A Letter From ABA's CEO

Dear Bookseller,

It was great to have the chance to talk with so many of you at the recent BookExpo America. If you were at the Town Hall and the Annual Membership Meeting, thank you very much for your participation. The attendance at those two meetings was strong, and the Town Hall discussions were energetic and thoughtful. (And if you didn’t have a chance to attend or weren’t at BEA, here’s a link to Bookselling This Week’s coverage of the meetings.)

As I said in my remarks at the Annual Meeting, you are what makes this association strong, and your active participation is something that ABA never takes for granted. ABA is extremely grateful for all you do.

Regarding BEA, I hope that you have noted or have had a chance to read about how ABA’s goals and activities at the trade show are changing.

Based on feedback and input from the Booksellers Advisory Board, the ABA Board, and many conversations with members, we are working to shift our focus at BEA in order to leverage the unique role the trade show plays for our industry. BookExpo America is the one U.S. book event that brings all the players in our industry to the same table. And because you, the members, have told us how important it is for us to help ensure that indies are part of the conversation regarding key industry issues, we are morphing our BEA scheduling to put the emphasis on maximizing opportunities for dialogue among indie booksellers and all the people that we do business with.

For example, this year, we experimented with two new initiatives at BEA — the Meet the Editor program, which took groups of ABA member booksellers to meetings at publishing houses, and the One-on-One Publisher Meetings for member bookstore owners and managers, which were structured in a speed-dating format and gave booksellers the opportunity to meet top publishing executives individually.

As with all new programs, we know there’s room for improvement! But the initial feedback has been positive, with great suggestions on how to make both the Meet the Editor and the One-on-One Publisher Meetings more effective and productive. We think this programming maximizes the unique opportunities of BEA, and allows us to best utilize our resources to deliver effective and innovative educational programming all around the country at other events, including the Winter Institute, the Children’s Institute, the Spring Forums, and the fall regional trade shows. And we will continue to offer more ways to share that programming with you online, as we’ve done with the sessions at the Children’s Institute, thanks to the generous support of James Patterson.

If you were part of either of these two new initiatives, I hope you will let us know what you thought, especially your suggestions about how they might work better. Your feedback about BEA is particularly important because, as I reported to members at the Annual Meeting, ABA has entered into a new seven-year arrangement with our colleagues at Reed, and we will be continuing our partnership at BookExpo America. Everyone knows that trade shows are changing, but our ongoing co-sponsorship of BEA with Reed is based on a shared commitment to provide indie booksellers with the best possible experience — and value — that this sort of large national event can provide.

As I’m sure you know, there was another big happening in Javits — and BookCon certainly made quite a debut! While, on the one hand, seeing the throngs of BookCon attendees was a wonderfully vibrant sign of consumer excitement for authors, books, and reading, it does raise questions for you as BEA attendees. Our colleagues at BEA have assured us that they are fully committed to working with ABA to make sure that, as they evolve the trade show, it remains a relevant and valuable business-to-business event.

Finally, as I write this, there is not yet a resolution to the Hachette-Amazon controversy. As I said at BEA, Amazon’s bullying assault of a major publisher is just the latest example of a unilateral and short-sighted strategy. These past few weeks have made even more clear that the book industry is being held hostage by a company far more interested in selling flat-screen TVs, diapers, and groceries. Amazon’s actions show that it is prepared to sacrifice a diverse publishing ecosystem to achieve retail dominance. That’s not good for anyone.

The good news is that this standoff has generated extensive media coverage of Amazon’s actions, and social media is playing a major role is spreading the story. Here’s a link to a BTW resource list of news reports, bookseller responses, author comments, and more. Included are links to an assortment of DIY resources that I hope you will consider using as you work to inform your customers regarding why a competitive retail book business is in danger.

And, as always, I hope you will share your success stories, feedback, concerns, and ideas.

Sincerely,

Oren Teicher

CEO, American Booksellers Association

P.S. If you have filled out the 2014 Member Satisfaction Survey, many thanks! And, if you haven’t, I hope you will take a few moments to complete the survey. Your responses will help ABA assess the value to you of our programming and are essential to our planning. The survey deadline is July 1, 2014.