Sign Up Now for Winter Institute Bus Tours

Registration is underway for a variety of Winter Institute 13 programming taking place on January 22, 2018, prior to the evening Welcome Reception & Blind Date With a Book at The Cadre in downtown Memphis, Tennessee.

There are just a few seats left for the full-day Yoknapatawpha County/Square Books bus tour to Oxford, Mississippi, to visit Rowan Oak, the home of William Faulkner, and Square Books. Highlights include Faulkner’s grave, the Lyceum (the site of the Ole Miss riot of 1962), the James Meredith statue, and historic Oxford Square, featuring three Square Books locations, boutiques, and many places to eat lunch. Most of the tour is guided, but guests will have time to explore historic Oxford Square on their own before returning to Memphis. Register now.

The Mississippi Delta/Turnrow Books tour, which will take booksellers on a tour of historic Civil Rights and Delta blues sites between Memphis, Tennessee, and Greenwood, Mississippi, is at capacity.

In addition to the tours coordinated by ABA, Ingram Content Group is offering booksellers the option to arrive in Nashville on January 21 to visit their La Vergne, Tennessee, offices and take a tour of Lightning Source and the wholesale warehouse the next day; a bus will deliver booksellers to Memphis in time for the Winter Institute opening reception on January 22. Learn more and register for the Ingram Content Group tour here.

Booksellers can also sign up for several special education sessions being held on January 22:

• Principles of Bookstore Finance Seminar: A six-hour, 101-level seminar that will cover the fundamentals of budgeting, cash flow, business financing, bookkeeping, and financial statements.
• Used Bookstore Forum: This three-hour session will look at the art of selling used and rare books, from pricing, trade policies, and inventory acquisition to events, displays, sales, and more.
• IndieCommerce Institute: The IndieCommerce Institute is a two-part, interactive, classroom-style workshop for users of ABA’s IndieCommerce platform. The morning seminar will look at optimizing checkout pages for higher sales conversions and e-mail subscription, marketing, and promotional campaigns, while the afternoon seminar will cover Google Analytics and Drupal Views. Booksellers can register for one or both seminars.
• Paz Workshop, “Introduction to Retail Bookselling”: A one-day crash course on the essentials of opening a new bookstore or buying an existing one.

Booksellers can learn more about Winter Institute programming on BookWeb.

The 2018 Winter Institute will be held January 22–25 at the Sheraton Memphis Downtown Hotel and the Memphis Cook Convention Center in Memphis, Tennessee. The institute is made possible by support from lead sponsor Ingram Content Group and from publishers large and small.

Winter Institute registration is currently at capacity. Interested booksellers can add their names to a waitlist by filling out the registration form on BookWeb; those on the list will be notified on a first-come, first-served basis if space becomes available. Registered booksellers who are no longer planning to attend are asked to notify ABA as soon as possible so waitlisted booksellers can take their places.

Thanks to the Winter Institute’s sponsors and other industry partners, more than 70 scholarships will be awarded to booksellers to attend Wi13. Booksellers at ABA member stores that did not have a Winter Institute scholarship winner in 2016 or 2017 are eligible to apply for a publisher-sponsored scholarship even if they are not registered for Wi13. Booksellers are encouraged to fill out the Winter Institute scholarship application form by October 29 or drop off a business card at the ABA booth at any of the fall regional trade shows to apply for an award, which covers the conference fee, up to four nights plus tax at the Sheraton, and transportation costs up to $400.

Questions about Winter Institute can be addressed to [email protected].