SIBA Kicks Off Trade Show Season

Large crowds, lots of order writing, and high spirits spelled a very successful start to the first regional trade show of the 2006 fall season. The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Fall Trade Show was held last weekend at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Extremely well attended and received were the five featured ABA education sessions: "Shop Local," "Above the Treeline," "How to Be the Story," "Creating Killer Events," and "Improving Efficiency to Achieve Success."

Speaking to BTW from her car on the way home from Orlando, SIBA executive director Wanda Jewell said: "Everything was great -- the facility was the nicest place we've ever had; everyone liked it. We had [an estimated] 700 people -- events were packed, especially the ABA education sessions. Our new idea to have 'blue badges' only (SIBA core members) on the trade show floor from 9:00 a.m. to noon on Saturday was very popular. All in all, it was a very productive show and a great kickoff to the trade show season."

ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz echoed Jewell's sentiments. "We were quite busy throughout the show, and delighted to see so many existing members -- and particularly happy to see so many new booksellers. It was a great show."

"I think it's essential for anyone in bookselling to be there," Scott Naugle of Pass Christian Books in Pass Christian, Mississippi, told BTW. Since Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast last year, Naugle has been selling books online and is hoping to reopen his storefront in a temporary location in early October. "It was a very productive day and a good SIBA event."

ABA raffle prizewinners, Lisa Sharp of Nightbird Books in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Jeanne Young of C.J. Ford Bookshop in St. Simon's Island, Georgia, had additional reasons to be enthusiastic about the show.

Sharp, owner of the five-month-old Nightbird, won the color inkjet printer raffled off at the ABA Booth. This qualified her to enter into the drawing to win airfare and a hotel stay at ABA's Winter Institute in Portland, Oregon, February 1 - 2, 2007.

Young, manager at C.J. Ford, won a four-night stay at Hotel ABA in Brooklyn for BookExpo America 2007, compliments of BEA. Said Young, "Naturally, I'm ecstatic over winning the ABA drawing for the four-night stay at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott for the 2007 BookExpo. I can't wait to go."

Young continued, "All three of us who attended [Mary Jane Reed, store owner, and Suzanne Engel, bookseller,] came back feeling very positive about it. The accommodations were wonderful, and we all enjoyed the proximity of our room to the Convention Center. Of course, it took us awhile to find our way around. The food was, surprisingly, also quite good as was the wine they served at dinner."

All booksellers contacted stressed the usefulness and relevance of the education sessions. Sharp attended "Above the Treeline: An Introduction," "Improving Efficiency to Achieve Success," and "Creating Killer Events." She told BTW, "They were all excellent."

ABA programming kicked off with "Shop Local: Forming Business Alliances in Your Community," which was moderated by ABA COO Oren Teicher and featured a presentation by Betsy Burton of The King's English in Salt Lake City, Utah. Burton discussed how locally-owned businesses have a far greater economic impact on their communities than do national chains and the growing evidence that working with other local, independently-owned businesses can lead to more profitability. C.J. Ford's Young attended the session and noted that "it was very well presented."

Flossie McNabb, co-owner of Carpe Librum Booksellers in Knoxville, Tennessee, found the "Shop Local" session to be especially well timed. "We were getting ready to gear up our own local business alliance here," she told BTW. "We have a number of interested businesses ready to go, but we really didn't know how to begin. The suggestions Betsy made were excellent, and I came away with a wealth of information."

"Creating Killer Events," which was moderated by Teicher, and featured Mitchell Kaplan of Books & Books, Miami, and Jake Reiss of The Alabama Booksmith, in Homewood, Alabama, discussed how any bookstore can create killer events and what should be on a store's event prep checklist. Sharp said the session "was especially useful: It made cohesive a lot of things that I had been thinking about but were vague in my mind. [The session] gave me step-by-step procedures I could follow."

Led by Domnitz, "Improving Efficiency to Achieve Success," focused on how booksellers can streamline routine functions so that more time and energy can be devoted to achieving the goals set for a store. Young attended the session and said she came away with "excellent ideas." She added: "My cohorts were very impressed with their sessions as well -- 'Creating Killer Events' and 'Reading Groups Mean Business.' I'm always happy if I can bring home at least one new idea, and I feel I more than surpassed that number this year."

Other highlights for booksellers included meeting authors and hearing them read from, and talk about, their work. Sharp told BTW that as a new bookseller, "I'm a little overwhelmed by all the ARCs and new books. It really helped me to hear some of the authors themselves express their passion for their work."

"Every year there are some wonderful authors, and this year was no exception," Young said. "I was most excited to meet Sonny Brewer -- I can't say enough about his two lovely, lyrical novels (Cast of Characters, MacAdam Cage; A Sound Like Thunder, Ballantine)."

Carpe's McNabb noted that hearing Darnell Arnoult, author of Sufficient Grace, Free Press, and winner of a 2006 SIBA Book Award for What Travels With Us (LSU Press), was a high point of the show. Lee Smith (On Agate Hill, Algonquin), was repeatedly mentioned as a bookseller favorite. --Nomi Schwartz