Dear Booksellers,

I’m sure you don’t have time to read this, so here’s just the critical information for the day:

Dan Rather 

• Thank you to our Indies First ambassador, Dan Rather, for his awesome social media support on Small Business Saturday.

• Rather spent his weekend graciously signing bookplates for What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism (9781616209940) for the indies. Stores may request the number of bookplates corresponding to the number of books ordered, up to 12 bookplates per store. Book orders can be placed with Workman Publishing or a wholesaler, and bookplate requests can be made here (while supplies last). Bookplates will be sent on a rolling basis, hopefully in time to make great holiday gifts.

• Rather’s national event in support of indie bookstores takes place on Wednesday, December 2, at 7:00 p.m. ET, when he will be in conversation with co-author Elliot Kirschner on Zoom. Here’s the link to share with your customers and here are some assets to promote the event online.

IndieCommerce

Yesterday, IndieCommerce saw the highest sales volume in IndieCommerce history! Platform volume exceeded the previous record day by 20 percent. As e-commerce volume is anticipated to remain high throughout the holiday season, be prepared in case of emergency:

• If your IndieCommerce or IndieLite website is experiencing an outage — if customers can’t place orders or you can't process orders — we consider that a “critical outage” and an emergency. The first step in reporting a critical outage is to see if we already know about it:

  • Check the IndieCommerce Status Page. If you don’t see an incident reported on that page, then…

  • Submit a critical outage report: We monitor for critical outage reports 24/7. As soon as you submit a critical outage report, it is forwarded to IndieCommerce staff for review. Please include as much detail as possible when submitting a critical outage report and please only use this form for critical outages as described above. Note: You must have a BookWeb.org account to submit this form, so make sure your team has login credentials.

• For non-emergency IndieCommerce issues, email staff@bookweb.org and include your store name, site URL, and as much detail as possible about your question or issue.

December Events

• Tuesday, December 1, at 3:00 p.m. ET: Regular Coffee Break
  Join us for an opportunity to share support, ask questions, and trade best practices. All booksellers are welcome. If you’ve never attended this event before, it’s a great way to hear what’s working well at other stores and crowdsource solutions to any challenges you’re facing at your store. Email info@bookweb.org for Zoom login details. 

• Thursday, December 3, at 6:00 p.m. ET: BIPOC Coffee Break
  A meeting space for BIPOC — Black, Indigenous, or People of Color — booksellers and bookstore owners to gather for connection, support, community, resources, and networking. This will be a non-hosted opportunity; there will not be a facilitator and ABA staff will not be in attendance. Booksellers and store owners interested in attending should email info@bookweb.org for the Zoom information. (Please indicate if you would be willing to be the Zoom host to let people in from the waiting room.) Each BIPOC Coffee Break meeting has a new password, so please be sure to email for details.

• Tuesday, December 8, at 3:00 p.m. ET: Regular Coffee Break

• Wednesday, December 9, at 8:00 p.m. ET: Late-Night Coffee Break

• Tuesday, December 15, at 3:00 p.m. ET: Regular Coffee Break (the final Coffee Break of the year)

Booksellers who do not have the Zoom meeting ID and password can email info@bookweb.org to get details for any of these sessions.

ABA is here for all of you. Please reach out if there is anything we can help with. Members can contact me directly, or email the Membership, Advocacy, or IndieCommerce teams.

Best,
Allison