ABA Announces BEA 2007 Educational Programming & Special Events

Registration Now Open

This week, the American Booksellers Association unveils a preliminary schedule of its programming for BookExpo America 2007 in New York. From Wednesday, May 30, through Sunday, June 3, ABA is offering an array of educational programming and special events, including the popular Book Sense Author Lunch and the Celebration of Bookselling. New this year, the all-day Thursday education program and the Celebration of Bookselling on Thursday evening will be held at Hotel ABA, The New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn, New York. In addition, on Wednesday afternoon in Brooklyn, ABA has planned a series of "welcome" events, including an address by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former Brooklynite, David McCullough (1776, S&S) and a series of walking tours led by local authors.

A highlight of Thursday's educational program will be the Plenary Session, "Adapting to Change," featuring Cathleen Black, president of the Hearst Magazine Group and author of Basic Black: Make Passion Your Strategy and Other Lessons for Work and Life, to be published by Crown Business this fall.

For new and prospective booksellers, ABA is sponsoring a four-day Booksellers School, facilitated by Paz & Associates. The course, which emphasizes a realistic and practical approach, is ideal for anyone who is opening, buying, or investing in a bookstore, as well as for those who would like to. The comprehensive program is also appropriate for industry professionals who seek a better understanding of book retailing. The school will be held from Tuesday, May 29, to Friday, June 1, at Hotel ABA, with the exception of Friday, when classes will be held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

Watch for updates on ABA's educational programming and special events in upcoming editions of Bookselling This Week.

ABA member booksellers must preregister here, or via the BEA website, for the Day of Education. Registration for Hotel ABA is via BookWeb.org. Registration for the trade show is via BookExpoAmerica.com. ABA's Thursday Day of Education is open only to ABA Bookstore Members.

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Preliminary Schedule for ABA Education/Events at BookExpo America 2007
[ Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday ]

WEDNESDAY, MAY 30

Hotel ABA (The New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge)
Open only to ABA Bookstore Members.

2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Welcome to Brooklyn Kickoff Event
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former Brooklynite, David McCullough, author of 1776 and The Great Bridge (S&S), will kick off ABA's "Welcome to Brooklyn" events at Hotel ABA 2007 (the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge). Booksellers will have the opportunity to hear the noted historian discuss some of the highlights of the "borough of kings," including the Brooklyn Bridge and the Battle of Brooklyn.

3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Brooklyn Walking Tours
A cadre of Brooklyn authors will lead booksellers on walking tours of literary Brooklyn. These include tours of Brooklyn neighborhoods immortalized by some of today's best writers, as well as tours to the studios of local children's book illustrators and the offices of small independent Brooklyn publishers. Booksellers will need to sign up in advance; watch BTW for details.

5:00 p.m.

"A Taste of Brooklyn" Reception at Borough Hall
Also on tap is a visit to historic Brooklyn Borough Hall, across the street from Hotel ABA, where booksellers will be welcomed by Borough President Marty Markowitz.

9:00 p.m. - Midnight

Evening Reception
Booksellers at Hotel ABA will be treated to an evening reception sponsored by Scholastic to celebrate the debut of Ann Martin's Main Street series.

THURSDAY, MAY 31

ABA's Day of Education, sponsored by Baker & Taylor
The New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge (Hotel ABA)

8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.

What Are You Reading? Breakfast
With a day full of information on the business of bookselling, it's important to take a moment to remember why we're all here: Books! Break bread with bookseller colleagues and editors from publishing houses from around the country and engage in unmoderated discussions about your favorite handsells. The event is free; however, separate reservations required; watch for details to come.

9:00 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.

Plenary Session: Adapting to Change
Cathleen Black, the president of the Hearst Magazine Group and author of Basic Black: Make Passion Your Strategy and Other Lessons for Work and Life, coming from Crown Business this fall, talks about adapting to change. Black was the first president and publisher of USA Today and is widely credited for the newspaper's success.

10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

Expanding Your Bookstore: Why, When, and How
The ABACUS survey consistently shows that stores below a certain sales volume are much less likely to be profitable. One way to grow your sales is to grow your store. This session will examine the reasons for store expansion and the when and how of remodeling existing space, growing existing space, finding new space, and opening a second location. This session is aimed at owners and managers from stores doing less than $1,000,000 per year.

Building and Rewarding Customer Loyalty
Books are sold everywhere, so how do you keep customers coming back to your store? This session will explore what customers really want, and how you can foster loyalty by responding to consumer needs. An in-depth discussion of the pros and cons of implementing and marketing a customer loyalty program will be featured.

ISBN-13 Roundtables
Booksellers are invited to join their peers for a discussion of issues relating to their point-of-sale/inventory control systems, particularly how changes related to ISBN-13 are impacting store operations. Discussion groups will be segmented by system, and representatives from each POS vendor will be invited to participate.

What to Do When the Competition Comes to Town: A Case Study
This is the first in a series of sessions tracking one store's response to a chain competitor's plan to open a store in the community. This session will set the stage, examining the steps needed for a bookseller to put together a cohesive plan to address looming competition. Future sessions will report on the implementation of that plan.

11:45 a.m. - 1:15 p.m.

ABFFE Lunch
The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Speech (ABFFE) will show a short video dramatizing censorship issues that arise in the daily lives of booksellers. What should you say when someone objects to a particular title or requests a book that you loathe? Booksellers will be invited to discuss with others at their table how they respond to First Amendment challenges. The program is co-sponsored by the Freedom to Read Foundation and the Freedom to Read Committee of the Association of American Publishers.

1:30 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. - 5:15 p.m.

Staff Development: An Overview
This session takes a high altitude view of how hiring, training, and managing staff is as much art as it is science. Topics will include hiring people who will add strength to the store, recognizing and building upon an employee's unique abilities, and creating a work environment that motivates staff.

Handselling: Customer Service With Results
Handselling is the key customer service strategy differentiating independent bookstores from all other competitors. Learn how to use or improve this strategy to grow your reputation, energize your staff, and increase your sales. Booksellers will break into groups to discuss their own handselling success stories.

How to Be the Story: Developing and Implementing a Public Relations Plan
On average, independent bookstores spend two percent of their annual budget on advertising. But what is the budget for public relations? What's the difference between advertising and PR? This session will show how a comprehensive public relations plan can have a greater impact on a store's visibility than advertising and at a much lower cost. Learn how to formulate and execute a PR plan. Booksellers will break into groups to tackle hypothetical PR problems.

Improve Efficiency to Achieve Success
This seminar will show you how to use your time more effectively, make your staff more productive, and implement efficiencies throughout the store. Intended for owners and senior staff of bookstores of all sizes, the session will focus on how to streamline routine functions so that more time and energy can be devoted to achieving the goals you have set for your store.

Participating in the Digital Revolution: High Altitude
Everyday the news is rife with stories of how technology is changing the way people interact, acquire information, and especially the way they consume it. How are phenomena like digitization of content, social networking, open source and distributed computing, and more, affecting independent booksellers today, and how will they affect booksellers in the near future? This session will explore the latest developments in the technosphere and how they impact booksellers.

Participating in the Digital Revolution: Low Altitude
This session follows "Participating in the Digital Revolution: High Altitude" by providing hands-on information on why and how booksellers should, and can, create MySpace pages and blogs. Includes live demonstrations.

Book Clubs: A Panel
Barbara Mead of Reading Group Choices will lead a panel of independent booksellers and publishing industry publicity professionals as they discuss the value of promoting, hosting, and working with book clubs. Bring your own best book club ideas to discuss in breakout sessions.

Getting More Out of Your Children's Section: Managing Selection, Service, and Store Environment for Category Growth
Children's books are one of the brightest spots for growth in the book industry, but managing this category for healthy sales requires a challenging and strategic approach. In this session we will look at the three important areas you need to address to successfully grow your children's book business: Building a kid-friendly environment, picking the right books, and finding and training charismatic kid's book specialists. This session will also address the importance of hand-selling children's books, and arm participants with some quick and easy Ideas That Work that booksellers can implement in their store right away to boost their children's sales. This session, designed specifically for children's booksellers is presented in conjunction with the Association of Booksellers for Children (ABC).

The Day of Education curriculum in Brooklyn also includes programming for children's booksellers by the Association of Booksellers for Children, and programming for college stores by the National Association of College stores.

5:15 p.m. - 6:45 p.m.

Celebration of Bookselling, sponsored by Ingram Book Company/Ingram Publisher Services
The Celebration of Bookselling is moving to Thursday night at Hotel ABA. All are invited to snack, drink, and share in the celebration of the 2007 Book Sense Book of the Year Awards, presented to the authors and illustrators in four categories -- Adult Fiction, Adult Nonfiction, Children's Literature, and Children's Illustrated. Publishers Weekly's Bookseller and Rep of the Year awards and the Pannell Awards will also be presented. Free of charge. Open to all BEA attendees. Live music provided by Putumayo World Music.

9:00 p.m. - Midnight

Evening Reception
Booksellers at Hotel ABA will be treated to an evening reception sponsored by HarperCollins to celebrate the fall publication of Barry Landau's The President's Table: 200 Years of Dining and Diplomacy (Collins).

FRIDAY, JUNE 1

Jacob K. Javits Convention Center

9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

BookSense.com Users Group Meeting
Moderated by BookSense.com staff. BookSense.com users will learn about the latest features of BookSense.com, as well as planned enhancements to the product. There will also be a Q&A period. Non-BookSense.com stores are welcome to attend.

10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

Book Sense Gift Cards Users Group Meeting
Moderated by Jill Perlstein, ABA Marketing Director
Current participants are encouraged to attend to learn about enhancements to the program's security, administrative site, and card ordering system. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A period. Booksellers who are considering joining the gift card program are welcome to attend.

12:15 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.

Book Sense Author Lunch
The Book Sense Author Lunch -- a favorite at BEA for six years running -- will be held Friday, June 1, in the Special Events Hall at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The luncheon, open exclusively to stores with Book Sense, is a festive gathering of booksellers and 50 authors whose books they have made past or present Book Sense Picks. Reservations are limited to two people per bookstore. Since seating is limited, booksellers are urged to make their reservations as soon as possible via e-mail to [email protected]. (Be sure to include "bealunch" in the subject line of the e-mail.) Questions regarding the Lunch should be addressed to [email protected]. Open only to Book Sense bookstores.

3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

ABA Town Hall Meeting
Hosted by ABA President Russ Lawrence of Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Montana, and Vice President Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona. An opportunity for ABA member booksellers to voice their opinions and to share their ideas with ABA Board members and staff in a less formal setting than at the ABA Annual Membership meeting, which follows. Ask questions and make suggestions, discuss ABA's Education Program, Book Sense, sales tax and small-business health care issues, Book Sense Gift Cards, the ABACUS Study, Above The Treeline, or anything else on your mind! Open to all ABA members.

4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

ABA Annual Meeting
The ABA Board and Chief Executive Officer Avin Mark Domnitz will report on the implementation of the association's Strategic Plan during the prior 12-month period. All ABA members are encouraged to attend this meeting where they will be asked to vote on a change to the association's bylaws.

9:00 p.m. - Midnight

The New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge (Hotel ABA)

Evening Reception
Booksellers at Hotel ABA will be treated to a reception sponsored by Beacon Press to celebrate the publication of ABFFE President Chris Finan's From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America.

SATURDAY, JUNE 2

Jacob K. Javits Convention Center

1:30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.

Localism... Is the tipping point at hand?
There's growing media coverage and national discussion about the critical importance of community and the value of locally owned businesses to the local economy. Join us for a discussion about the burgeoning "local first" movement and how independent retailers are working together to preserve the diversity of their communities.

3:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Social Entrepreneurs: Changing the World
PublicAffairs will be marking its 10th anniversary with a special panel discussion, "Social Entrepreneurs: Changing the World," co-sponsored by ABA. Moderated by Brian Lamb, founder and chairman of C-Span and author of the Booknotes books series, the panel will feature George Soros, chairman of the Open Society Institute and author of The Age of Fallibility; Wendy Kopp, founder and chair of Teach for America and author of One Day All Children; James Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank and author of the forthcoming A Global Life; Mohammud Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and author of Banker to the Poor and a book to be published in January 2008 on social enterprises; and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and/or Teresa Heinz, authors of This Moment on Earth. The discussion will focus on the growing role of social entrepreneurs in solving America's and the world's most serious problems. Over the past generation, social innovators have transformed the way society deals with issues such as poverty, education, health care, the environment and technology.

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ABA's Book Sense Lounge: Javits Center (IE07/IE08)

Friday, June 1 - Sunday, June 3

Booksellers can take a break from hectic trade show floor in ABA's members-only Book Sense Lounge. Modeled after frequent flyer lounges, the Book Sense Lounge is where booksellers can grab a cup of coffee and a snack, meet with other booksellers, learn about ABA products and services, have books signed by some of their favorite authors, or just get off their feet for a while. Booklog's Internet Cafe, where booksellers can check their e-mail, will be back again this year.The lounge will be open during trade show hours, but closed on Friday at 3:00 p.m. for the ABA Town Meeting and Membership Meeting. Open to all ABA members.

Book Sense Autographing
(Friday, Saturday, and Sunday: Times TBD)
Continuing the success of past years' Book Sense Autographing sessions, the ABA/Book Sense Lounge will be the place to go for autographed books from some of independent booksellers' favorite authors. Authors whose works have appeared on the Book Sense Picks lists will be available to sign their books and meet booksellers. Check upcoming editions of Bookselling This Week for the official line-up with dates and times. An updated schedule will be available in the Lounge during the show.

Join the DEFINE-A-THON phenomenon!
(Saturday, 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.)
The BookSense/American Heritage Dictionary DEFINE-A-THON is a game of vocabulary strength that "ups the ante" on word-based competition. Developed by the editors of the American Heritage Dictionary, this quick-paced game takes participants beyond the spelling bee. The host will give each contestant a definition, followed by several possible answers. The contestant must choose the correct one. As the competition progresses, the degree of difficulty increases until two contestants are left. These two players will enter the final round with new rules and higher stakes. Pit your knowledge of English against that of your friends and colleagues -- the DEFINE-A-THON will separate the vocabulary geniuses from the vocabulary wannabees. Winner will receive an iPod Nano and an American Heritage Dictionary reference library. The two runner-ups will receive American Heritage College Dictionaries.

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ABA member booksellers must preregister here, or via the BEA website, for the Day of Education. Registration for Hotel ABA is via BookWeb.org. Registration for the trade show is via BookExpoAmerica.com.