Live From Portland, Oregon -- ABA Winter Institute, Day 1

Portland, Oregon, no stranger to great bookstores, this morning became center stage for independent bookselling when the second annual ABA Winter Institute began a two-day run at the Portland Doubletree at Lloyd's Center. Five hundred ABA member booksellers from approximately 200 stores were registered for this year's event.

The Winter Institute features 16 educational sessions, as well as six publishers' reps' picks sessions, a plenary session with author Daniel Pink, a lunch panel featuring new media experts, and many other opportunities for bookseller interaction.

"ABA's number-one strategic goal is to provide our members with the information and education they need to continue to build successful businesses, and the association has worked hard to make sure the Winter Institute does just that," said ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz.

Greeting booksellers at a packed Thursday morning Welcome Breakfast, ABA President Russ Lawrence of Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Montana, said, "Welcome -- though I never thought I would be saying this -- to wonderfully, sunny Portland, Oregon ... a wonderful book city, and you are seeing it at its best." Lawrence encouraged the attendees to make the most of the two days of free educational sessions, as well as the many chances to network with their peers, and he emphasized, "You are what makes the magic happen."

Throughout the day, educational panels and other events filled the meeting rooms at the Doubletree, though ABA Director of Education Len Vlahos stressed that Winter Institute attendance actually could have been higher. "After last year's institute, we knew that many booksellers would be interested in coming to Portland," he said. "However, what made last year such a success was the combination of first-class education and quality peer networking. From the start, all our planning was directed toward making sure that the institute retained the relaxed, casual feeling that made it so special in 2006." Part of that planning meant that attendance was capped at 500, and special care was taken with onsite logistics.

Jennifer Toussaint, one of 30 prospective booksellers attending the institute, said, "So far, the Winter Institute has been great, and an especially big asset is the networking opportunities. Everyone has been so welcoming." She is working to open her children's bookstore, Reading Out Loud, in Hampton, Georgia, in June. Dennise Sleeper of Spellbound Books & Gifts in Homestead, Florida, was attending the Winter Institute one week after opening her store. She told BTW, "I got to this point because of ABA -- I was glad I found you guys right off the bat. I look forward to learning a lot here."

The institute's panels include programming from ABA's 2006 BookExpo America educational offerings and new sessions developed in response to bookseller input collected in the association's latest education survey.

This year's special events began on Wednesday evening with a reception at Powell's Books Burnside store, where booksellers, publishers, and authors were treated to dessert, coffee, and behind-the-scenes tours, which showcased not only the store's huge inventory but also some of its operations. At the Thursday morning breakfast, ABA President Lawrence noted that those who attended the Powell's reception the night before had had an opportunity to see "a great example of what a bookstore can be to a community."

Following the breakfast was the Plenary Session, new to the institute this year. The session featured Daniel Pink, a contributing editor at Wired magazine and the author of A Whole New Mind (Riverhead). In a funny and captivating presentation, Pink offered a logical, sequential (and very left-brain) argument that key forces in the U.S. economy were making such skills as empathy, storytelling, and inventiveness (all decidedly right-brain oriented) much more valuable for individuals, businesses, and, ultimately, society. Advising booksellers that one of their biggest challenges was to prevent books from being perceived as a commodity, he said that bookstores were natural places for consumers to deepen and enrich their lives.

Chris Vietmeier of St. Helens Book Shop in St. Helens, Oregon, told BTW, "I am so thankful to [Pink's publisher] Riverhead. He was very motivational -- he definitely got me excited and thinking about projects for the store."

Following the plenary session and an ABACUS lunch, which summarized the results of the latest ABACUS survey, booksellers began a very busy day, featuring eight educational sessions.

At "Understanding the Basic Financial Documents," ABA's Domnitz presented a fully updated two-hour examination of three key financial documents -- the balance sheet, operating statement, and cash flow statements, explaining how they are created and how best to use them.

New this year was the session "Making Magazines Profitable," which focused on basic strategies for controlling a bookstore's draws, claiming rack display allowances, and maximizing a store's relationship with its distributor. The panel was moderated by ABA COO Oren Teicher and featured Michael Tucker, owner of Books Inc. in San Francisco, and magazine consultants Christine Crowley of Trofie and Gary Judy of Circ. One, Inc.

Two other new sessions were "Design 101: Using Light, Color, and Space to Communicate Your Message," presented by Ryan Hembree, founder and creative director of the award-winning firm Indicia Design and author of The Complete Graphic Designer: A Guide to Understanding Graphics and Visual Communication (Rockport Publishers), and "Understanding the Business of Books," presented by George Gibson, publisher of Walker & Company. Gibson reviewed the publishing process, from acquisition to a title's arrival at the bookstore, and helped attendees work through a hypothetical profit and loss statement to more fully understand a publisher's perspective.

The day's schedule also included sessions on buying and selling used books, handselling, and creating successful store events.

Following the day's educational sessions, booksellers attended one of three "Rep Picks" sessions, where the Winter Institute's publisher sponsors presented new titles from their Winter - Spring lists. Two of the sessions highlighted adult trade titles, and one session focused on children's titles. Booksellers heard representatives from Grove/Atlantic, HarperCollins, Holtzbrinck, Houghton Mifflin, Hyperion, MacAdam/Cage, MIRA, Penguin, Penguin Books for Young Readers, Perseus, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Sourcebooks, Unbridled, and Workman.

Again this year, for both veteran and neophyte booksellers the Winter Institute's affordability was a major plus. The institute is open to all ABA member booksellers -- owners and staff -- free of charge. In addition, ABA negotiated a special rate with the Portland Doubletree that was further subsidized by the event sponsors to make the final cost $99 per night. Event sponsors of the Winter Institute are Baker & Taylor, BookExpo America, and Ingram Book Company/Ingram Publisher Services. Publisher sponsors are Grove Atlantic, HarperCollins, Holtzbrinck, Houghton Mifflin, Hyperion, MacAdam/Cage, MIRA, Penguin Group, Penguin Young Readers Group, Perseus Book Group, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Sourcebooks, Unbridled Books, and Workman.

Among the registrants are 25 booksellers who are the recipients of scholarships, which cover airfare and hotel accommodations at the Winter Institute. Three of the scholarships were provided by ABA and 22 were provided by Winter Institute publisher sponsors. (For a full list of the scholarship booksellers and the publisher sponsors, click here.)

And, as this special edition of BTW was going to press, booksellers at an evening reception were mingling with more than 20 authors, who were there to autograph their forthcoming titles. Later in the evening, "emerging leaders" were gathering for a reception sponsored by the bookstore consulting firm Paz & Associates. --Dan Cullen and Rosemary Hawkins