Booksellers attending the panel on "Creating Killer Events" on Thursday, May 18, at BookExpo America heard from experienced booksellers about the importance of making an independent bookstore the community center for great author (and "authorless") events, to sell books, to garner free publicity, and to strengthen ties with customers and other key community institutions.

This week, ABA announced the launch of "ABA Education Programs Online," a new benefit that provides ABA members with access to streaming video of ABA educational programming. By simply clicking on the "Professional Development" link on the BookWeb homepage, members can access ABA education programs, including "The 2% Solution," complete with videotaped presenters and PowerPoint slides.

"Creating Effective E-Newsletters," part of the American Booksellers Association's Thursday Day of Education at BookExpo America, covered everything from creating a template for a store's first e-newsletter to advertising author events and livening up stale newsletters with promises of "free monkeys." More than 50 booksellers attended the late-afternoon session featuring panelists Kelly Justice of Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia, and Margie Scott Tucker of Books

On January 1, 2007, the length of the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) will officially change from 10 to 13 digits; however, preparations for the switch, which affects the entire book industry, are underway.

ABA member booksellers can now take advantage of an upload (and download) function in two of BookWeb's Idea Exchange forums. The enhancement is enabled in the Education Forum to allow booksellers to share ideas, best business practices, forms, lists, and other resource materials that may exist in different formats.

By Lance Fensterman

When was the last time you stood refueling your car and didn't see, essentially, a convenience store inside the gas station? Have you been to a movie theatre recently that had no concession stand? Did you know that Best Buy is now opening stores where you can get a pedicure and buy organic healthcare products while you learn about the latest iPod innovations?

While most booksellers would agree that Advance Reading Copies (ARCs) are a useful and necessary tool for gauging the sales potential for all kinds of books, sometimes galleys can pile up in the stock room in a hurry. Since booksellers can't read them all, nor keep them all, Bookselling This Week decided to ask a few publishers and booksellers for their tips about what to do with ARCs once bookstores are finished with them.

More than 130 booksellers answered an early wake-up call for the American Booksellers Association Winter Institute's 7:15 a.m. "What Are You Reading?" Breakfast. Patterned after the popular ABA lunchtime event at BookExpo America, the breakfast was an opportunity for many of the approximately 360 booksellers gathered in Long Beach for ABA's two-day education program to network and to share with colleagues some of the titles they are excited about.

ABA member booksellers may now share Word files, PDFs, and other documents relating to professional development through a simple upload process on BookWeb's Idea Exchange Education Forum. ABA has enabled this function to allow booksellers to share ideas, best business practices, forms, lists, and other resource materials that may exist in different formats.

Twenty-two lucky booksellers were recently informed that they were the recipients of publisher-sponsored scholarships to the American Booksellers Association's first annual Winter Institute. In addition, ABA announced the winner of its Emerging Leader Scholarship, awarded to a bookseller who has been in the business for less than two years and who shows a commitment to furthering the success of independent bookselling.