About Bookselling

IndieCommerce stores are finding creative ways to market Google eBooks™, including using QR codes on shelf-talkers to promote sales.

ABA, Above the Treeline, and Google are partnering to promote independent bookstores online through Google Local Shopping.

It’s less than two weeks since Google eBooks™ went live, but many booksellers are fully engaged in the first stage of their e-book marketing campaigns. The Book Bin is offering loaner Sony Readers; Tattered Cover has highlighted four agency titles, while Kepler’s promoted non-agency books; and Gallery Bookshop & Bookwinkle’s Children’s Books hosted a digital petting zoo.

With online sales increasing each year, and especially at holiday time, when the push is on to fill orders as quickly as possible, booksellers with e-commerce websites need to be diligent in watching for scams.

On December 6, ABA announced that member stores with IndieCommerce websites could sell Google eBooks™ online. Booksellers from New York to California talked to BTW this week about what Google eBooks mean for their businesses and the perception of independent bookstores.

ABA CEO Oren Teicher writes about his recent visit to Shenzhen, China, where he participated in the city’s 11th annual Reading Month festivities at the invitation of Shenzhen’s “Reading Month Committee.”

Owner Teri Tanner will celebrate the opening of a Real Bookstore in Fairview, Texas, on November 18 with a weekend full of special events. The general interest bookstore, which features an expanded children’s section, will focus a good part of its marketing efforts on outreach to schools.

Skylight Books, which has created various innovative marketing campaigns, recently developed a new raffle series called “Fine Prints.” During October, every customer who spent $40 or more was eligible to enter the raffle.

Now’s the time to ensure everything is in place to make the holiday season the easiest it can be for you, your staff, and your customers. To help, here’s a holiday checklist that covers all the bases – from merchandising and promotion to stocking supplies and using social media.

Durham, North Carolina, is getting its own local first organization thanks to the efforts of The Regulator Bookshop’s Tom Campbell. Independent Durham already has more than 20 retailer members and will launch its first campaign the week after Thanksgiving.

Six indie booksellers offer insights on how a café can benefit the entire bookstore, its effect on the bottom line, and whether – after tallying all the added responsibilities and costs – they still think adding a café was a good idea.

MSNBC’s Your Business recently profiled Jonah and Ellen Zimilies, owners of Words bookstore in Maplewood, New Jersey, who instituted a “change of management” style that emphasized capitalizing on staff skills or “job crafting.”

Whether looking for a way to increase margin, responding to customers’ pleas for caffeine, or just because coffee and books are such a natural, booksellers have been including cafés in their bookstores for years. But are they worth it? The majority of booksellers who spoke to BTW say they can be.

At last month’s Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association fall show, author Jonathan Evison (West of Here, Algonquin) inspired booksellers with a presentation of his “Ode to Bookselling.”

ABA President and Books Inc. co-owner Michael Tucker and Books Inc. co-owner Margie Scott Tucker were invited to speak at the Gothenburg Book Fair’s “Bookstore of Tomorrow” panel. The 26th annual Gothenburg Book Fair took place in Gothenburg, Sweden, from September 23 to September 26.