Best Practices

Christine Munroe of Kobo Writing Life offers information and resources to help indie bookstores promote the works of self-published authors who are eager to work with them.

A rite of passage for many bookstore owners and managers is a move of their bricks-and-mortar business into a new location. Here, three booksellers share their experiences with packing up, moving out, and setting up in new spaces.

Edelweiss/Treeline Education and Outreach Coordinator Joe Foster provides a quick tip to help booksellers add individual titles or lists of titles from Treeline Analytics to a Collection in Edelweiss.

Booksellers, educators, and literacy advocates at April’s ABC Children’s Institute offered insights on what works best for inspiring children to want to read.

At the Children’s Institute in Pasadena last month, booksellers and authors at the forefront of the We Need Diverse Books movement shared a host of strategies on how best to promote diverse messages and content through in-store displays, events, and hiring practices.

With BEA less than two weeks away, now is a good time to revisit a checklist of recommendations from booksellers who are accomplished at achieving their key business goals at the show while grabbing galleys, attending events, and making new connections.

To assist booksellers in advocating for minimum wage policies that take into account the economic realities of independent retailing, ABA has created the Minimum Wage Legislative Tool Kit.

Edelweiss/Treeline Education and Outreach Coordinator Joe Foster demonstrates how booksellers can quickly get a feel for what is happening with their inventory by looking at three Treeline screens: Market Top Sellers, Trends, and the In-Stock Bar Chart.

More than 50 bookstore owners and event managers gathered this week for the NAIBA/NEIBA “All About Events” retreat to discuss why booksellers should host events, how to work with publicists and authors, and the importance of publicity kits and author request grids, among other topics.

Here is an array of great ideas for promoting bookstores as hubs of creativity, community, and activity, all gleaned from the bookseller discussion groups following Steven Johnson’s plenary talk, “How We Got to Now,” at Winter Institute 10.

Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Businesses initiative, which provides free coaching and education to small business owners, has been a boon to independent bookstore owner Darlene Krogol of Another Look Books.

Two regional associations are banding together to present the “All About Events” retreat next month for bookstore owners and managers looking to fine-tune their event-planning skills with the help of fellow booksellers.

If you play music in your bookstore, you need to understand what your legal responsibilities — and rights — are. Here's an up-to-date look at the major performing rights organizations, what they do, and the factors that dictate their licensing fees.

The newest video from last month’s ABC Children’s Institute features bookseller, storyteller, and TEDx speaker Anastasia McKenna, aka “Miss Anastasia,” of The Twig Book Shop in San Antonio, Texas.

Thanks to a grant from author James Patterson, all ABA member booksellers can take advantage of last month’s ABC Children’s Institute education offerings through a series of online videos of the event’s breakout sessions and plenaries.