BookExpo’s First-Ever Grand Opening Keynote to Feature B&N’s Len Riggio

Barnes & Noble, Inc. Chairman Len Riggio will kick off BookExpo 2018 with the event’s first-ever grand opening keynote, which will take place on Wednesday, May 30, at 9:15 a.m. on the Uptown Stage.

As the chairman of the nation’s largest retail bookseller, Riggio will discuss his unique perspective on the bookselling industry and will focus his talk on the importance of brick-and-mortar stores, serving the modern reader, how bookstores best serve their communities, and the overall changing landscape of book retail today. He will be introduced at BookExpo by American Booksellers Association CEO Oren Teicher.

The event aims to complement BookExpo’s May 31 leadership roundtable, which features CEOs from Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster.

In recent months, the BookExpo team has met with indie booksellers, publishers, distributors, and librarians to learn more about what they are looking for at the show. As a result, BookExpo has undergone a reimagination to become the place where the business of bookselling gets done in North America.

Booksellers can register for free badges to BookExpo by providing their ABA member ID number during the registration process. More information about ABA’s programming at BookExpo can be found on BookWeb.org.