About Bookstores

30 Jul

Successful Succession: New Owners Talk About Buying a Bookstore

As part of its continuing coverage of succession planning issues, Bookselling This Week spoke to six bookstore owners who recently and successfully purchased independent bookstores. Last week, BTW covered "Succession II," a session from BookExpo America moderated by Ivan Barkhorn, a consultant to ABA on strategic matters, and provided a link to Barkhorn's PowerPoint presentation.

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30 Jul

Fighting For Their Independents: The American Independent Business Alliance

Jeff Milchen and Jennifer Rockne want to change community culture on a national level, one town at a time. Milchen and Rockne aspire to help local businesses band together and to educate communities on the value of supporting local, independent businesses. That's why, in August of 2001, they founded the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA).

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29 Jul

The Good Living Cookbook Club At Bookin' It

Here, Laura Hansen, owner/manager of Bookin' It in Little Falls, Minnesota, muses on her bookstore's Good Living Cookbook Club, which started five years ago. As Hansen goes on to describe, the club is more than a book club -- it's a mix of good cook books, good friends, great food, with a dash of wine and rhubarb muffins thrown in for good taste.

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24 Jul

St. Mark's Bookshop -- An Award-Winning Environment for Discriminating Readers

When Bob Contant and five partners opened the St. Mark's Bookshop in Manhattan's East Village in 1977, the neighborhood was home to counterculture businesses such as the Intergalactic Trading Post -- a drug-related head shop, the Electric Circus disco, and residents such as Abbie Hoffman. "It was a boom time for the East Village," Contant told BTW. "St. Mark's Place was the center of the hippie universe."

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16 Jul

Barbara's Bookstores Sell Books Where None Have Gone Before

Barbara's Bookstores, the 40-year-old, Chicago-based chain of nine independents, will soon open its 10th store. The new store will be inside the nation's second-largest department store, the Marshall Field's on State Street in downtown Chicago. An 11th store, on the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois, is not far behind.

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16 Jul

National Public Radio Program Sends Listeners to Bookstores

Public radio listeners are among the heaviest book buyers (according to a recent analysis by Mediamark Research), so when notable public radio personality Susan Stamberg hosts a segment devoted to bookseller picks for summer reading, stores can expect a significant response. Stamberg, who serves as a National Public Radio (NPR) special correspondent, periodically devotes segments on news programs to brief interviews with independent booksellers around the country.

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10 Jul

BTW Talks to Gayle Shanks, ABA's Newest Board Member

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10 Jul

Customers Make Cover to Cover's Future Bright

In mid-June, things looked pretty grim for Cover to Cover Booksellers in San Francisco. For some time, owners Tracy Wynne and Mark Ezarik had been fighting the realization that they would need to close the bookstore, but finally the numbers made it painfully clear that they would have to end Cover to Cover's 25-year run.

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10 Jul

An Independent Alliance Grows in Corvallis

In 2001, after hearing that a Borders Books & Music would be moving to Corvallis, Oregon, Jack Wolcott, co-owner of Grass Roots Books & Music, and Bob Baird, owner of The Book Bin, asked the founders of the Boulder Independent Business Alliance (BIBA), Jeff Milchen and Jennifer Rockne (more recently, the founders of the American Independent Business Alliance) to host a Town Hall Meeting regarding the impact of local businesses versus chains.

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03 Jul

BTW News Briefs


San Francisco Independents Join Together for Independence Day

Ten San Francisco independent bookstores are joining together to celebrate the Fourth of July by offering tax-free sales for July 4, 5, and 6. Each store will also celebrate independence in its own way -- with readings, in-store promotions, and food, among other things. The stores noted in a press release that this was their way of expressing appreciation to San Franciscans for their loyalty to independent bookstores.

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03 Jul

Bookstores' Grand Openings Steeped in Magic

The new Square Books Jr.

Two new bookstores decided to catch a ride on Harry Potter's cloak tails and scheduled grand opening celebrations during the Order of the Phoenix book launch.

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02 Jul

Elliott Bay -- At 30 Years a Vibrant 'Booksellers'' Store

"The nice thing about milestones is that they give you the occasion to sit back and take stock," said Elliott Bay Book Company's Peter Aaron. However, when Elliott Bay celebrated 30 years of bookselling on June 29, it's likely that Aaron didn't have much chance to sit back, as the store hosted author readings and a party for 300 people, including employees, past employees, and friends. Terry Tempest Williams showed up; so did poet Madeline DeFrees.

Aaron recently spoke to Bookselling This Week about how Elliott Bay has weathered the years.

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02 Jul

How to Integrate Used Books & Remainders Into Your Store Operations

Village Books in Bellingham, WA

Used books and remainders play a key role in the independent booksellers' ongoing quest for increased margin.

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01 Jul

Books & Beyond and Sundance Resort Team to Create Reading Series

Continuing the growing trend of effective collaboration among independent businesses, Books & Beyond's Karen Dallett teamed up with Utah's Sundance Resort to present the Fireside Reading Series. In spring 2002, Dallett, whose store is located in Heber City, Utah, and Sundance launched a series of author readings in the Tree Room library of the resort, located at the base of 12,000-foot Mount Timpanogos.

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26 Jun

Hail Harry -- Independents Revel in the Release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Booksellers all knew it would be big, but no one really knew just how big…. By sunset on June 21, the longest day of the calendar year, over five million copies of the longest book most people will ever read were sold around the country. Kids who previously needed naps after 10 pages of The Red Badge of Courage, stayed up through the night to finish the 870-page Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

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About ABA

The American Booksellers Association, a national not-for-profit trade organization, works with booksellers and industry partners to ensure the success and profitability of independently owned book retailers, and to assist in expanding the community of the book.

Independent bookstores act as community anchors; they serve a unique role in promoting the open exchange of ideas, enriching the cultural life of communities, and creating economically vibrant neighborhoods.

Contact

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