Focus Groups Generated Insights for Publishers and Booksellers

From February 28 through March 2, booksellers and publishers met in New York City for the first in a planned series of focus groups organized by the American Booksellers Association on behalf of the participating publishers. The sessions were developed as a means for publishers to meet with a cross section of ABA member booksellers to test new ideas and to garner bookseller feedback about existing programs. Also part of the three-day series of sessions was a "Moveable Feast" dinner with publishers, booksellers, and 15 authors.

"I thought the focus groups were tremendous; I got great feedback from both publishers and booksellers," said ABA President Mitchell Kaplan of Books & Books in Miami, Florida. "Many meaningful insights were developed on both ends. We got to know the publishing business a little bit better, and they got some valuable insights from us."

Booksellers attended six two-hour sessions, each with a different publisher. ABA's goal for the focus groups was to further develop relationships with a growing number of vendors, while providing a cost-effective means for publishers to hear directly from independent booksellers.

Participating publishers in this first series of meetings included Grove Atlantic; HarperCollins; Holtzbrinck (Holt; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; St. Martin's; Tor; Picador; and Audio Renaissance); Houghton Mifflin (Adult and Children's Divisions); Hyperion; John Wiley; Penguin USA (Adult and Children's Divisions); Random House (Adult and Children's Divisions); Scholastic; Simon & Schuster; Time Warner Book Group; and Workman. Additional focus group meetings may be scheduled in the future.

Authors who attended the dinner were: Gordon Dahlquist (The Glass Book of The Dream Eaters, August, Bantam); Deborah Dean (The Madonnas of Leningrad, April, HarperCollins); Sarah Dessen (The Truth About Forever, Penguin Group for Young Readers); Arthur Frommer (Frommer Travel Guide Series, Wiley); Debra Gallant (Rattled, St. Martin's); Gael Greene (Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess, April, Warner); Brett Helquist (Chasing Vermeer, Scholastic); Gail Carson Levine (Ella Enchanted, HarperCollins); Madge McKeithen (Blue Peninsula: Essential Words for a Life of Loss and Change, April, FSG); Sarah Mlynowski (Bras And Broomsticks, Random House); Shira Nayman (Awake In the Dark: Stories, Fall 2006, S&S); Nathaniel Philbrick (Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War, May, Viking); Morag Prunty (Recipes For A Perfect Marriage, May, Hyperion); Judy Schachner (Skippy Jon Jones, Penguin Group For Young Readers); and Scott Smith (The Ruins, July, Knopf).

Questions about future focus groups should be addressed to Book Sense Marketing Director Mark Nichols at (914) 591-2665, ext. 6640, or at [email protected]. --Karen Schechner