ABFFE and Pen American Center host Paradise Banned; Writers receive MacArthur fellowships; PayPal offers small business loans; Georgetown’s Harborwalk Books destroyed by fire; Anti-tax groups support Amazon’s appeal to Supreme Court 

Hachette Book Group has announced a new Retail Bookstore Marketing Program that will make its co-op more accessible and easier to use. 

At ABA’s education session “How to Plan for a Second Location” at BEA, a panel of experienced booksellers shared their experiences of starting a new venture, including determining when to expand, arranging startup capital, finding a location, coordinating staff, managing inventory, and handling POS and store logistics. 

Almost two years after the Durbin “swipe fee” amendment was signed into law as part of the sweeping Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Federal Reserve reported that the average interchange fee has nearly been halved.

Resources and services available to booksellers from the U.S. Small Business Administration and its partners were the focus of a panel at last month’s Winter Institute.
 

Stacy Mitchell, senior researcher with the New Rules Project and author of Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses, looks at grassroots financing of local businesses, including Brooklyn's Greenlight Bookstore, Oakland's  Awaken Café, and Hardwick, Vermont's Claire's Restaurant.

The decision to sell a business begs a series of hard questions, including: How much is the business worth? How can its value be increased? What are alternatives to exiting the business? How are buyers selected? Panelists tackled these questions and more during the Day of Education session "Succession Planning: Valuing Your Business."

Booksellers who would like help completing the 2009 ABACUS Survey can now set up appointments to meet one-on-one with David Walker, ABA's industry consultant, at BookExpo America. Walker is available for meetings in the ABA Booksellers Lounge (Room 1E07/08 of the Javits Convention Center) beginning Friday, May 29.

Due to the last-minute rush of ABACUS submissions for the 2007 ABACUS study, ABA is extending the deadline to midnight on Sunday, August 19.

With the holidays looming and a recently released NRF survey indicating that debit cards are now more popular than credit cards, it's conceivable that consumers' confusion and indignation over debit card fees found on their bank statements could soon become a significant issue for retailers -- if it isn't already.