Education Wins Top Grade at an Upbeat BEA

New York City's Javits Convention Center might have felt like a giant terrarium at times due to overtaxed air conditioning and the swarm of more than 30,000 attendees, but the overall mood was upbeat throughout last week's BookExpo America 2007. Author events featured the usual line-up of heavy hitters, including Stephen King, Dave Barry, Joyce Carol Oates, Khaled Hosseini, Alice Sebold, Stephen Colbert, and Nora Ephron, to name just a few. More than 600 booksellers attended the American Booksellers Association's Day of Education, held at Hotel ABA, the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, in Brooklyn. In addition, close to 40 prospective booksellers completed the ABA-sponsored Booksellers School, facilitated by Donna Paz and Mark Kaufman of Paz & Associates.

Book Sense Book of the Year fiction winner Sara Gruen with incoming ABA Board member Tom Campbell at the Celebration of Bookselling.

Booksellers who spoke to BTW unanimously raved about Hotel ABA, particularly the convenience of holding the Day of Education and the Celebration of Bookselling at the hotel, as well as about the borough of Brooklyn itself. ABA's expanded education programming also earned top marks, and attendees appreciated meeting with publishers at the show and networking with fellow booksellers. Bookseller thoughts on Hotel ABA and the Day of Education seemed best summed up by Julie Summerfield of Haverford College Bookstore in Haverford, Pennsylvania, during ABA's Town Hall meeting. "Everything was great," she said. "I'm moving into the Marriott with my cats."

Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Executive Director Hut Landon said that "ABA had obviously made a real effort to have the hotel work for booksellers," and that holding the Day of Education and other programming there "brought everybody together in a really great way and set the tone for the rest of the convention."

Kaira Sitts of Kid's Center in Tucson, Arizona, loved visiting Brooklyn's children's bookstores as well as "walking around and seeing all the beautiful brownstones" during ABA's walking tours on Wednesday. Sitts, who walked the Cobble Hill and Boerum Hill neighborhoods with author Emily Jenkins, said that returning to Borough Hall for a welcome by Borough President Marty Markowitz, as well as beer courtesy of Brooklyn Brewery and mammoth slices of cheesecake courtesy of Junior's restaurant was "fan-freaking-tastic."

Retha Davis also from Kid's Center said she stayed in Brooklyn this year for "all the activity" at Hotel ABA. "I was thoroughly charmed," she said. "Getting around on the subway was easy, and we've been walking around Brooklyn." Referring to Wednesday's "Welcome to Brooklyn" event, which drew more than 300 booksellers who came to hear noted historian David McCullough, she said she was inspired "to read some of his work, even though I'm usually not that into history. [McCullough] also was very gracious in giving accolades to independent bookstores."

Author Sherill Tippins (center) led the Walking Literary Brooklyn Heights tour to the scenic Brooklyn waterfront.

Getting to and from the Javits Center was "no problem" for Vicki Erwin from Main Street Books in St. Charles, Missouri. She especially appreciated the Visual Subway Travel Guide created by ABA's Kristen Gilligan. "For someone like me who can't follow a map, it was very helpful."

Erwin also lauded ABA's Day of Education. She attended "How to Be the Story: Developing and Implementing a Public Relations Plan," presented by ABA Membership Director Meg Smith, where she picked up tips on putting together an updated press kit. "That's one of our priorities," Erwin said, adding that she appreciated the opportunity to compare notes with other booksellers at the session "We shared ideas that worked really well for PR, as well as how to finance events."

Pat Moody of The Hickory Stick Bookshop in Washington Depot, Connecticut, described Hotel ABA as "comfortable, convenient, and accessible," and she said that both ABA and Marriott staff were "enormously helpful." Moody didn't stint the "Borough of Kings" in her praise and noted that it was a "nice community" with great restaurants.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former Brooklynite David McCullough welcomed booksellers to Brooklyn.

It was the first BEA of Janice Mayer-Gawlik of Maria's Bookshop in Durango, Colorado. "I loved it!" she said, adding that she'd been to regional trade shows, but it was inspiring to take the measure of the whole industry. "It's wonderful," she said, "to be part of this noble trade."

As Maria's floor manager, Mayer-Gawlik found "Staff Development: An Overview," presented by Chuck and Dee Robinson of Village Books, Bellingham, Washington, especially useful. She attended with several other booksellers from Maria's and said they held a post-session debriefing and talked about how to implement what they learned. Although Mayer-Gawlik noted that Maria's already offered staff incentives, she discovered a few new incentives to offer, for example, in-store credit or gift cards from local businesses.

Marie Leahy of Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont, said she picked up "great ideas" from the "Book Clubs: A Panel," moderated by Barbara Mead of Reading Group Choices, on relaunching outreach efforts to surrounding book groups. She also now plans on hosting a "book group bash" a la Books & Books in Florida.

The Book Clubs panel dovetailed well with the "Building and Rewarding Customer Loyalty" session, she said. The loyalty session, presented by ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz, emphasized tracking customer purchases and gathering information to target marketing to customers' interests more effectively. Leahy said Northshire could use some of the same tactics to market their book clubs.

"Participating in the Digital Revolution: Low Altitude," presented by BookSense.com Director Len Vlahos, introduced the benefits of blogs and MySpace to Willard Williams of Toadstool Bookshop in Peterborough, New Hampshire. "I knew nothing about MySpace," he said. "But Len went through the entire process. He set one up and I saw how easy it was. It's very popular with younger people, which means we can reach younger readers. I'm going to look into it."

One of the show's highlights said Williams was Friday's Rock Bottom Remainders benefit performance. "It was great to see those authors really cutting loose."

His favorite book of the show was New Hampshire Patterns (University Press of New England) by Ernest Hebert and Jon Gilbert Fox. "I get overwhelmed by so many titles," he said. "We're always looking for something different and unique that will speak well to what we sell in the store. The bestselling titles are fine, and we'll stock them, but we also want something local that's really meaningful to us."

Jokester Thomas Williams of Hidden Passage Books in Placerville, California, told this reporter to stop looking at his breasts when she was (innocently) trying to read his badge. "They're up here," he said, and pointed to his eyes. No surprise then when he listed the Colbert breakfast as his favorite event. He also liked the Long Pen display, in which an author can sign books remotely and talk to the book buyer via a video screen. His top title was Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns (Riverhead).

In addition to doling out the kudos, booksellers got some credit themselves. Prior to the Book Sense Author Lunch, author Mark Doty (Dog Years, HarperCollins) told BTW that he values the consummate handselling skill displayed by independent booksellers. "That kind of individual attention really lives at independent bookstores," he said. Describing a reading he did at a "glorious" bookstore in Sonoma, Reader's Books, where the town vet showed up with his English Bulldogs, Doty said, "It was evident that everyone had a connection with everyone else there and that the bookstore was an integral part of the fabric of the town."

In BTW's very informal poll of several publishers, HarperCollins and W.W. Norton reported a marked increase of stores requesting authors for events. HarperCollins' Carl Lennertz said that the cost of sending an author on tour has about doubled in recent years, but stores want them "more than ever." The way to pave the way for an author, he said, was to ratchet up local media attention and include more in-store advertising before an event. Lennertz also said that he hoped HarperCollins would be the next publisher to participate in "Out of the Book," an author films project created by Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon.

A couple of the HarperCollins titles that independents were especially interested in during the show were Run by Ann Patchett and The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788 - 1800 by Jay Winik, said HarperCollins' president of sales, Josh Marwell.

At the Norton booth, Vice President, Director of Publicity Louise Brockett said that she also saw a significant uptick in independents requesting author appearances. "We have a heavier schedule of booksellers doing author events," she said. "It really increased this year." Vice President, National Field Sales Manager Deirdre Dolan reported that booksellers were also varying their author events with interesting cross-promotions, with for example, local restaurants for cooking titles. A title that Brockett thought would lend itself well to such events was Peter Hertzmann's Knife Skills Illustrated. Other popular titles among the indies were The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman and, "of course," Paul Krugman's The Conscience of a Liberal.

Meanwhile, Newmarket Press, which was celebrating its 25th anniversary had seen a lot of traffic from independents, said Director of Publicity Harry Burton. He reported "lots of interest" in the new Lynda Madaras books in her YA health series.

At Algonquin, Executive Editor Chuck Adams said The Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke was "pushing buttons" and would appeal to those with "a cynical side and a great sense of humor."

"I always look forward to the whole thing," Village Books' Chuck Robinson said of the entire BEA experience. "There are usually surprises, and I always look forward to seeing people I've known for so many years and catching up, exchanging ideas, finding out what's going on in the business. It's sort of a renewal, and it's cheaper than therapy." --Karen Schechner

Watch for more BEA coverage upcoming editions of Bookselling This Week.