MPBA Show Moves Booksellers to the Next Level

By Andrea Avantaggio of Maria's Bookshop in Durango, Colorado

The first thing you should know about me is that I was only a cheerleader for one year in junior high school. You should also know that when someone asks me about the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association Trade Show, I feel like a cheerleader all over again ... the big difference being that I believe in what we do there infinitely more than I ever believed in my junior high basketball team.... I depend on it to renew my faith in bookselling as a profession, to visit with those booksellers that I hope to be like when I grow up, to see my reps face to face, and to revel in all that is great about the wonderful world of bookselling.

All that said, there are still years when it is difficult to talk myself into the drive. With booksellers from states that span between the borders of Canada and Mexico, it is safe to say that it isn't an easy trip for anyone. Depending on kids and the inevitable road construction, it's an eight- to 12-hour drive through the mountains for us to get to the show in Denver. This year, the autumn colors on the mountain passes were spectacular. I did my best to drink in enough color to sustain me through the next three and a half days of hotel life.... Unlike my two kids, who can't wait to jump on the beds and watch cartoons, I can't say that I look forward to the hotel part of the trade show. Maybe I should try doing less work and more jumping on the beds this year!

On Thursday and Friday, MPBA offered full days of educational seminars. I absolutely love that educational seminars are now on separate days from the trade show -- I never could figure out how to squeeze in enough time on the trade show floor and to get to all the seminars I wanted attend. Every year, I promise myself that I am not going home with a to-do list that is unrealistically long. This year, I've broken that promise by lunch on Thursday.

ABA was represented at the show by CEO Avin Mark Domnitz and staff members Kristen Gilligan and Linda Sinisi. With backup help from Kristin and Linda, Avin presented four ABA seminars -- "The New ABACUS," "Basic Budgeting," "It's in the Payroll," and "Increasing Sales." ABA staff was doing double duty at this show as they were monitoring the hurricane situation in Texas/Louisiana and doing all they could to assist member stores in those threatened locations.

Additional programming covered a wide variety of topics. To highlight just a few: we brushed up on our customer service skills and training, got the scoop on beginning co-op (Kathy Westover [of The Bookworm in Edwards, Colorado, and MPBA president] could actually turn this into a college level class), and scrambled our brains trying to understand the implications of the 13-digit ISBN. Attendance at the educational seminars was high. It is always great to see new faces in the audience. I often learn as much from the audience participation at the seminars as I do from the presenters. I am always impressed by my fellow booksellers' willingness to ask questions and to share ideas.

Speaking of new faces, we were pleased to welcome Mid-South booksellers from Texas and Oklahoma, who are new MPBA members. Some of the people from the Gulf Coast Texas stores had left just before Hurricane Rita and were not sure what impact the storm would have on their stores.

As in past years, we were treated to several great events featuring authors of the season. Random House sponsored a brown bag lunch on Thursday with authors Gail Caldwell (A Strong West Wind, Random House), Walter Kerr (Mission to America, Doubleday), and Benjamin Alire Saenz (In Perfect Light, Rayo/HarperCollins).

The early birds of the group were rewarded by Simon & Schuster on Friday morning with tea and scones with Phillipa Gregory (The Virgin's Lover, Touchstone).

Saturday morning featured the annual author breakfast for literacy this year with J.R. Moehringer (The Tender Bar, Hyperion), Robert Hicks (Widow of the South, Warner), Micaela Gilchrist (The Fiercer Heart: A Novel of Love and Obsession, S&S), and Bruce Babbitt (Cities in the Wilderness: A New Vision of Land Use in America, Island Press).

With sponsorship from Ingram, Partners West, and Baker & Taylor, we kicked off the evenings on both Friday and Saturday with receptions featuring over 20 authors signing their books each night. The reception on Saturday night included the presentation of the Gordon Saull Bookseller of Year and Sales Rep of the Year Awards. Eric Boss of the Penguin Group was honored as the Sales Rep of the Year. True to form, Eric gave an acceptance speech that was warm, witty, and from the heart. I was presented with the Bookseller of the Year Award. (To be the reporter and the recipient creates an awkward reporting moment that I am not sure how to handle!)

Those with the stamina to get up early on Sunday morning were rewarded with the Children's Author and Illustrator Breakfast. This year, we heard Claudia Mills (Ziggy's Blue-Ribbon Day, FSG) and Christopher Canyon, illustrator of Take Me Home, Country Roads (Dawn Publications). Claudia was as funny as the quiche was bad!

The trade show floor was buzzing all day on Saturday. I love finding books that are more exciting in reality than they seemed in the catalogs; there is just no substitute for the real thing. Cookbooks are my weakness. I can skip right over them on the catalog pages, but I am so easily seduced by their mouthwatering covers.

Book buzz -- okay, this is a hard one -- the diplomat in me wants to be fair to all the new titles of the season, but the bookseller in me can't ignore the excitement over three titles in particular at this show.

Gail Caldwell's memoir, A Strong West Wind (Random House), was given out at the lunch on Thursday, and by Friday morning the buzz had started. Several booksellers I heard talking said they picked it up for some nightcap reading and couldn't stop reading ... and re-reading it. It's not a long book -- be prepared to re-read passage after passage trying to figure out how Gail creates such stunning prose.

The buzz book of the day on Saturday was J.R. Moehringer's The Tender Bar. This could have been just another "growing up in America" hard luck tale ... except that J.R. Moehringer wrote it. To hear him speak is to be entertained, charmed, and inspired. To read his memoir is all of those things and more. It's heartwarming, it's inspirational, it is a story told from the heart and one whose characters will keep you company long after you have finished the book.

The paperback release of Gregory Scott Robert's Shantaram (St. Martin's/Griffin) is the last one. This is in some ways a publisher's dream book. The publisher isn't giving away galleys and didn't bring the author to sign or talk about his book. But once you read it, you'll find yourself recommending it many times a day. If you missed Shantaram in hardback, don't make the same mistake in paper. It would be easy to look at the 900-plus pages and think that you don't have the time to read it. Once you start, I guarantee you won't have time to do anything but read it!

By the end of the show each year, I am definitely ready for a full night's sleep in my own bed, for a run outside in the fresh air, and for the chance to curl up with one of my new books. I am also refreshed and renewed and proud to be part of such an awesome profession. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunity to once again be pushed to the next level of bookselling, to share ideas, frustrations, and dreams with such a great group of people.

I am thankful for Susan Richardson of the Maine Coast Bookshop in Damariscotta, Maine, who, early in my bookselling career encouraged me to open my eyes to the fact that bookselling is a profession. She encouraged me to take advantage of any educational opportunities I could.

I thank the ABA and MPBA for providing those opportunities and helping me in my transformation from a waitress searching for something more to a proud bookseller! And most of all, I thank the booksellers of the MPBA region for all the ideas they have shared and questions they have asked over the years.

ABA awarded a scholarship to its inaugural Winter Education Institute to Mark Stauder of Anthology Book Co. in Loveland, Colorado, at the MPBA show. The scholarship includes airfare and hotel accommodations to attend the Institute, which will be held on Thursday, January 26, and Friday, January 27, 2006, in Long Beach, California."

Also awarded at the ABA booth at the show was an inkjet printer to Carol Hill of Book Mine in Leadville, Colorado.

The winners were chosen at random from booksellers who stopped by the ABA booth at the show and dropped off a business card.