MBA Trade Show 'Time Well Spent'

This year's Midwest Booksellers Association (MBA) Fall Trade Show was held from Thursday, September 28, through Saturday, September 30, at St. Paul, Minnesota's RiverCenter. MBA executive director Susan Walker called the show "very successful" thanks to a "conscientious effort to focus on providing opportunities to do business." More than 1,000 people attended, including 430 booksellers, representing 120 bookstores, 20 of them new members. New this year was a day devoted exclusively to education, slightly shorter exhibit hours, a schedule change for the "Pick of the Lists," and one-on-one meetings between publishers and booksellers on a closed trade show floor.

"The format changes were quite important," said Walker. "Overall, what we tried to do was to make sure that on the first day, the education day, we and ABA provided solid content, a rich assortment for booksellers. We took the 'Pick of the Lists' away from the day of education and scheduled it during the exhibit days, so booksellers could hear about the picks and then place their orders."

Walker explained that allowing time for booksellers to sit down with publishers in the closed exhibit space allowed them to "give each other their undivided attention." Both booksellers and publishers reported it "time well spent," she said.

Chris Livingston of The Book Shelf in Winona, Minnesota, who is an MBA Board member, reported that slightly shortening exhibit floor hours resulted in "a lot more energy when the floor was opened." He added, "I spoke with reps, and there seemed to be a lot of satisfaction with the changes in the show."

Walker noted that the Midwest Booksellers' Choice Awards Reception was a show highlight. "We had eight authors in person," she said. "The winners all spoke.... Louise Erdrich (The Painted Drum, HarperCollins) talked about her bookstore Birchbark Books, how she got her start in bookselling, and how she realized that stocking a bookstore with all of the books that you love doesn't mean you'll have a successful bookstore."

ABA presented seven education sessions as part of MBA's Thursday education day: "Shop Local: Forming Business Alliances in Your Community," "Budgeting & Monitoring," "Creating Killer Events," and "Getting the Most Out of Your Website," as well as demonstrations of Constant Contact, Above the Treeline, and BookSense.com. Demonstrations were also featured at the ABA booth on the trade show floor, where ABA staff also provided information about the association's programs and initiatives and gathered bookseller input to help formulate ABA's next Strategic Plan.

In random drawings at the ABA booth, two booksellers won prizes: Miah Olmsted of Back to Books in Hudson, Wisconsin, and Mary Fran Rash of Main Street Books in St. Charles, Missouri.

Rash won a four-night stay at Hotel ABA in Brooklyn for BookExpo America 2007, compliments of BEA. Olmsted won the color inkjet printer raffled off at the ABA Booth -- which qualifies her to enter into the drawing to win airfare and a hotel stay at ABA's Second Annual Winter Institute in Portland, Oregon, February 1 - 2, 2007.

At ABA's "Budgeting and Monitoring," led by ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz, Olmsted picked up essential tips on financial controls and cash flow control. "I got a much more detailed understanding of the financial benchmarks that I need to put into place so I'll be managing the bookstore rather than the bookstore managing me."

Olmsted also brought staff members who attended the demo of Constant Contact, an ABA affinity program that facilitates the creation, mailing, and tracking of e-mail marketing campaigns. Olmsted reported that Back to Books staffers were "much more enthusiastic" about e-mail campaigns after attending the session, which was presented by Len Vlahos, the director of ABA's education program and of BookSense.com. "They've embraced the idea and are much more invested in doing it," said Olmsted. "Now it's not me saying we need to get Constant Contact, they are."

Stacie Williams, events coordinator of the Downer Street location of Milwaukee's Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, came to the trade show with 14 of her co-workers. "Having a few people from each store was highly valuable," she said. "What we take back to the stores is not just information gleaned by one person and his or her perspective, but several different [perspectives] to share with the booksellers at each store.  We also walked away with the feeling that we are good at what we do and quite aware of a lot that is going on in the publishing world with regard to books coming out."

Williams attended "Creating Killer Events," moderated by ABA COO Oren Teicher and featuring ABA Board member Collette Morgan of Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis and Sarah Bagby of Watermark Books & Cafe in Witchita, Kansas. "The key thing I walked away with was that it's never to early to start publicizing an event," Williams said. "I know that I often feel reserved about this because I fear people will forget about the event.  However, we can certainly spread more via word-of-mouth the earlier we promote an event.  This is something I am taking to my store and putting into practice."

Williams was also interested in MBA's Graphic Novels, Manga, and Anime Panel.

She noted, "The main thing I took from the panel was that it's better to have a small, well-chosen selection that is familiar to all staff -- and with more face-outs, than a larger quantity on the shelves without the booksellers' knowledge and few face-outs."

In addition to the educational programming, Williams told BTW that she especially enjoyed the roundtable discussion for Emerging Leaders. "A group of us from Schwartz attended that one and were happy to see other bookstore staff just as excited about bookselling as we are," she said.

For Olmsted, Thursday's education day was a show highlight, but she found the trade show experience overall to be "invaluable" both for the seminars and talking with other booksellers. "My background is in education," she said. "At teacher conferences we'd often say that a conference either had 'meat and potatoes' or it was just the same old, same old. This conference had real meat and potatoes." --Karen Schechner