Industry News

By Stacy Mitchell

New York is Book Country (NYIBC) has announced that the organization's founder and president, Linda C. Exman, will be stepping down at the end of this year. The person tapped to lead the organization, which will celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2003, is Courtney Muller. According to NYIBC, Muller will work together with Exman through the end of this year, when she will take over the organization's leadership with Exman's assistance through its anniversary.

Dateline: Wednesday, June 26. It was a dark and stormy night in landlocked Fort Wayne, Indiana. The staff of the 10,000-square-foot Million Story Book Company was closing up at 9:00 p.m. when the storm sewers serving the bookstore and other businesses in the Covington Plaza strip shopping center reached their capacity and "geysered up," according to store co-owner, co-founder, and marketing manager Dave Kaverman.

When Jean McGean, the long-time book buyer for Sam Weller's Zion Book Store in Salt Lake City, died recently, colleagues throughout the industry mourned her passing. McGean was a favorite among publishers' representatives, including the author of this piece, Bruce Roberts, who called on her for many years representing regional book wholesalers. Roberts is currently an account manager for Books West, a regional wholesaler in Boulder, Colorado.

Putting the Book Buyer's Handbook online has allowed ABA to update the data on a continual basis, and booksellers are strongly encouraged to alert ABA of any changing terms they learn of. To assist in this, ABA has included a link on the ABA members' Handbook homepage through which booksellers can send information.

Here is a brief outline of the most significant recent changes that have been made.

Mary Alice Gorman and Richard Goldman, the husband and wife owners of the Oakmont, Pennsylvania's Mystery Lovers Bookshop, are veteran e-newsletter publishers. They understand that, when mailing out an e-newsletter, bounced e-mails are part of the game. The reasons for undeliverables are numerous: addresses change constantly, Internet Service Providers [ISPs] and the Internet can be unreliable, e-mail addresses are often written down wrong, etcetera. One reason that never occurred to them was an ISP bouncing their e-mails on purpose.

Two independent bookstores in the Detroit, Michigan, area were recently treated to a visit from the 2002 Newbery Medal winner, children's author Linda Sue Park. Dressed in a traditional Korean gown, Park talked about her writing, answered questions, and autographed copies of her books at Halfway Down the Stairs Children's Book Shop in Rochester, on Friday, June 28, and the next day at Book Beat in Oak Park. Park won the Newbery, which is awarded annually by the American Library Association, for her novel A Single Shard.

Booksellers Help Reading Groups Connect With Authors via Speakerphone

Speakerphone conversations with authors are taking root as a new dimension for book clubs and booksellers. According to authors Donna Woolfolk Cross (Pope Joan) and Julia Older (The Island Queen) and booksellers Kiez Shultz (Prince & Pauper Bookshop in Rapid City, South Dakota) and Ruth Blake (Dickens-Reed Bookstore in Mount Dora, Florida), this kind of tele-networking is fruitful for everyone involved.

For almost two years, the BookSense.com Affiliate Program has been successful on the national level, with currently close to 500 affiliations made up of a mix of authors, political organizations, and businesses. Now, the number of independent bookstores that are initiating their own affiliate programs through their BookSense.com Web sites is rapidly growing. A major reason for the burgeoning numbers is simple, according to Meg Smith, BookSense.com business development and marketing manager. "It's a great marketing tool," she summed up.

Paperback originals -- they are prominent on the Book Sense Bestseller and 76 lists, on the pages of distinguished book reviews, most certainly in shoppers’ hands, and in the beach bags and suitcases of those planning their summer reading. Have they always been there, or are we seeing a burgeoning new sales and marketing idea? Some of the major publishers of these paperback originals discussed with BTW what types of authors are appropriate for this format and why.

Call for Bookstore Photos for the Fall 2002 New Yorker Book Sense Insert

Book Sense is working with The New Yorker on its September 30 Book Sense insert to feature as many independent bookstores with Book Sense as possible. All Book Sense stores are encouraged to send photographs of their stores -- exterior and interior shots as well as photos of in-store, window, or point-of-purchase Book Sense displays.

ABA member booksellers recently received a letter with full details of the recent launch of the Book Buyer’s Handbook Online, the fully searchable electronic edition of the Book Buyer’s Handbook. The new online edition of the Handbook is available to all ABA bookstore and associate members at BookWeb.org, the association member Web site.

Note that the handbook icon is now on the main navigation bar on the left-hand side of BookWeb.org’s home page.

Booksellers participating in the Book Sense national marketing program will have a special opportunity this summer to celebrate Harry Potter’s July 31st birthday. Scholastic Books and Book Sense have joined efforts to present the "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Celebration" promotion.

For both Pat Willoughby and Petra Williams, the prospect of running an independent bookstore represented a radical change from their careers in corporate America.

Willoughby, in sales and marketing for the last 20 years, is the owner of the Burke’s Books of Park Ridge in Park Ridge, Illinois, set to open in late July. Williams, the co-owner, along with her husband Daniel, of All About Books in Smithville, Missouri, just outside of Kansas City, was an engineer. All About Books will open in mid-July.

On Tuesday, June 25, the U.S. House of Representatives voted, by a margin of 413 to 8, to pass the Child Obscenity and Pornography Protection Act of 2002 (COPPA). The bill, HR 4623, amends the federal criminal code to criminalize the production, dissemination, or possession of computer-generated, or computer images that are, or are virtually indistinguishable from, child pornography.