By Scott Foley

Three July/August Book Sense 76 picks will be featured in print ads in the coming weeks.

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Harcourt) will be featured in an ad in the July/August issue of The Atlantic (on newsstands the week of June 18).

The July 1 issue of The New Yorker (on sale June 24) will include a Book Sense ad featuring Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (St. Martin’s Press), and the July 8 issue (on sale July 1) will feature Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling (Blue Hen/Putnam).

A Brief Meditation on the Desires of Touring Authors

By Steve Almond

I was at the Phoenix airport, just in from L.A., and facing the prospect of having to read in a town where I knew, basically, no one.

by Carl Lennertz

It is a credit to the independents who have put their heart and soul into the Book Sense program that publishers have recognized its impact on sales and are, more and more, mentioning a book’s Book Sense 76 status in national advertising. Time Warner even put the Book Sense logo in EVERY ad they ran for a year.

With War Emblem only one win away from horse racing’s triple crown, the USA Today book club’s second book selection is a fitting one: Seabiscuit, by Laura Hillenbrand (Ballantine Books), winner of this year’s BookSense Book of the Year Award for adult nonfiction. The national newspaper announced the selection Thursday, May 23.

The June 17 issue of The New Yorker -- on newsstands the week of June 10 -- will feature two ads highlighting Book Sense 76 selections. One ad will feature the 2002 Book Sense Book of the Year adult fiction winner, Peace Like a River (Atlantic Monthly Press), and Gould’s Book of Fish (Grove Press), a May/June 2002 Book Sense 76 pick.

The other ad in the issue will feature The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint (Vintage), which was a July/August 2001 Book Sense 76 selection.

Competing as smarter retailers has become a key strategy for independent booksellers, and the almost 400 independents attending a full day of ABA special educational programming at BookExpo America filled panels and seminars to hear the latest on everything from marketing and inventory control to the "best ideas" in newsletters and staff development. In addition to the panels on business operations and personnel issues, there was an extensive offering of programming on children's bookselling and African-American bookselling.

By Maret Orliss, Vroman’s Bookstore

Vroman’s has always been a big supporter of the Book Sense program. Through BookSense.com, the gift certificate program, and the Book Sense 76 list, Book Sense is an effective marketing program and a terrific way of promoting that independent bookstores, while unique, also share a common connection.

Booksellers around the country have more reasons than ever to sign on to the 2002 Prescription for Reading marketing program. This year, Prescription for Reading is sponsored by a partnership of ABA, Book Sense, Chronicle Books, Baker & Taylor, and the Pizza Hut® BOOK IT!® Program. All of these partners have a strong interest in improving literacy and the general well-being of children.

Soon after the Book Sense 76 list debuted, Shirley Muller, owner of Bay Books of Coronado, California, had an idea about how to drive local traffic into her store. She began imprinting 10,000 copies of each new Book Sense 76 list with the Bay Books name and address and had it inserted in the local weekly newspaper, the Coronado Eagle and Journal. Muller continues to promote her store with the 76 to this day. "I noticed people coming in with the list marked, already checked -- they get it at home and they read it," she said.