Book Sense Display: 'An Explosion of Books'

When Book Sense announced the Book Sense 2006 Bestsellers, a special listing of last year's top-selling books at independent bookstores with Book Sense nationwide, staff at Nomad Bookhouse in Jackson, Michigan, recognized a great marketing opportunity. Store Marketing Manager Brent Blank and bookseller Kelley Shirkey took advantage of the entire series of ready-made marketing materials and created their own wall display of 25 to 30 of the Book Sense 2006 Bestsellers. "People are drawn right to it," said Blank. "It's one of the most interesting displays we have."

The lists highlight the year's top 15 titles in Hardcover Fiction, Hardcover Nonfiction, Paperback Fiction, Paperback Nonfiction, Children's Fiction, and Children's Illustrated and are available in 8-1/2" x 11" PDFs that can be used individually or placed together to create one large Book Sense 2006 Bestsellers poster.

Blank said he and Shirkey worked together to create the large display by printing out all of the PDFs and "just running with it." Each of the six categories is represented by five or six books.

"It looks like the wall exploded with books," Blank said. "It's been a really good way to move Book Sense books." When a spot on the display is open, staff replaces it with a different selection from the Book Sense list. "This way you know when a book has been sold and it changes things up for people who are coming in regularly," he added.

Blank started working part-time at Nomad in April and has since become a full-time staff member. As soon as he started working at the bookstore, he told BTW, owner Bridget Rothenberger made it clear that booksellers were encouraged to run with their marketing ideas. "She's more than open to letting us change up the store, which we try to do, so every month it's different for customers." --Karen Schechner

Book Sense encourages booksellers to take photos of their Book Sense Bestsellers and Picks displays and to share them via posting to the Bookstore Photo Gallery on BookWeb's Idea Exchange or to send them via disk to Attn: Chris Babcock, ABA, 200 White Plains Rd., Tarrytown, NY 10591.)