Industry News

Holidays 2003 -- Will your sales records be filled with comfort and joy or will your store suffer too many silent nights? After a rocky year, booksellers around the country are looking for innovative ways to bring people into their stores or onto their Web sites to maximize sales. Stores may be using holiday promotional techniques that, although they worked in the past, are now failing to bring in customers. People are jamming stores later and later in the season, waiting for big discounts or simply leaving gift shopping to the last minute.

One year after Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was published and four years before California became a state, Beacon Press published its first book.

Here, Andy Weinberger, co-owner with his wife, Lilla, of Readers' Books in Sonoma, California, takes a look at customers who take it upon themselves to act as morality cops, and he makes the case for tolerance, diversity, and the public's right to information. This column originally appeared in the November/December issue of "One for the Book," an occasional newsletter from Readers' Books.

By Andy Weinberger

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) is asking all ABA bookstore members to add their store name to the growing list of those endorsing the Book and Library Community Statement Supporting The Freedom to Read Protection Act (H.R. 1157); The Library and Bookseller Protection Act (S. 1158); and The Library, Bookseller, and Personal Data Privacy Act (S. 1507).

As booksellers gear up for the holiday season, all staff members should be advised to be on the lookout for fraudulent orders. In recent months, a number of booksellers have contacted ABA to report that they had received phony orders via telephone relay systems developed for use by the hearing impaired, and others have received handwritten orders via postal mail, accompanied by checks for several thousand dollars. These orders usually originate from somewhere in West Africa or Southeast Asia, and the books being ordered were medical reference texts or bibles.

The full-page add featuring the November/December Book Sense 76 Top Ten that will appear as part of the "Booked for the Holidays" insert in the December 8 issue of The New Yorker is now available as a downloadable PDF on BookWeb.org. The 8.5" x 11" ad, which includes book jackets and booksellers' quotes, is ideal for in-store displays. (To download the ad, click here.)

Griffin Poetry Prize Deadline Approaching

NRF survey says consumers to spend $17.24 billion on gift cards

In response to feedback from booksellers, and in an effort to give more bookstores the opportunity to participate in the Book Sense Gift Card program, Book Sense has reached an agreement with Givex, the program’s transaction processor, which lowers the minimum for generic gift card orders. Previously, the minimum was 250 cards per design and per order; now, it is just 100 cards per design and per order to get started in the program.

More Good New for Retailers from Ernst & Young, Consumer Confidence Index

This past month, consumer survey after consumer survey has predicted that this will be a banner holiday selling season for retailers -- Ernst & Young's 2003 Holiday Sales Forecast is no different. It anticipates that the 2003 retail holiday sales increases for November and December will be 5.2 percent -- compared to a 3.4 percent increase for the same period last year.

Much as it was for the beings of Middle Earth before Frodo and Sam finally made it to Mt. Doom … time is running out for those booksellers who wish to participate in The Lord of the Rings The Final Journey Sweepstakes and who haven't received materials yet.

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) is urging booksellers to add their store names to the growing list of those endorsing the Book and Library Community Statement Supporting The Freedom to Read Protection Act (H.R. 1157); The Library and Bookseller Protection Act (S. 1158); and The Library, Bookseller, and Personal Data Privacy Act (S. 1507).

On Saturday, November 15, the Austin Independent Business Alliance (AIBA) asked central Texas residents to forego chain store shopping for one day in favor of local merchants.

Internet Sales Take Ever-Larger Bite Out of Tax

The following editorial, calling for the collection of sales tax for online purchases, appeared in the October 25, 2003, edition of The State, a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina.

Remember the first time you surfed the Internet? The first time you bought something over the Internet? Probably not. Cyberspace has become so ubiquitous that it's easy to forget that most people didn't even know what "online" meant a mere decade ago.

Good news continues to fill the cash registers of booksellers, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF) in the second installment of its 2003 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, published on November 17. The survey revealed that 60.8 of consumers intended to purchase books, CDs, and DVDs as a holiday gift. Only apparel -- at 62.2 percent.