Book Sense

During the week of July 14 -18, The History Channel is traveling the highways and byways of America during Hit the Road Week, and, to complement the series, stores with Book Sense will be featuring bookmarks for Fodor's The Thirteen Colonies and Fodor's Old West in their History Channel/Hardcover History in-store displays. The bookmarks were sent to participating stores in the June white box mailing.

Book Sense stores participating in the BACARDI Mixers & Book Sense Book Club Sweepstakes should be on the lookout for a carton containing a point-of-sale entry box with tear-pads, a poster, and a BACARDI Mixers Book Club party kit, which can be used for individual store events and includes glasses, coasters, drink charms, free BACARDI Mixers, and more. The materials should arrive at stores by July 14, the sweepstakes start date.

July 31 is the deadline for receipt of photos from booksellers participating in the Book Sense Make Some Magic With Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix sweepstakes display contest. The winner of the contest will receive a $2,000 credit from Scholastic, Inc.

The two-page downloadable PDF file of Book Sense 76 shelf-talkers available at www.bookweb.org/read/2833 has been updated to include shelf-talkers for six of the top ten titles on the July/August Book Sense 76. The PDF file also includes two blank shelf-talkers that booksellers can use for their own quotes or for quotes clipped straight from the Book Sense 76.

ABA is finalizing details of its national electronic gift card program for stores with Book Sense and will begin rolling out details regarding program costs, equipment requirements, and sign-up in the July 10 edition of Bookselling This Week. The association will also soon finalize a selection of generic gift card designs with a generic backer or presenter. Booksellers will be able to add their store logo and information to the front of the card and to the backer for an additional fee.

Over the past two years, BookSense.com has grown exponentially in its value to independent booksellers. Here's an invitation to stores with Book Sense to take another look at the improved product as well as details of the BookSense.com Co-op Reimbursement Program, which can offset a significant portion of the monthly costs.

Greetings Bookseller With Book Sense,

It's time for you to take another look at BookSense.com!

"The nice thing about milestones is that they give you the occasion to sit back and take stock," said Elliott Bay Book Company's Peter Aaron. However, when Elliott Bay celebrated 30 years of bookselling on June 29, it's likely that Aaron didn't have much chance to sit back, as the store hosted author readings and a party for 300 people, including employees, past employees, and friends. Terry Tempest Williams showed up; so did poet Madeline DeFrees.

Aaron recently spoke to Bookselling This Week about how Elliott Bay has weathered the years.

ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz

On Monday, June 30, ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz sent a congratulatory e-mail to stores with Book Sense for the "extraordinary achievement" of having a record-breaking number -- 441

Not only was it a record-breaking weekend for independent bookstore sales -- fueled by the official publication of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix -- but records off the sales floor fell as well, as 441 bookstore locations reported their weeks' sales to the Book Sense Bestseller List. This was the largest number of selling locations to have reported sales, and their totals outstripped by far previous tallies.

The July 7 issue of The New Yorker, on sale June 30, will include a full-page Book Sense ad featuring the Top Ten picks from the Summer Paperback 76.

"The ad provides booksellers a terrific opportunity to highlight these titles in store displays," said ABA Marketing Director Jill Perlstein.

For a downloadable PDF file of the July 7 New Yorker ad, click here.

Nine years ago, Karen Gaston, then co-owner of Butterfly Books in De Pere, Wisconsin, asked her friend Barbara Wilson to help out at her children's bookstore for a few hours during the holiday season. Wilson enjoyed it so much she stayed on as a part-time staff member, and, last January, she bought the place. "This is the job I've always wanted," said Wilson. "I've always been interested in children's literature."

The BACARDI Mixers & Book Sense Book Club Sweepstakes is set to begin in July and will run for four months. Book Sense and The Minute Maid division of The Coca-Cola Company teamed up to create this in-store national sweepstakes promotion to drive consumers participating in reading groups to independent bookstores with Book Sense and to raise awareness of the Book Sense brand. Bookstores with Book Sense should be on the lookout for sweepstakes materials, which should arrive no later than July 11.

Quail Ridge Books -- winner of numerous national and local awards -- has won again.

The Raleigh, North Carolina, store won the April 1865: The Month That Saved America Book Sense display contest. The prize, a four-day, three-night trip to history-rich Charleston, South Carolina, was awarded to the creator of the display, Virginia Culp.

Here's a reminder for booksellers regarding expiration dates on Book Sense gift certificates. Expiration dates do not apply in California, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and, possibly, other states.

John Burdett wanted to capture a place that hadn't been explored all that much in previous detective thrillers. "I thought Bangkok really hadn't been done the way Los Angeles, New York, and Paris had been done," he told BTW. His original intention was to write a relatively conventional book.