Industry News

Reservations are now open to ABA members for the Celebration of Bookselling and Author Awards Lunch; Publicists Speed Dating; and the ABC and CBC’s Speed Dating Lunch With Children’s Authors and Tea With Children’s Authors and Illustrators.

The University of Connecticut will replace the UConn Co-op, which has operated the campus bookstore for 40 years, with a bookstore operated by either Follett or Barnes & Noble as early as June.

San Francisco’s Books Inc. has won this year’s Publishers Weekly Bookstore of the Year Award. In an announcement on Wednesday, PW also named Karel/Dutton Group’s Lise Solomon as Rep of the Year.

Registration is open for the 2016 IndieCommerce Institute, a one-day, interactive learning experience exclusively for IndieCommerce stores. The program will be held on Tuesday, May 10, from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Hotel ABA, Chicago’s The Drake Hotel, just prior to BookExpo America.

Alyssa and Jacob Holster, the new owners of Once Upon a Tome in Eden, North Carolina, are adding a coffee bar and changing the store’s name to Uprising Coffee & Books.

On Monday, March 14, all ABA main store members were sent an e-mail from CEO Oren Teicher that included a link to the ballot for the 2016 Board of Directors elections and biographical information on each of the candidates for four director positions on the Board.

Through March 31, every bookseller registration for Children’s Institute received from an ABC Children’s Group member store will be entered into a drawing to win one of three prizes from the event’s keynote speakers.

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.

More than 150 writers from 30 countries will gather in New York City for the 12th Annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. Booksellers are invited to use a special discount code for online ticket orders and to share the code with their customers.

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.

We Need Diverse Books partners with Penguin Young Readers for writing contest; Author Pat Conroy dies at 70; Poll examines barriers millennials face in starting a business; 28th Annual Lambda Literary Award finalists announced; Adam Johnson wins 2016 Story Prize; 2016 NAIBA Legacy Award winner announced; Amazon Books to open in San Diego mall this summer