NEIBA Welcomes Booksellers with New Initiatives and Time-Tested Tools

The New England Booksellers Association began its 33rd Annual Trade Show on Friday, September 15, at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence, Rhode Island, and ended it on Sunday, September 17, with a new name -- the New England Independent Booksellers Association (NEIBA). The name change accompanied the adoption of a new strategic plan and bylaw changes. A busy show floor, filled education sessions, popular authors, and a new publishers' Book Buzz sequence, added up to a successful and productive show.

According to NEIBA assistant executive director Nan Sorenson, a renewed emphasis on building a supportive independent community accounted for a "stand-out" first educational session: ABA's "Shop Local: Forming Business Alliances in Your Community," held on Friday afternoon. Additional ABA education sessions -- "Know Your Customer: Increase Sales"; "Above the Treeline, An Introduction"; and the "Constant Contact Demonstration" -- were all cited by participants as highlights.

Also popular were NEIBA-sponsored sessions, such as "Independent Booksellers as Mavericks" and "Valuing, Marketing, and Selling Your Store." And "Capitalizing on Your Children's Department," organized by the New England Children's Booksellers Advisory Council, was also well received.

Sorenson said the event was "really great. People were very pleased, vendors opened new accounts, and the show floor seemed crowded. There was a lot of activity around the ABA sessions. Almost 50 people attended the 'Emerging Leaders' reception. Rusty [Drugan, NEIBA executive director, recently resigned due to health considerations] was greatly missed. Everyone there wished him well."

NEIBA president Allan Schmid, of Books Etc., in Portland and Falmouth, Maine, told BTW that everything went very well. "There was more of a buzz this year than last, and I've been hearing positive things from both booksellers and exhibitors. Sunday's raffle for $1,000 [sponsored by NEIBA], with the condition that the winner be on the floor to claim the prize, succeeded in keeping many attendees on the floor. And the debut of 'Book Buzz,' our version of rep's pick of the lists, went off pretty well for the first year. And I think the 'Unauthorized NEIBA' party, Saturday night, was a big hit." Jennifer Hall, of Partner's Village Store in Westport, Massachusetts, was the NEIBA raffle winner.

Winner of the four-night stay at Hotel ABA in Brooklyn for BookExpo America 2007, compliments of BEA, was Mary McHale of Fox Tale Books in New Durham, New Hampshire. Although her store doesn't actually open until this Friday, McHale was already making plans to attend the Winter Institute and BEA. "I knew I couldn't swing going to both -- this changes everything. I'm so excited," McHale said.

Winner of the color inkjet printer raffle at the ABA Booth was veteran bookseller Liza Bernard, co-owner of the Norwich Bookstore in Norwich, Vermont. Her win qualifies her to enter into the drawing to win airfare and a hotel stay at ABA's Winter Institute in Portland, Oregon, February 1 - 2, 2007.

Bernard and her staff were very pleased with the prize, "My staff is so excited about the printer -- we really needed it downstairs," she said. "This was a good show -- it's my fifteenth. It's great to see all the booksellers [that] we can only see once or twice a year. The education program was very good, as usual. The Shop Local session was very relevant -- I'm on the steering committee of the Vermont Local First organization, and it was very useful to get more perspectives and new ideas."

The Shop Local session, moderated by ABA COO Oren Teicher, featured panelists Betsy Burton of The King's English, Salt Lake City, Utah; Stacy Mitchell, Senior Researcher for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance; Laury Hammel, Board Co-chair of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE); Frank Kramer of Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Chris Morrow of Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont; Susan Porter of Maine Coast Book Shop & Cafe in Damariscotta, Maine; and bookseller Allan Schmid.

"It's great when the education sessions are targeted to the specific business needs of booksellers," Bernard said. "I learned a lot in the [Valuing, Marketing and Selling Your Store] session. The store is one of my largest assets, and I didn't know how to compute what it's worth. A session like this complements what Avin [Mark Domnitz, ABA CEO] does with the money management side."

Karen Baker of The Country Bookseller in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, described ABA's Saturday session, Know Your Customer: Increase Sales, led by Domnitz, as "excellent. The focus was on communication through market research and the store's database. Now I need to get more basic information on setting up spreadsheets. I always come back energized from these shows. They are wonderful as a forum for meeting peers and networking. It's also my way of making sure I don't have any holes in my knowledge."

NEIBA's "Independent Booksellers as Mavericks," presented by William C. Taylor and Polly La Barre (Mavericks at Work, William Morrow) was also a show highlight to many booksellers contacted. Carole Horne, vice-president, merchandising, at Harvard Book Store, told BTW that the "Maverick" session attracted a large, enthusiastic crowd, as did the Shop Local presentation. "[That panel] was particularly great," Horne said. "I was on the NEIBA Strategic Planning Committee and one of the three main initiatives is to ['help booksellers raise consumer awareness of the benefits of supporting local independent businesses'] by supporting 'Shop Local' organizations in many ways, including small grants. There was a nice synergy there."

Horne reported that Richard Ford's speech at the Friday NEIBA Awards Luncheon upon receiving the Presidents Award was "one of the best acceptance speeches I've ever heard."

Also mentioned repeatedly was the Sunday Breakfast With Authors, hosted by NEIBA treasurer Mitch Gaslin. Speakers Susan Cheever (American Bloomsbury, Simon & Schuster), Barry Lopez (Home Ground, Trinity University Press), and Christopher Moore (You Suck: A Love Story, William Morrow) were all excellent, according to Horne. "I didn't expect Susan Cheever's talk about Thoreau, Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Hawthorne, and Louisa May Alcott to be so funny."

The success of the show, which had no significant problems, was a testament to Sorenson who had never been in charge of a trade show before. "She [Nan Sorenson] did a fabulous job," Country Bookseller's Baker said. "Of course Rusty's absence was felt everywhere -- our hearts are with him."

"With the new strategic plan, the search for an executive director, there are so many changes happening," said Sorenson. As for the name change to NEIBA, "I'm just relieved the pronunciation remains 'knee-bah." --Nomi Schwartz