Elizabeth and Sean Anker opened their children’s bookstore in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on April 3. "We have anything a teenager or younger is going to need or want to read,” said Elizabeth Anker.

Michael Barnard of Rakestraw Books in Danville, California, recommends booksellers be proactive in handling credit and debit card transactions. He'll discuss managing the complicated fee structure of credit and debit cards to reduce risk and save money at "The Business of Accepting Credit & Debit Cards," an ABA Day of Education session, on Tuesday, May 25, at at BookExpo America.

This week, 10 more state-specific fact sheets were added to the E-Fairness Action Kit (E-FACT) on BookWeb.org, the American Bookseller Association's member website. Next week, the ABA will add the final fact sheets for the remaining states that collect sales tax but do not yet have e-fairness laws. ABA launched E-FACT in January to provide booksellers with a wide array of state-specific tools to help them in their e-fairness outreach efforts.

New fact sheets are now available for:

In 2009, 40 ABA member stores opened across the U.S. Bookselling This Week recently checked in with six of those new stores for a report on their first year.

All ABA Bookstore Members in good standing are entitled to four free two-week Classified Ad insertions in Bookselling This Week each year. BTW Classifieds are the perfect place for booksellers to place help wanted ads, advertise fixtures or stores for sale, and more.

Daniyal Mueenuddin Wins The Story Prize

The winner of the sixth annual Story Prize was announced on March 3 at an awards ceremony in Manhattan. Debut writer Daniyal Mueenuddin accepted the prize for his collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (Norton), a book of eight connected stories set in southern Pakistan and centering around the estate of a feudal landowner.The other two finalists were Victoria Patterson (Drift, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and Wells Tower (Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, FSG).

Eleven ABA member stores that opened for business from July through September 2009:

Janet Geddis plans to open a new bookstore -- Avid Bookshop -- in Athens, Georgia, by late spring 2010. "The project was hatched about two years ago, but personal and economic issues caused me to put it on the back burner for a while," she told BTW. "Now we're up and running again at a remarkable speed!"

Despite a tough economy, or maybe because of it, more than two-dozen prospective and current booksellers participated in the most recent "Opening a Bookstore" workshop run by Donna Paz Kaufman and Mark Kaufman of Paz & Associates. The program was held from March 16 through March 20, in Amelia Island, Florida.

Three new ABA member businesses opened in January and February 2009: