Industry News

On Sunday and Monday, January 11 - 12, ABA's Booksellers Advisory Council (BAC) met with representatives of the ABA Board and senior staff in Miami, Florida, to offer the association guidance on a number of issues important to independent booksellers.

The BAC is composed of 25 members and represents a broad cross-section of views from within the community of independent booksellers. For a complete list of BAC members, click here.

Topics discussed at the two days of meetings included:

All employees of ABA member bookstores -- from staff at the front desk to those in the backroom -- are being asked to vote for the best Book Sense 76 titles of the past five years in adult and children's categories. By casting their ballots, participants will be automatically entered in a contest to win the grand prize of five nights' accommodations and admission to BookExpo America for the next five years or one of four first-place prizes, to be announced.

The American Booksellers Association continued its 2004 Booksellers Forum schedule on Thursday, January 15, in Chicago, where ABA staff met with booksellers in the Great Lakes region. The ABA Booksellers Forum, held in conjunction with the Great Lakes Booksellers Association, was hosted at the Allerton Crowne Plaza, the Hotel ABA/Chicago for BookExpo America (BEA) 2004.

This week, Book Sense and Givex announced the creation of a Frequently Asked Questions PDF meant to address common questions from booksellers using the WebPOS (Internet) method to process Book Sense Gift Cards.

The FAQ can be downloaded by clicking here.

After Police Investigation, Bookstore Pulls Adult Magazines

Following a police investigation after some residents complained that a Cullman, Alabama, bookstore had been displaying and illegally selling "obscene materials," the store, Books-A-Million, decided to clear its shelves of all adult magazines, as reported by the Cullman Times.

The opening of a large, new bookstore in Fort Wayne, Indiana, by an energetic young entrepreneur, is scheduled for the end of June 2004. Mitchell Books, which will open in the mall space formerly occupied by Million Story Book Company, is the project of 31-year-old Peter Bobeck, who is also the son of the upscale mall's developer and owner, Duane Bobeck.

The first Mountains & Plains Independent Bestseller List, published in a cooperative effort between Book Sense and the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association (MPBA), debuted this week.

The following editorial appeared in the January 12, 2004, edition of Colorado's Rocky Mountain News.

Amend Patriot Act to Protect Libraries

On Tuesday, January 20, Oprah announced that the next title to be read by Oprah's Book Club is HarperPerennial's One Hundred Years of Solitude by Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

After five consecutive months of gains, retail sales at bookstores turned downward in November. Preliminary data released by the Bureau of the Census shows November 2003 sales at bookstores of $1,041 million, down 2.9 percent from $1,072 million in November 2002.

Despite soft sales in November, 2003 year-to-date sales for bookstores are 2.5 percent better than for the first 11 months of 2002.

Overall retail sales of $316 billion for November 2003 were 5.0 percent ahead of the $301 billion for November of 2002.

Hardcover History, the partnership of Book Sense and The History Channel promoting programming and reading combinations, will return in March with a great new look. The series, which emphasizes why history matters, breathes life into significant subjects both past and present.

In early January, ABA launched a petition campaign to gather signatures of bookstore customers who support amending Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, which stripped away protections for customer privacy. The goal is to garner at least one million signatures.

"We are very pleased by the enthusiastic response that has greeted the launch of our petition campaign," said ABA COO Oren Teicher. "We hope all members of ABA will seriously consider participating."

At the urgings of the Salt Lake Vest Pocket Business Coalition [VPBC] -- an independent business alliance with approximately 200 members -- Salt Lake County recently agreed to fund a comprehensive study on the economic impact of locally owned businesses in the Salt Lake metropolitan area. The Salt Lake County Council has committed $30,000 in 2004 for the study, which will be conducted by the University of Utah's School of Business. The school will work directly with the county council.