Best of the Midwest Found at the MBA Trade Show

By Laura Hansen, Owner of Bookin' It in Little Falls, Minnesota

With the rain coming down all morning and flash flood warnings going out across the state, it was nice to start the Midwest Booksellers Association Trade Show weekend high and dry in the Minneapolis Skyway System. After many years at the Excel Center in St. Paul, this year's show was held at the Minneapolis Convention Center. The three-day event was jam-packed with education sessions, book signings, panel discussions, visiting authors, and even a movie screening.

One of the newer trade show offerings that is really growing on me is the "Pick of the Lists" presentations put on by a wide range of publisher and distributor reps. This is a great opportunity to focus booksellers on deserving titles before they are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of books displayed on the trade show floor. In our session, Caitlin Hamilton Summie of Unbridled Books was a particularly impassioned presenter with a great love for her titles and respect for her authors. Top among her picks was The Pirate's Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson. At the break, Joci Tilsen of the Valley Bookseller in Stillwater, Minnesota, reported that she had been swayed by Summie's enthusiasm and now planned on reading the review copy, which was languishing back at the store. Another compelling presenter for the second year in a row was John Hasty from Random House. Included in his eclectic picks list was The Dangerous Book for Dogs, a humorous spin-off from the Dangerous/Daring Books for Boys/Girls series. Another favorite highlighted during these sessions was a creative little moving book called Gallop! A Scanimation Picture Book (Rufus Seder) from Workman Publishing. Only two days back from the show, and it is already selling itself.

The Midwest Bookseller Choice Awards Reception took place Saturday evening. Among the authors present were mystery writer and honor book recipient William Kent Krueger (Copper River, Pocket/S&S), who seems to be fast friends with every bookseller he has ever met, and Children's Literature winner Catherine Gilbert Murdoch (Dairy Queen, Houghton Mifflin), who charmed her way into everyone's heart with her own acceptance speech. The evening was capped off by an absentee acceptance video from Michael Perry (Truck, HarperCollins) recorded at home on his farm. His dry sense of humor had the roomful of booksellers near tears.

Tears of another sort came next as we all trooped out into the surprisingly steamy October night to attend a free private screening of The Kite Runner: The Movie presented by Paramount Vantage and Penguin Group. The film was cinematically powerful and moving, and all were eerily quiet and thoughtful after the screening ended.

Saturday was officially Trade Show Day with the doors open from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. with a short break for lunch and the General Membership Meeting. The larger space made it easy to maneuver through the aisles and gave a somewhat more relaxed feeling to the day. However, for some -- especially those of us who are aging a bit and those from smaller stores with only one or two people attending -- having only the single day to visit booths and place orders was exhausting and difficult.

After 15 years of attending the trade show, we have never come back to the store feeling more physically exhausted. Some day we are going to pull onto a highway scale and weigh the car on the way down to the show and on the way back to see how many pounds of books, catalogs, posters, and trinkets we have hauled off the trade show floor, up escalators, across streets, through parking ramps, and back to the store.

On the flip side, waiting at the door with us before the trade show opened was the owner of one of the newest stores to open in the region. Sara Beahler opened Prairie Moon Books in Sheldon, Iowa, only a month before coming to the show. She told us she had attended the First-Timers Orientation on Friday, and we were one of the first people to ask for one of her newly minted business cards. We told her to hand them out liberally at publisher booths. It was refreshing to re-experience the hopefulness and enthusiasm of the new bookseller and know that for all the challenges that face the independent booksellers, new stores keep opening

This year's author signings were mostly informal sessions held right at the booths and this seemed to work pretty well. A few books in particular seemed to generate long signing lines: Agate: What Good Is a Moose? (Joy Morgan Dey, Nikki Johnson, illus.; Lake Superior Port Cities) being one, and Land of Amber Waters (Doug Hoverson, University of Minnesota Press) being another (though the free beer may have accounted for some of the interest). And once again this year, the longest lines of all seemed to lead straight to Kate DiCamillo (Great Joy, Candlewick). There was some disappointment that the heat kept local TV personality Ron Schara from bringing along his black lab, Raven, who appears with him in all his shows and is featured alongside Schara on the front cover of Minnesota Bound (Tristan).

Saturday was capped off by a round of formal book signings and the Annual Book and Author Dinner. Among the after dinner speakers were novelist Russell Banks (The Reserve, HarperCollins) and St. Paul memoirist Patricia Hampl (The Florist's Daughter, Harcourt). For me, the speaker of the evening may have been Haven Kimmel (The Used World, Free Press), a popular author I had inexplicably managed to pass by and now am going to have to add to my must-read list.

Sunday started early with the Children's Book and Author Breakfast. I must admit that I was going to skip the event out of a desire for some extra rest, but couldn't bring myself to miss out on the opportunity to see and hear Sherman Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Little, Brown). Yes, it was worth losing a bit of shuteye. The bagels were hard and dry, but the speakers were funny, fresh, and animated (literally -- using power point presentations and explaining how their books' artwork was created using a mix of high-tech methods). From Judy Sierra (Mind Your Manners, B.B. Wolf, Knopf for Young Readers) to Eileen Christelow with her five little monkeys, to the Hollywood-style trailer presented by the kinetic Frank Beddor (Seeing Redd, Dial) booksellers and attendees were given a birds-eye view inside the minds of children's book authors and illustrators.

Sunday morning proceeded with a number of education sessions and panel discussions. Most sessions throughout the weekend seemed to attract audiences of between 40 and 50. One session that clearly got booksellers fired up was the Bookstore Tourism presentation by Larry Portzline that ran long due to bookseller requests for follow-up information. Karen Hernandez from Normandale Community College Bookstore in Bloomington, Minnesota, bounded out of the session like Tigger on a mission ready to rent a bus straightaway and start taking faculty out on bookstore daytrips around Minnesota. Less exhilarating, but very informative was The Publishing Process presented by Emily Cook of Milkweed Editions in Minneapolis. Cook walked us through the financial analysis that determines viability of a title and print run size, packaging and printing costs, and timelines from design to market. I suspect there were some in the audience that would appreciate a follow-up session that starts even earlier in the process dealing with manuscript acquisition and editorial decisions.

The weekend ended with the "A Moveable Feast" Luncheon, with keynote speakers Laura Moriarty (The Rest of Her Life, Hyperion) and Krista Tippett (Speaking of Faith, Viking). Events such as this are always a welcome surprise. We come focused on certain authors that interest us and end up meeting three or four more who really impress us such as John Coy (Crackback, Scholastic, and coming next year, Box Out) who carries a passion for keeping boys interested in reading and writes books that do just that. Or David Geister, illustrator of The Voyageur's Paddle (Sleeping Bear), who arrived both Saturday and Sunday in full historic voyageur's costume. Or book club panelist and author, Kathy Patrick (The Pulpwood Queen's Tiara-Wearing, Book-Sharing Guide to Life, Grand Central), with her jeweled fingers and tiara.

From champagne (celebrating Tristan Publishing's fifth year) to beer served in frosty glasses (thanks to University of Minnesota Press) and authors appearing costumed as long ago Voyageurs, this year's MBA Trade Show clearly reflected the cultural breadth and history of the Midwest.