IndieBound, the new American Booksellers Association initiative involving booksellers, readers, indie retailers, local business alliances, and others in a community-oriented movement that proclaims the importance and value of independent businesses, was the subject of a presentation at last week's 6th Annual BALLE Conference in Boston.

Based on sales in independent bookstores nationwide for the eight-week period ending June 10, 2008.

Gayle Shanks ABA President

Dear Fellow Booksellers,

The new IndieBound initiative is a community-oriented movement -- involving booksellers, readers, indie retailers, local business alliances, and others -- that proclaims the importance of independent businesses, promotes those values that make indies unique, and provides booksellers with help to spread the passion and sell more books.

Here's a preview of the inaugural Indie Next List selections and notables titles. All ABA members with storefront locations will be receiving copies of the July Next List in the IndieBound Literary Liberation Box on its way to stores now.

Inventory uploads now free

With the launch of IndieBound last Thursday at BookExpo America, the Book Sense marketing program has been replaced with a program that's more of a movement than a marketing campaign, and this means changes for the BookSense.com program.

First and foremost, BookSense.com is not part of IndieBound, and it has been renamed the ABA E-commerce Solution. This will be visible in several ways: