Industry News

Other Tiger Bookstore in Westerly, Rhode Island (above), will soon open a summer annex near the Atlantic shore.

The owners of Westerly, Rhode Is

On Tuesday, June 22, the on-sale date for former President Bill Clinton's My Life (Knopf), BookSense.com announced that it had made available to BookSense.com participants an audio clip and chapter excerpt from the book.

At this year's Celebration of Bookselling -- held on Friday, June 4, at BookExpo America (BEA) -- Joseph Marsh of Chaucer's Books in Santa Barbara, California, won the grand prize of the Book Sense at Five Contest drawing. Marsh won hotel accommodations and admission to BEA for the next five years.

On Tuesday, June 1, and Wednesday, June 2, the American Booksellers Association Board of Directors and senior staff met at the Hotel ABA - Chicago (Allerton Crowne Plaza), prior to the start of BookExpo America.

During a busy two days, the Board and staff:

Former President Bill Clinton, adored by many, reviled by some, is the booksellers' new best friend this season. His ability to create an enormous demand for his 957-page memoir, My Life, to be released by Knopf on June 22, is nothing short of magical. Only boy wizard Harry Potter has generated a similar anticipatory frenzy.

On Saturday, June 5, at BookExpo America, ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz conducted the two-hour session "The 2% Solution," a comprehensive seminar that suggested ways in which operators of bookstores could address issues related to lack of profitability. "The thrust of the session is to try to go from a negative profitability to a positive," Domnitz said in his opening remarks. "This used to be called a two percent industry…. The thing that struck me about it, is that it is doable."

A recent unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision -- in a case in which chain store Christal's challenged a Littleton adult-business licensing ordinance on the grounds that it violated the retailer's First Amendment rights by not allowing for prompt judicial review -- ruled in favor of the city ordinance. And, while the judges' decision confirmed that First Amendment cases required a prompt review and ruling, they noted that accelerated procedures with two-to-three day time limits do not apply to city ordinance licensing.

This fall, one of the largest independent bookstores in the U.S. will open a second, even larger location. Larry and Gloria Abramoff, founders and co-owners of Tatnuck Bookseller & Sons, the 29-year-old, 24,000-square-foot institution in Worcester, Massachusetts, will open a 31,000-square-foot store in a former supermarket in the Westborough Shopping Center. "I'm so excited, I can't wait," said Larry Abramoff, who hopes to open the store in November.

Southeast Booksellers Association Announces 2004 Book Awards

On Tuesday, June 8, the Southeast Booksellers Association (SEBA) announced the winners of its SEBA 2004 Book Awards.

The winners are:

June is bursting with excitement as publishers provide copies of ARCs and galleys of their early fall releases for your approval, as well as other more current publications. Among the myriad titles:

Some 228 years ago this July 4, a coalition of independent thinkers raised the awareness of Americans, loyalists, and King George by penning the Declaration of Independence. And while independent business alliances and retailers across the nation aren't looking to do something so grandiose as declare their independence from a tyrannical king, this Fourth of July week, they are looking to raise the awareness in their respective communities regarding the intrinsic and economic value of their local independent businesses by celebrating Independents Week.

While the Ides of March didn't turn out so great for Julius Caesar, this past March 15 did augur well for seasoned bookseller Lyle Starkloff, who opened Query Booksellers, a new gay and lesbian bookstore in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Starkloff has already seen considerable increase in traffic and business from the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) community in the Twin Cities, as well as from the straight-but-not-narrow contingent, particularly since Query carries many categories outside gay and lesbian literature.

On Thursday, June 3, at BookExpo America, African-American booksellers and publishers convened for the annual African American Booksellers Conference (AABC). Throughout the daylong program, publishers, authors, and booksellers demonstrated the strength, diversity, and challenges of the African-American market. Expectations were high for the opening of the first African-American Pavilion on the BEA show floor. Participants were not disappointed the next day when the pavilion hosted 17 publishers, representing over a hundred African-American authors.

This article by Geeta Sharma Jensen originally appeared in the June 12 edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

It was just the kind of evening A. David Schwartz would have relished.

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression's (ABFFE) online auction will close Friday, June 18, at 5:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time.