This year marks ABA’s 125th year of helping indie bookstores thrive. As part of our 125th anniversary celebration, we’ll be sharing interviews with key figures in the industry and exploring how the organization has changed since its inception in 1900.
This month, Project Manager Pete Reynolds celebrates his 33rd year at ABA!
Reynolds sat down with Bookselling This Week to discuss some of the ways ABA has changed during his time at the organization.
Bookselling This Week: Our partners and publishers might know who you are, but some of our booksellers don't. You're one of our more behind-the-scenes staff members. Why don't you give us a little overview of what you do at ABA?
Peter Reynolds: I’m known for the national Indie Bestsellers List that goes out to the booksellers and the publishing industry. There’s also nine regional bestseller lists each week that I work on and as well as the specialty bestseller list that we do twice a month. I work on the Indie Next Lists with Kate, Cedar, and Jess, and I’ve been doing the Advanced Access program since the early 2000s.
I enjoy all these projects. They are a lot of work — they keep me busy and they keep me out of trouble.
I’ve always enjoyed learning about new books that are coming out. My first job as a bookseller, I was a shipping and receiving clerk, and I loved opening boxes and seeing the new books coming out. I felt like, “My god, I'm one of the first people to actually see this book.” The books themselves have always been my real joy.
BTW: I totally get that. I don’t get to see the lists quite as much as you do, but every time I’m like, "Ooh, that's what's happening…”
PR: Right? I’ve been doing Advanced Access since before the Next Lists began. Every once in a while, a publisher would submit a title for Advanced Access and that title would make the bestseller list, and that's always great to see. That still does happen, but now I'm finding the relationship between Advanced Access and the Next Lists. Publishers now submit titles for Advanced Access that they're really hoping will make the Indie Next list and ultimately — hopefully —the Bestsellers list.
It's almost like a nice process for me to work on. It's a lot of fun. I actually think it's a great job for me. It's something I've love always loved books and it's been the perfect job for me over the years.
BTW: Is this what you’ve always done at ABA? Or did you work in other positions before?
PR: I started at ABA in August of 1992. I was working at a chain bookstore, and a coworker of mine was Len Vlahos.
He called me up one day and he said, “We haven't spoken in a while, but the American Booksellers Association is moving from Manhattan to Westchester County.” He told me he thought I should send in my resume. So, I applied. I sent my resume to Ellie Chang, who was the ABA CFO and Len’s boss at the time. They offered me the job and I’ve been here ever since.
My first job with ABA was in a department called Information Services, where we basically answered the phones.
ABA had a huge staff. There was a convention department — Eileen Dengler, the Executive Director of NAIBA used to run it. There was a publishing department. Dan Cullen was the Editor-in-Chief of The American Bookseller magazine and ABA Newswire (the precursor to Bookselling This Week). The American Bookseller was a monthly magazine. Newswire was a weekly newsletter that was mailed out every Wednesday from our office to bookstores and publishers across the country. The ABA Book Buyer’s Handbook and returns handbook were actual printed things.
The staff at ABA was huge when I joined. It was such a different world. There was no internet when I started. In information services, the phones rang off the hook five days a week.
At 9:00 am on Monday morning, the phones would start ringing, and the three of us answered phones all day and took different requests. Somebody was looking to open a bookstore or wanted to become a member? We took their information down by hand and we ran it over to the membership department. ABA also had a service where bookstores would order shopping bags from us, imprinted with the store's logo and stuff like that. The production department would be involved with that. Or stores would call in to order gift certificates. We’d take those orders down to the warehouse and Shipping and Receiving would handle those.
After Information Services went away in the early 2000s, that's when I started working on Advanced Access and the Bestsellers lists. I didn’t start working on the Next Lists themselves until about 2015.
BTW: That's awesome. Information Services sounds like a cool place to start just because you got to see how all the different pieces worked together.
PR: Yeah. I've seen a lot of changes within ABA and in the industry. I give ABA credit for carving out a solid niche for indie bookstores. I mean, it's a much smaller niche than it used to be, thanks to Amazon, but I give ABA all the credit over these decades of keeping indies relevant and important to the industry. People still love independent bookstores.
BTW: It’s cool to get some of that context. Every time I interview someone new, I get another little piece of book industry history. It's really neat.
PR: There's been so many great people that I've worked with over the years at ABA, and they continue to hire and employ the best people.
I just feel humbled working with these people, up to the current generation of ABA staffers. They roll with changes. They adapt and they pivot and nothing seems to phase them, and it's amazing to watch. I like doing my thing, but I'm also in awe at all of the other things that the other departments at ABA do.
BTW: We’ve been looking back, but looking forward, hopefully we get another 125 years. What do you hope for the future of ABA or for the book industry?
PR: That's a really great question. It's a big question. I have more years behind me at ABA than I have in front of me, but I'm going to keep an eye on ABA. I'm going to read BTW every week and I know that ABA, as long as it exists, is going to be front and center in the industry.
I'm looking forward to keeping up with ABA, because I know ABA is going to survive, and move forward with everything that booksellers need, and keep up the good fight.