Industry News

This profile of A. David Schwartz, owner of the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, originally appeared in the February 22 edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Bookseller at War With Tolstoy and Cancer

By Jim Higgins

The Lambda Literary Foundation will announce the winners of the 16th Annual Lambda Literary Awards, or "Lammies," honoring a diverse range of distinguished voices in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) publishing, at what promises to be a festive and lively ceremony at the Chicago Mart Plaza on Thursday, June 3, 2004, in conjunction with BookExpo America.

On Wednesday, March 10, in a speech before the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL), at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C., Senator Michael Enzi (R-WY) called on NCSL members to support the Streamlined Sales & Use Tax Act (SSUTA, S. 1736). Enzi and Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) introduced the bill, which would ensure that the tax system is fair to Main Street businesses, in the Senate in October 2003.

January 2004 bookstore sales were down a bit from January 2003, thus interrupting the generally upward trend of the previous seven months. January bookstore sales of $2,069 million declined 1.2 percent from the $2,094 million for January 2003.

Bookstore sales for January also failed to keep pace with overall retail, which improved over January 2003. Overall retail sales of $296 billion for January 2004 was 6.1 percent better than the $279 billion for the previous year.

ABA hopes to see booksellers at open forums held in conjunction with the Mid-South Independent Booksellers Association (MSIBA), the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA), and the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association (MPBA) next week. Additional ABA programming at each includes demonstrations of the Book Sense Gift Card Program and one-to-one ABACUS tutorials with ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz.

On Wednesday, March 10, approximately 40 booksellers attended an ABA Booksellers Forum, held in conjunction with the New England Booksellers Association (NEBA) at the Massachusetts' Brookline Booksmith. ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz and COO Oren Teicher conducted the forum, and among the key topics were the Book Sense Gift Card program, changes to the Book Sense 76, store security, and efforts to amend Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act.

Gift cards have come of age, according to "Holiday Retail Strategies 2004: How Christmas Shopping Trends Will Shape the 2004 Season," a study recently released by Packaged Facts, a publishing division of MarketResearch.com. According to the report, gift cards continue to increase in popularity: They accounted for 10 percent of the $226 billion in holiday sales for 2003, double the 2002 figure.

Booksellers constantly pass judgments on books, critically evaluating the subject matter, the treatment, the cover art, and the author's past work. Some booksellers are even driven to see if they can produce something worthy of a place on their own shelves. Bookseller and author Peter Glassman of Books of Wonder in New York posed the problem to BTW, "Can I write a book without all the mistakes that lead me to reject a lot of other books? That's my challenge."

The March Book Sense White Box roars in like a lion … filled with information and materials you need to see …

First, from ABA and Book Sense:

Booksellers have a chance to get lucky with the display contest for the latest Hardcover History featured title.

Cold Spring May Not Lose Its Independent After All

It looks as if Cold Spring, the historic New York town named by George Washington during America's fight for Independence, will keep its own independent bookstore. The town's Salmagundi Bookstore is closing, but plans are in the works for Scott Meyer, owner of Merritt Bookstores Vol. I and II in nearby Dutchess County, to take over the space. The store will most likely be called Merritt Bookstore Vol. III.

"It's 2004. Do you know where your book business is?" was the theme of a presentation by Kosmo Kalliarekos of the Parthenon Group to the 2004 Association of American Publishers (AAP) General Annual Meeting in February.

The report examined "two core dimensions" fueling the evolution of the publishing market -- proximity to the customer and use of content -- for the education, professional, and trade publishing segments.

Building on the success of last year's ABACUS study -- which fashioned a standard that independent booksellers have found extremely useful in gauging their financial performance and in identifying those areas that need to be addressed to move towards greater profitability -- ABA has begun collecting data from member booksellers for the 2004 study.

The American Booksellers Association continued its 2004 Booksellers Forum schedule on Saturday, March 6, in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, where ABA staff met with upper Midwest booksellers. The ABA Booksellers Forum, co-sponsored by the Upper Midwest Booksellers Association (UMBA), was held at the Comfort Inn-Airport.

In mid-February, the American Booksellers Association, the American Library Association, and PEN American Center launched the Campaign for Reader Privacy (CRP), a petition drive that calls for Congress to amend Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. And booksellers participating in the campaign who spoke to BTW say it is vital that all independent booksellers join the cause -- and now, before it's too late. "I think it's a critical time to do this [petition campaign]," said Neal Coonerty of Bookshop Santa Cruz in California.