It’s time again to complete ABACUS, ABA’s free annual financial benchmarking survey!

Not only is ABACUS an incredibly useful tool for your business, it also helps ABA better support you. To see how ABACUS benefits your store and the larger bookselling community, check out the “5 Reasons to Fill Out ABACUS” infographic.

Yesterday, April 29, the ABACUS questionnaire was emailed to stores from [email protected] with the subject line “Invitation to the ABACUS-24 Study, complete yours now!”

Booksellers have until June 14 to submit their responses.

To get started on ABACUS, you’ll need your tax return and your year-to-date Z report from your POS. 

If you would like assistance, or are participating for the first time, ABA CFO (and former bookstore owner) PK Sindwani will be offering several ABACUS workshops with step-by-step instructions for the ABACUS questionnaire. Visit BookWeb to register for the session that works best for you.

Thank you to everyone who voted in this year’s Board of Directors election!

We exceeded the quorum required by ABA's Bylaws and voting has officially concluded.

Congratulations to our new and returning Board members:

• Paul Hanson, Village Books, Bellingham and Lynden, WA
• Brein Lopez, Children’s Book World, Los Angeles, CA
• Raquel Roque, Books & Books, Coral Gables, FL

And congratulations to our new Board officers:

• President — Cynthia Compton, 4 Kids Books & Toys, Zionsville, IN & MacArthur Books, Carmel, IN
• Co-Vice President — Jake Cumsky-Whitlock, Solid State Books, Washington, DC
• Co-Vice President/Secretary — Diane Capriola, Little Shop of Stories, Decatur, GA

• Monday, May 5 at 3:00 pm ET: ABACUS Workshop
• Tuesday, May 6 at 3:00 pm ET: New Member Series: Store Ownership 101
• Friday, May 9 at 3:00 pm ET: Ci2025 Virtual Institute Orientation
• Tuesday, May 13 at 3:00 pm ET: ShopTalk
• Wednesday, May 14 at 12:00 pm ET: ABACUS Workshop
• Tuesday, May 20 at 3:00 pm ET: New Member Series: POS Power Hour
• Thursday, May 22 at 2:00 pm ET: ABA’s Annual Meeting and Community Forum
  

Podcasts: Winter Institute ABFE Sessions

The recordings of the American Booksellers for Free Expression (ABFE) Winter Institute sessions are now available on the BookED podcast:

• Speak Out! Legislative Activism 101
• Content-Based Attacks on Stores

Legislative Updates:

Thank you to the booksellers who spoke out against Texas HB 1375, which would create pathways for frivolous lawsuits targeting bookstores for curation of books! They waited over 12 hours to testify, and perfectly explained how the bill would threaten indie booksellers. Legislators have promised to amend the bill, and we will keep careful watch to make sure that happens.

North Dakota: THANK YOU to Governor Kelly Armstrong for vetoing SB 2307, a book ban bill that represented significant state overreach and impingement into the rights of parents and communities. The legislature failed to override the veto. 

Texas: 

• Librarian criminalization bills HB 267 and SB 412 are poised to pass, removing liability exemptions for librarians related to their curation. Write your legislators today to let them know you oppose these bills.
• Similarly, HB 3225 and SB 2101 are linked bills that would target public libraries, forcing them to create adults-only sections for anything containing sexual conduct, regardless of context, purpose, or the literary merit of the work as a whole. As we saw in Idaho with HB 710, this kind of approach leads libraries to make it harder for kids to use the library based on a false narrative about library books. Write your legislators about HB 3225 and SB 2101, and let them know you oppose these bills.

South Carolina: HB 4123 would weaken First Amendment protections for books by targeting the constitutional need to consider the “merit of the work taken as a whole,” allowing only scientific merit to be considered. This unconstitutional bill would drastically increase the number of books banned and impact booksellers directly. It was heard in a Judiciary Committee subcommittee meeting today, but only about five minutes of testimony were taken. You can write to the committee through the ACLU of South Carolina page and watch this space for more information about additional opportunities to testify. (Note: the ACLU page emphasizes educators and librarians, but this bill would impact everyone.)