Live From BookExpo America -- Day 1

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BEA 2008 Kicks Off for Indie Booksellers Under Sunny Skies

Under beautiful blue skies on Wednesday, more than 800 ABA member booksellers began arriving in Los Angeles for BookExpo America 2008. Throughout the Renaissance Hollywood, this year's Hotel ABA, there was a steady parade of hellos and hugs, as many booksellers headed out for afternoon tours. Among the early arrivals were prospective booksellers participating in "Opening a Bookstore: Creating Foundations for Success," a school sponsored by ABA and facilitated by Paz & Associates, which began on Tuesday afternoon. The Renaissance Hollywood is the site of Thursday's Day of Education and the Celebration of Bookselling, sponsored by Ingram Book Company/Ingram Publisher Services.


Booksellers get ready to head out for an afternoon of Hollywood and literary touring.

A number of booksellers who arrived by early afternoon visited Hollywood sites and the Getty Center Museum on tours arranged by ABA. Outfitted with audio receivers, members embarked on a Red Line walking tour of some of Hollywood's most storied landmarks, including settings for novels by Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Parker, and Nathanael West; the El Capitan Theatre, where Clark Gable and Fred Astaire were discovered; the historic Walk of Fame; the Hollywood Sign; the Kodak Theatre; and Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Others chose to hop a bus chartered by ABA to take members on a trip to the Getty Center Museum and its unique collection of European paintings, drawings, sculpture, decorative arts, and European and American photographs. Booksellers also strolled the museum's gardens and visited the Getty Center Bookstore.

At the conclusion of the tours, booksellers walked up Hollywood Boulevard (many with their heads down, reading the names of celebrities in the five pointed stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame) to a "Welcome to Hollywood" Author Reception, hosted by ABA and the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association, at the Egyptian Theatre.


Outgoing ABA President Russ Lawrence welcomes booksellers to Los Angeles.

Russ Lawrence, outgoing ABA president and owner of Hamilton, Montana's Chapter One Book Store "officially welcomed" booksellers to BEA 2008, and thanked the reception sponsors, including Harry N. Abrams, Da Capo Lifelong Books, and Mäni's Bakery. Lawrence also acknowledged the Southern California authors mingling with booksellers. In addition, Lawrence pointed to a wall of the Egyptian Theatre covered in hieroglyphics and translated it for attendees: "It says 'Welcome, booksellers, to Hollywood.'"

David Shallenberger of Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Georgia, enjoyed both the reception and the setting. "This is really nice -- that they preserved [the Egyptian Theatre] as it was … you don't think of Los Angeles as having a history, but here it is, L.A. history." One of the attending authors, Denise Hamilton, offered even more history. Her Eve Diamond series of crime novels (Scribner) is set in L.A., and she is also the editor of Los Angeles Noir (Akashic). Pointing to the adjacent Pig 'n Whistle restaurant (the site of the first post-Oscar party), Hamilton said, "This really is an old Hollywood watering hole -- Cecil B. Demille played the organ here, and, at the Oscars, they would all come out and mill around, just like now."

Relaxing at the reception at the Egyptian Theatre, Shirley Sternola, Pat Davis, and Merrillyn Kloefkorn of Bo Peep Books in Golden, Colorado, all gave the hotel high marks in the opening hours -- "I've been impressed with the hotel staff," Sternola said, "they've been very gracious" -- and Davis noted that the person who led the Hollywood Lit tour was "fabulous."

The other Southern California authors attending the reception were:

  • Cecil Castellucci (Beige, Candlewick)
  • Robin Preiss Glasser (illustrator of the Fancy Nancy series, HarperCollins)
  • PJ Haarsma (The Softwire series, Candlewick)
  • Jonathan Kirsch (A History of the End of the World, HarperOne)
  • Ron Koertge (Strays, Candlewick)
  • Virginia Shin-Mui Loh (The Jade Dragon, with Carolyn Marsden, Candlewick, September 2008)
  • Kerry Madden (Jessie's Mountain, Puffin Books)
  • Carolyn Marsden (The Quail Club, Candlewick)
  • Mark London Williams (The Danger Boy series, Candlewick)
  • Wendy Werris (An Alphabetical Life: Living It Up in the World of Books, Carroll & Graf)
  • Kaie Wellman and Emily Mattson (eat.shop guides, Cabazon Books)
  • Lisa Yee (So Totally Emily Ebers, Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic)

Booksellers and authors enjoying wine, cookies, and good conversation at the famous Egyptian Theatre.

Booksellers also enjoyed wine supplied by Brown-Forman, courtesy of Harry N. Abrams, to celebrate Laura Holmes Haddad's Anything But Chardonnay (Stewart, Tabori & Chang). Haddad is a food and wine journalist and the founder of www.Gourmetgrrl.com.

Special bakery items were provided by Da Capo Lifelong Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group, and Mäni's Bakery in honor of Mäni Naill's new cookbook Sweet! Home Baking With Every Kind of Natural Sugar and Sweetener.

Looking ahead to Thursday, Karl Pohrt of Shaman Drum Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said he planned on attending the ABA Day of Education lunch with Amy Goodman. The host of Democracy Now! will be discussing her latest book, Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times (Hyperion), the independent media landscape, and the importance of independent bookstores. "I read the description of what she'll be [discussing]," said Pohrt, "and it's really something that needs to be said." Pohrt also noted that he was "very eager" to find out about the new program the association will be revealing at tomorrow's Celebration of Bookselling. "I think it's a great idea to keep things fresh."

Hotel ABA Welcome Desk

The Welcome Desk on the second-floor mezzanine level of the Renaissance Hollywood will be staffed on Thursday from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and on Friday from 8:00 a.m. to noon.

ABA's Thursday Day of Education Schedule
Sponsored by the Ingram Book Company/Ingram Publisher Services

All sessions are at Hotel ABA, the Renaissance Hollywood.

8:30 a.m. - 9:15 a.m.

Plenary Session Keynote Address: Ed Begley, Jr. (Fifth-floor Grand Ballroom) Coffee will be served.

9:30 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.

Booksellers at the Tipping Point: Leveraging Localism and Independence to Promote Your Store (Hollywood Ballroom AB)
Presenter: ABA Chief Marketing Officer Meg Smith

Buying, Merchandising, and Selling Graphic Novels, 101 (Hollywood Ballroom C)
Moderator: ABA Education Coordinator Lisa Winn. Panelists: Jessica Stockton Bagnulo of McNally Robinson Booksellers (New York, NY); Scott McCloud, comic artist; and John Shableski of Diamond Book Distributors

Building and Rewarding Customer Loyalty (Hollywood Ballroom DE)
Moderator: ABA Senior Director of Publisher Initiatives Mark Nichols. Panelist: Casey Coonerty of Bookshop Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)

Large-Store Roundtable (Silver Lake)
Moderator: Carla Cohen of Politics & Prose Books & Coffee (Washington, D.C.)

9:30 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.

Budgeting & Monitoring Workshop (Doheny/Beachwood/Runyon)
Presenter: ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz

11:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.

Green Retailing (Hollywood Ballroom AB)
Moderator: ABA COO Oren Teicher. Panelists: Suzy Staubach of UConn Co-op (Storrs, CT); Natalie Frieberg of All Shades of Green (Los Angeles, CA); Ferris Kawar, Vice President of Sustainability Greenopia and The Green Media Group, LLC

Print on Demand: Part Two (Hollywood Ballroom C)
Moderator: ABA Senior Director of Editorial Content Dan Cullen. Panelists: Kelly Estep of Carmichael's Bookstore (Louisville, KY); Dan Sheehan of Ingram Book Company & Ingram Publisher Services; Phil Zuckerman of Applewood Books

Give It Away to Get It Back: Using "Thought Leadership" Marketing to Build Your Children's Business (Hollywood Ballroom DE)
Moderator: Kristen McLean, Executive Director of the Association of Booksellers for Children; Panelists: Writer Sue Corbett; Emily D'Amour of Books & Books (Coral Gables, FL); Valerie Lewis of Hicklebee's (San Jose, CA)

12:30 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.

Lunch With Amy Goodman (Fifth-floor Grand Ballroom)

2:00 p.m. - 3:15 p.m.

Renegotiating Your Lease (Doheny/Beachwood/Runyon)
Presenters: ABA Industry Consultant David Walker and Incoming ABA Vice President Michael Tucker of Books Inc. (San Francisco, CA)

Buying, Managing, and Selling Non-Book Items, 101 (Hollywood Ballroom AB)
Presenter: Incoming ABA President Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands Bookstore (Tempe, AZ)

Creating Killer Events (Hollywood Ballroom C)
Moderator: ABA Senior Director of Editorial Content Dan Cullen. Panelists: Margie Scott Tucker of Books Inc. (San Francisco, CA); Collette Morgan of Wild Rumpus (Minneapolis, MN)

Managing Blockbuster Events: The Logistics of Events for 500 or More (Hollywood Ballroom DE)
Moderator: ABA COO Oren Teicher. Panelists: Cristina Nosti of Books & Books (Coral Gables, FL); Alison Kothe Nihlean of BookPeople (Austin, TX)

3:30 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.

Loss Control: How to Stop Profits From Running Out the Front (and Back) Door (Doheny/Beachwood/Runyon)
Presenter: Chuck Robinson of Village Books (Bellingham, WA)

Independent Retailing in 2008: A Report on the Shop Local Movement (Hollywood Ballroom AB)
Moderator: ABA COO Oren Teicher. Panelists: ABA Board members Steve Bercu of BookPeople (Austin, TX) and Becky Anderson of Anderson's Bookshop (Naperville, IL)

RFID: What You Need to Know (Hollywood Ballroom C)
Jim Lichtenberg of Lightspeed, LLC. (New York, NY)

Introduction to Co-op Advertising (Hollywood Ballroom DE)
Presenter: Mark Kaufman of Paz & Associates (Fernandina Beach, FL). Panelist: Libby Cowles of Maria's Bookshop (Durango, CO)

For College Store Booksellers

NACS College Store "Literary Luncheon," from 12:30 p.m. - 1:45 p.m., and "The 4% Challenge: Strategies to Increase General Book Sales, from 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. (Echo Park Room)

The Celebration of Bookselling

The doors of the Hollywood Renaissance's fifth-floor Grand Ballroom will open at 4:45 p.m., immediately following the day's last education sessions.

Free and open to all BEA attendees, thanks to the generous support of Ingram Book Company/Ingram Publisher Services. Highlights include the presentation of the Book Sense Book of the Year Awards and the Publishers Weekly Bookseller and Rep of the Year Awards, and the unveiling of a major, new ABA initiative.

A Celebration of Los Angeles Literary Life

Skylight Books and City Lights Publishers invite booksellers to a Celebration of Los Angeles Literary Life at Skylight Books in Los Feliz (1818 N. Vermont Ave), from 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. City Lights authors David Ulin, Kamau Daaood, Sesshu Foster, Alan Rifkin, Terry Wolverton, and others will join in the celebration.

Directions to Skylight Books from the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel: 10 minutes by car: North one block on Highland to Franklin Avenue; right on Franklin, 2.6 miles; right on Vermont, one block (limited street parking or lot behind store; valet parking 1/2 block south on Melbourne).

Three stops (six minutes) by subway: Take the Hollywood and Highland Metro to the Sunset and Vermont Station; walk four-and-half blocks north to the store.

Vroman's Offers Bookstore Tours

Vroman's Bookstore, Publishers Weekly 2008 Bookseller of the Year, is offering store tours during BookExpo America. There are tours currently scheduled for Thursday afternoon, May 29, and Sunday afternoon, June 1, but Vroman's will accommodate people's schedules and will offer tours at additional times throughout the week.

To make arrangements, contact Vroman's President and COO Allison Hill at [email protected] or call (626) 449-5320, ext. 227. (Leave your name, store name, phone number and the time/day you plan on visiting the store.)

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