Winter Institute 2023

The always-popular Galley Room is filled with ARCs of upcoming titles from Wi2023 sponsors. A limited supply of book totes will be on hand. The PartnerShip/FedEx Shipping Desk will also be open to assist in shipping your galleys back to your bookstores.

The Affinity Groups are closed spaces for booksellers and bookstore owners who identify as members of the BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, Disability, and/or Neurodivergent communities to gather for connection, support, community, resources, and networking. While allies are greatly appreciated, those who do not identify personally as a member of the BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, Disability, and/or Neurodivergent communities should not plan to attend that group’s coinciding meetup.
Please find the locations for each affinity group below:
BIPOC - Cedar A
Disability - Madrona
LGBTQIA2S+ - Cedar B
Neurodiverse - Juniper

The Quiet Room is intended to provide a quiet, calm space where attendees can spend time away from stimuli such as noise, bright light, and other stimuli of conference spaces. Put your feet up and relax. This space is not available for conversations or meetings. Also, please note that there are additional places to sit throughout the Seattle Convention Center.

Open to booksellers from all regions, this space is an opportunity to grab a beverage, chat with colleagues, or just put your feet up and take a break before heading back to the conference.

Check out gift vendors, ABA business solution partners, POS vendors, and other service providers at the expanded Vendor Showcase (formerly the Consultation Station). Check the Wi2023 site on BookWeb.org often for the full list of participating vendors and to make appointments.

Meet with small and mid-size publishers for informal conversations. These publishers, many of which are first-time ABA event sponsors, will have sample copies of their books, and some will have additional copies for giveaways.

Batch for Books is an electronic invoicing system created for booksellers and publishers in the U.S. The software-assisted service helps initiate payments between vendors and bookstore retailers at no cost to bookstores. Register for a one-on-one appointment here: Slot 1 or Slot 2 or drop by our table at the Vendor Showcase.

IndieCommerce, IndieLite, and IndieCommerce 2.0 are ABA’s fully transactional, content-rich e-commerce platforms designed specifically for independent bookstore websites. Both users and non-users of IndieCommerce, IndieLite, and IndieCommerce 2.0 are invited to schedule one-on-one time with a program specialist from the IndieCommerce team. Space is limited, but walk-ins are welcome. Booksellers will be able to sign up for appointments starting Wednesday, January 18 here

Pick up your badge, the official Wi2023 welcome bag, and a full schedule of Institute events from ABA’s Membership team.

Drop in for this meditation class and begin your day with clarity. Led by bookseller, yoga & mindfulness teacher, and author Alison Zak, you'll be walked through simple meditation techniques that will allow you to set a clear intention for the day ahead.

Alison Zak is an author, yoga & mindfulness teacher, wildlife conservationist, and bookseller/events manager at The Open Book in Northern Virginia. She is the author of Wild Asana: Animals, Yoga, and Connecting Our Practice to the Natural World which comes out June 27 with North Atlantic Books. Learn more about her at www.alisonzak.com and follow her on Instagram at @animal_asana.

Join four new genre authors as they come together in conversation to discuss how they use and subvert different genre tropes to reimagine worlds past, present, and future.
Moderator: Calvin Crosby, Owner, The King’s English Bookshop (Salt Lake City, UT)
Panelists: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Chain Gang All Stars, Pantheon; Chloe Gong, Immortal Longings, Gallery/Saga Press; Taj McCoy,Zora Books Her Happily Ever After, MIRA; Andrew Joseph White,The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, Peachtree

Bookstores are places that go beyond merchandising — they transport readers to other worlds. The physical environment of your store should do the same and evoke the transportive experience of reading. Curate delight through all five senses! Partner with local candlemakers to create scent marketing for your store; bring in signature sweets; learn how to use cinematic color palettes that capture the mood of your store; create playlists that set the vibe and show off your booksellers’ personalities; even unique textiles tell a story. Find the magic ingredients that can be used to curate the unique experience of being in YOUR store. In this workshop, you will reimagine your store as a garden of earthly delights, and come up with a plan to curate delight in your store.

This Winter Institute keynote conversation between Cory Doctorow (co-author of Chokepoint Capitalism) and Stacy Mitchell (Director of the Institute for Local Self Reliance) will explore the threats posed by corporate consolidation, and far-reaching strategies for fighting back. Corporate monopolies are as powerful as ever, making it harder and harder for American small businesses to thrive. The explosive growth of monopolizers like Amazon has implications beyond booksellers, too, impacting creative workers, privacy advocates, the environment, and American labor. But with a new antitrust movement already claiming important victories, incremental progress is being made. Bookstores now have an opportunity for bold action to tell our story and resist corporate consolidation. In this discussion between three leading anti-monopoly thinkers, learn about the risks posed by capitalist chokepoints, and gain strategies for how to fight back.

Independent bookstores’ online sales have increased over 600% since 2019. We’ve made incredible progress, but it’s clear we need to do more to lock in our gains and keep growing. The indie channel sells only about 2% of the books bought online versus roughly 10% of physical retail. Our goal is to increase indie channel e-commerce sales by 5x so that local, independent bookstores capture our share of online sales.
Presented by Andy Hunter, founder and CEO of Bookshop.org, and Phil Davies, ABA’s Director of Ecommerce/IndieCommerce, this session will discuss strategies to increase consumer awareness of the importance of supporting local businesses when shopping online. We will review how to increase online sales for all stores — no matter what platform you use — by looking at digital marketing, audience growth, conversion rates, and other best practices for e-commerce.
We’ll also examine how online consumer behavior has dramatically changed in the post-COVID world, including trends we are seeing on IndieCommerce sites and how stores are adapting. Together, we can leverage our combined market power to capture our fair share of online book sales, safeguard our future, and be a model for how local businesses can hold their own against giant monopolist e-retailers.