Fall Trade Show Schedule in Full Swing as NAIBA, PNBA & SEBA Meet Next Week

Booksellers in the Pacific Northwest, New Atlantic, and Southeast regions will be gathering next week for fall regional trade shows featuring extensive educational programming and a number of special author events next week. ABA will be providing educational sessions at each of the shows, as well as ongoing demonstrations of the new Book Sense Gift Card Program at the ABA/Book Sense booth on the trade show floors. Booksellers who participate in a gift card demo at the shows will be automatically entered into a raffle to win a free $50 gift card training session and a color inkjet printer. Booksellers who bring a recent photo of a Book Sense 76 display (with store name, address, phone number, and contact name printed on the back) will get a second chance at winning a free gift card training session.

PNBA

The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) will be held from Thursday, September 18, through Saturday, September 20, in Portland, Oregon. The educational events and banquets, beginning Thursday, will take place at the Doubletree Columbia River Hotel in Portland. The trade show and all exhibits will be held at Portland's Metro Expo Center. A free bus will shuttle attendees between the two sites for both show days.

ABA programming at PNBA includes the session "Technology as a Bookselling Tool," presented by Jeff Wexler, ABA's information systems director, at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday. This in-depth presentation -- with live demonstrations -- will address the technological needs of today's bookseller. Special focus will be given to getting the most out of ABA's online resources. Topics will include basic computer techniques (downloading attachments, virus scans, etc.), bookseller online discussion forums, the ABA Book Buyer's Handbook online, reporting to the Book Sense Bestseller List, and the e-commerce solution for independent booksellers, BookSense.com.

From 1:15 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. on Thursday, Mark Nichols, Book Sense marketing director, will lead the session "BookSense.com Co-op Reimbursement Program, Reduce Your Web Site Costs." The new BookSense.com co-op program allows booksellers with BookSense.com Web sites to earn newsletter co-op dollars from participating publishers for featuring titles, both online and in their stores, and helps publishers to promote their books. This can help offset the cost of operating a Web site. There will be a brief presentation followed by Q&A.

For more on the PNBA trade show, click here or visit the PNBA Web site at http://www.pnba.org/.

SEBA

The Southeast Booksellers Association (SEBA) Annual Fall Trade Show will be held this year at the Jekyll Island Convention Center in Jekyll Island, Georgia, from Friday, September 19, to Sunday, September 21.

Attending the SEBA trade show from ABA will be CEO Avin Mark Domnitz, BookSense.com Director Len Vlahos, and Jill Perlstein, ABA's director of marketing.

ABA's educational programming will also be one of the many highlights of the SEBA Trade Show. On Friday, September 19, from 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m., Domnitz will present the session, "ABACUS: Year One." The rich ABACUS data showing the performance of almost 200 participating stores as well as "data slices," grouped by profitability levels, sales levels, area of the country, and more, will be presented. Close attention will be paid to those drivers of success that are clearly revealed by the study's results.

Following the ABACUS session, from 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m., will be a session on free expression, "From Monica to the Patriot Act: Customer Privacy Today." Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, will discuss the evolution of the customer privacy issue and provide an update on the status of the Freedom to Read Protection Act (H.R. 1157), the bill introduced by Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders to restore the customers' right to privacy eliminated by the Patriot Act. The program will include one of the first screenings of a dramatic documentary, Reading Your Rights, about the Tattered Cover's court fight to protect a customer's privacy. The film will begin appearing on PBS stations around the country this fall.

Later on Friday, from 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m., ABA's Vlahos will present a look at the BookSense.com Co-op Reimbursement Program, which can help booksellers offset the cost of operating their Web sites, as well as help publishers promote books. There will be a brief presentation followed by Q&A.

For more on the SEBA trade show, click here or visit the SEBA Web site at http://www.sebaweb.org/.

NAIBA

The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA) Fall Trade Show will be held on Sunday and Monday, September 21 - 22, in the Events Center at the Borgata Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Attending the NAIBA show from ABA will be CEO Avin Mark Domnitz; Editorial Director/Editor-in-Chief of the Book Sense 76 Dan Cullen; and Manager of Communications, Industry Relations, and Trade Policy Kristen Gilligan.

An ABA budgeting and monitoring workshop kicks off Sunday's educational sessions. Domnitz will lead "Increasing Your Bookstore's Financial Odds," from 10:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. in Studio 3. The session will demonstrate how bookstores are best operated within a system of financial controls that allow the owner/manager to predict performance and then measure outcomes against those predictions. Through the use of a series of Excel worksheets, attendees will be shown how to integrate a system that allows close control of cash flow into their operations. This workshop has been newly revised to focus on the issues of small and medium-size stores. Special attention will be paid to those factors that the early ABACUS results indicate are the drivers of profitability and success. This seminar is a must for owners, managers, and financial staff of bookstores.

For more on the NAIBA trade show, click here or visit the NAIBA Web site at http://www.naiba.com.