At Winter Institute 8, Towne Book Center & Cafe’s Kit Little, Boswell Book Company’s Jason Kennedy, and Mysteryscape’s Cheri LeBlond discussed their stores’ best practices for promoting sales of romance, science fiction, and mystery titles with booksellers interested in increasing their genre sales.

At the Winter Institute session “Beyond the Traditional Author Event,”panelists sweet pea Flaherty of King’s Books, Lacey Dunham of Politics and Prose, and Lauren Savage of The Reading Bug addressed the logistics of planning successful and creative events to increase traffic and drive sales.

ABA is asking member booksellers who participated in Winter Institute 8 to complete a short survey about all aspects of last month’s event in Kansas City. The survey will arrive via e-mail within the next few days.

A February 25 afternoon panel at Winter 8 explored how toy buying, pricing, merchandizing, and marketing differ from norms in the children’s book industry. Panelists also shared some of their favorite finds for 2013.

At the Wi8 breakout session “Nonfiction Buying With Core Curriculum in Mind,” panelists Becky Anderson of Anderson’s Bookshops, Kenny Brechner of Devaney Doak & Garrett Booksellers, and Richard Buthod of Turtleback Books explained how the new Common Core State Standards are impacting their schools, communities, and nonfiction sales.

At “Marketing That Moves the Needle,” a well-attended Wi8 session, ABA’s Meg Smith and Greg Galloway revealed the results of a marketing experiment, while panelists Julie Wernersbach of BookPeople and Jill Miner of Saturn Booksellers discussed the strategies that work best in their stores.

As part of the ABA/NACS cooperation for Winter Institute 8, booksellers who visited the CAMEX trade show while in Kansas City and place an order of any size from an exhibiting vendor between February 24 and April 1, 2013, are entitled to a $100 rebate per ABA member store.

A snowstorm in Kansas City just before the start of Winter Institute 8 didn’t keep authors and illustrators away from the event’s signature Author Reception and Small & Independent Press Closing Reception.

Monday’s Winter Institute session entitled “Banned Books, Censorship, and YA Literature” fostered a lively discussion about booksellers’ roles when communities face censorship issues.