fairness bill, ABA President Betsy Burton, the co-owner of The King’s English Bookshop, responded with an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune.

ABA is urging each of its bookseller members to reach out to their lawmakers and ask that they investigate Amazon’s business model for antitrust violations.

ABA’s New Localism initiative and the opportunities and new resources available to booksellers to effect changes in public policy are the subject of ABA CEO Oren Teicher’s bimonthly letter to members.

The American Booksellers Association has joined with other book industry groups and publishers to sign a petition calling on Congress and the White House to end the embargo against Cuba as it relates to books and educational materials.

Betsy Burton, the co-owner of The King’s English Bookshop, writing on behalf of ABA bookstore members, urged a U.S. Senate committee to investigate Amazon for violations of antitrust laws.

To address an ongoing challenge facing indie booksellers, ABA has created a customizable handout that encourages authors and other hosts of consumer websites to link to independent bookstores for book sales.

The U.S. Supreme Court will not review a decision by an Appeals Court that upheld a District Court ruling that Apple conspired to fix the retail price for newly released and bestselling trade e-books in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

American Booksellers for Free Expression has joined other free speech groups in urging Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe to veto a bill that they fear will have a chilling effect on the selection of books that are taught in the state’s public schools.

ABA has released a New Localism Toolkit to help booksellers educate their staff, their customers, elected officials, and the media about the latest relevant data regarding the localism movement.

Booksellers can now watch videos of three Winter Institute 11 sessions on the New Localism movement: “Amazon and Empty Storefronts,” “City Growth and Downtown Math,” and “The New Localism.”

This week, ABA launched a national advocacy campaign with letters urging the U.S. Congress, the 50 state attorneys general, and the 50 state governors to investigate Amazon for violations of antitrust laws.