Industry News

Stuart Michael Gersen, the co-owner of Portland, Maine’s Longfellow Books, died of lung cancer on January 17, 2015. He was 64 years old.

As part of a social media campaign launched on Monday by ABA and ABFE, booksellers around the country are demonstrating both their solidarity with the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack and their support for free speech.

Registration for this April’s ABC Children’s Institute in Pasadena, California, will open exclusively to members of the ABC Children’s Group at ABA on Tuesday, January 20.
 

Mustard Seed Bookstore to open in Maine; City Stacks Books and Coffee opens for business in Denver; University Book Store celebrates 115 years; Missouri’s Well Read Books relocates; Explore Booksellers’ sale approved; Vermont’s Bear Pond Books, Rivendell to merge; Quest Bookshop’s Kay Allison to retire; Point Reyes to host Geography of Hope literary conference

BookExpo America 2015 will begin at noon on Wednesday, May 27, with an interview of bestselling author Jonathan Franzen by book critic and columnist Laura Miller, the co-founder of Salon.com.

ABA is encouraging all bookstore members to complete the annual Independent Business Survey. A link to the survey was sent to stores in an e-mail from ABA CEO Oren Teicher on January 7.

The Women’s National Book Association is accepting nominations for its 2015 WNBA Pannell Award, which will be presented to one general bookstore and one children’s specialty store at this year’s BookExpo America Children’s Book and Author Breakfast.

The Binc Foundation Scholarship Program will award $200,000 in scholarships this year to booksellers and their families. Applications are due by February 27. 

In a January 12 e-mail, ABA CEO Oren Teicher outlined ways that booksellers can express their solidarity with their colleagues in France in the wake of the horrific killings of the staff of Charlie Hebdo.

As the IndieCommerce team focuses on migrating the last several hundred stores on the Drupal 6 platform to Drupal 7 by the March 31 deadline, response times for dealing with routine issues may be affected.

A strong kickoff on Small Business Saturday launched a successful national holiday season for independent bookstores, boosted by “buy local” campaigns and widespread media coverage that trumpeted local booksellers and the unique draw of neighborhood stores.

Five e-book promotions were recently added to the IndieCommerce Publisher Promotions page. Categories include gardening, home improvement, and cooking.

Christopher Scotton, the debut author of The Secret Wisdom of the Earth, talks about what inspired him to write a novel, the real-life experiences he brought to the story, and how he learned about the people and places of the book’s setting, the Appalachian Mountains.

ABA is encouraging all member stores to take part in the annual post-holiday survey conducted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and the Advocates for Independent Business coalition.