GLBA Booksellers to Focus on 'Book Cents' at Fall Show

The Great Lakes Booksellers Association (GLBA) 16th Annual Trade Show will be held Friday, September 30, through Sunday, October 2, in Rosemont, Illinois, at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O"Hare.

This year's show is the first in Illinois in over a decade, said GLBA Executive Director Jim Dana, who commented, "It will be really interesting to be back in the Chicago area again." The theme of the show is "Making Book Cents," he said, "which, of course, is a play on Book Sense, but we also want to focus on profitability. So we'll be starting with the '2% Solution' session on margins, and we'll also do an ABACUS update with '05 figures." Dana mentioned other margin-minded panels, including one on sidelines and another on outside sales. He added that the show would offer "several tracks of educational opportunities that will run concurrently, a finance track and a Picks of the List track, which will focus on new titles."

ABA is sponsoring the sessions "The 2% Solution: An Introduction to Profitability," which will be presented by BookSense.com Director Len Vlahos and "Increasing Margin" and "The New ABACUS," both presented by ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz.

The Trade Show Exhibit will take place on Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ABA will have a booth on the trade show floor, where the focus will be on education and information. Booksellers are encouraged to stop by the booth to meet with ABA staff, including Vlahos; Domnitz; COO Oren Teicher; Associate Director of Programming and Constituent Groups Liaison Kristen Gilligan; CFO Eleanor Chang; and Director of Special Projects David Walker.

Visitors to the booth can drop off their business cards for a chance to win airfare and hotel accommodations for ABA's Winter Institute to be held on Thursday, January 26, and Friday, January 27, 2006, in Long Beach, or an inkjet printer. ABA is encouraging booksellers to contact ABA staff members prior to the show if they have questions, suggestions, or comments.

The trade show kicks off on Friday with GLBA's "First Timers Breakfast." After the breakfast is ABA's "2% Solution" from 9:00 a.m. to 11:20 a.m. This seminar will look at the drivers of bookstore profitability and examine how these can be used to move a bookseller's business to greater profitability. Specific suggestions and ideas about how a bookseller can work on sales, gross margin, total compensation, and occupancy expenses will be provided.

The annual Great Lakes Book Awards Presentation will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The presentation is GLBA's celebration of the best of the previous year's writing in the Great Lakes region. The winners, all featured speakers, are Fergus M. Bordewich (Bound for Canaan, Amistad/Harper); Ward M. Just (An Unfinished Season, Houghton Mifflin); and Michael Koryta (Tonight I Said Goodbye, Thomas Dunne Books/Holtzbrinck); and one more author to be named soon.

In the afternoon on Friday will be the session "Increasing Margin," held from 2:00 p.m. to 3:50 p.m. Intended for booksellers already familiar with principles of inventory management, "Increasing Margin" compares and contrasts a profitable and unprofitable bookstore, covering a wide range of material, including: controlling product mix, direct versus wholesale ordering, electronic ordering, understanding the value of early payment discounts, better managing seasonal title orders, and more.

Other Friday sessions include: "Picks of the Lists: Children's," "Picks of the Lists: Adults," "Publisher Roundtables," and "Preparing Your Store."

Later that evening, from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., will be the "Moveable Feast," featuring over 50 authors, including Betsy Burton (The King's English, Gibbs Smith); Esme Raji, Codell (Hanukkah, Shmanukkah!, Hyperion Books for Children); and Gail Fraser The Lumby Lines, Yorkville. Keynote speaker will be Scott Turow. Authors will sit at each table and will change tables as the dinner courses change.

Saturday begins with "Breakfast With the Board" from 8:00 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. The trade show exhibit runs from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and the day concludes with the "Booksellers Banquet" and "Quiz Bowl" from 7:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Sunday kicks off with the "Children's Book & Author Breakfast," followed by several educational sessions including, from 10:00 a.m. to 10:50 a.m., ABA's "New ABACUS." The new ABACUS study continues to help independent booksellers compete by giving them comparative, line-by-line analysis of the primary factors affecting bookstore profitability. With more than 200 participating bookstores (more than in any previous survey), ABACUS 2005 promises to provide even more valuable information. "Making Book Cents: Outside Sales" runs from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

For more information about the GLBA trade show, including programming details, registration information, and a list of featured authors, go to http://www.books-glba.org/tradeshow.php or e-mail [email protected]. --Karen Schechner