Industry News

Outstanding New England Sales Rep to Be Recognized

On Tuesday, August 17, the New England Booksellers Association (NEBA) announced that John Muse was named the recipient of the 2004 Saul Gilman Award for outstanding New England Sales representative. Presented annually, the Gilman Awards were established in 1990 to recognize outstanding service to independent bookstores in New England by publishers' sales representatives. The award is accompanied by a $1,000 grant from NEBA to a literacy organization chosen by the winner.

While the holiday season may still seem far off, the time for booksellers to begin preparing gift card orders for the biggest shopping time of the year is now. The Book Sense Gift Card Program, just completing its first year of operation, has already helped more than 200 bookstores dramatically increase their sales.

The July issue of Building Blocks, the newsletter of the Association of Booksellers for Children (ABC), presented a column entitled "Pannell Best Ideas in Children's Bookselling." The column featured tips for booksellers by the winners of, and nominees for, the 2004 Lucile Micheels Pannell Awards, which are presented annually by the Women's National Book Association (WNBA) to recognize one general bookstore and one children's specialty store that have excelled at creatively bringing books and children together and inspiring children's interest in books and read

Bookstore sales were down in June continuing the slide that began in April. The results were disappointing, particularly when compared with the strong performance of overall retail for the same period.

June 2004 bookstore sales of $1,187 million were 2.9 percent off the $1,222 million realized in June 2003.

By comparison, overall retail sales of $339 billion for June 2004 were 8.3 percent ahead of the $313 billion for June 2003.

Ted Kooser Named New Poet Laureate

Ted Kooser, a retired vice president of Lincoln Benefit Life insurance company in Nebraska, was named America's new poet laureate, as reported by the Washington Post.

The Children's Book Council (CBC), an association of trade book publishers and producers of related literary materials for young people, has been steadily expanding its Web site with CBC Online at www.cbcbooks.org. The site, which is an amalgam of components for an audience of librarians, educators, booksellers, writers, illustrators, parents, and member publishers, offers many resources for the public.