It’s time again to complete ABACUS, ABA’s free annual financial benchmarking survey! Not only is ABACUS an incredibly useful tool for your business, it also helps ABA in our work to support you!

To see how ABACUS benefits your store and the larger bookselling community, check out this “5 Reasons to Fill Out ABACUS” infographic.

On June 1, ABACUS will be emailed to stores from [email protected] or [email protected] with the subject line “ABACUS Benchmarking Survey.”

Booksellers have until July 21 to submit their responses.

If you would like assistance, or are participating for the first time, ABA CFO (and former bookstore owner) PK Sindwani will be offering several ABACUS workshops with step-by-step instructions for the ABACUS questionnaire. Visit BookWeb to register for the session that works best for you.

• Thursday, May 23 at 2:00 pm ET: ABA’s Annual Meeting and Community Forum
• Thursday, May 30 at 3:00 pm ET: (Web)Pages of Protection: Cybersecurity and Cyber Insurance for Booksellers
• Tuesday, June 4 at 3:00 pm ET: New Member Series: Meet The Partners
• Wednesday, June 5 at 3:00 pm ET: ABACUS Workshop
• Thursday, June 6 at 3:00 pm ET: Bookseller Lightning Talks

The Children’s Institute 2024 event app is now available! 

Attendees, check your inboxes for an email from [email protected] with the subject line “Download the Ci2024 Event App Now!” for instructions on downloading and accessing the app.

Antitrust Updates

• Last month, ABA filed a motion to intervene in the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) suit charging Amazon with antitrust violations. The FTC’s and Amazon’s response to ABA’s motion — opposing or supporting — is due tomorrow, Thursday, May 23. If either party opposes the intervention, the judge will have the final say and can overrule one or both parties.
• The Main Street Competition Coalition, of which ABA is a member, has launched an ad campaign calling on Washington to crack down on big businesses ignoring the nation’s antitrust laws and hurting small businesses and farmers. Digital video ads are appearing on Connected TV (CTV) platforms, audio ads will run on Spotify, and display ads have been placed on Politico and social media outlets.

Credit Card Competition Act and HR 8337

• ABA is urging booksellers to reach out to their US House representatives and ask them to oppose HR 8337 (formerly HR 6398), which would exempt even more banks from limits on the debit card fees they are able to charge. Lawmakers should be working to lessen the fees that hurt small businesses, not increase them — but increase them is exactly what HR 8337 would do if it is allowed to pass. Please write to your US House Representative to demand they oppose HR 8337 as long as Section 101(b) remains in it.
• In regards to the Visa/Mastercard settlement, the deadline to file claims has been pushed back to August 30, 2024. Bookstores will now have until August 30 to participate in this settlement that returns a portion of the interchange fees merchants paid from January 1, 2004 through January 25, 2019. More than $5.5 billion has been set aside by Visa and Mastercard for this purpose.

Good News in Alabama!

• The censorship bill, HB 385, failed without being considered as the state’s legislative session came to a close. Thank you to Alabama bookstores for reaching out to their lawmakers in opposition to the bill. Under HB 385, any business that displayed material found to be obscene or “harmful to minors” — definitions that are often abused to target books people just don’t like — would have been designated a “public nuisance.” This bill could have led to liability for stores with normal book collections if someone claimed that some of the materials were somehow harmful. It would have also prevented stores from offering diverse programming in the form of drag story time events, all-ages shows where drag performers read inclusive children’s books. American Booksellers for Free Expression (ABFE) will keep an eye on this bill to see if it is reintroduced in the next legislative session.