NAIBA Fall Trade Show Preview

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The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA) Fall Trade Show will be held on Sunday and Monday, September 21 - 22, in the Events Center at the Borgata Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The two-day event offers booksellers a wealth of educational programming on Sunday, and, on Monday, over 500 publishers at 275 display tables will be represented on the trade show floor, and 100 authors will be on hand to autograph books.

This will be the first NAIBA trade show in Atlantic City since 1997, noted Eileen Dengler, NAIBA executive director. "We traveled the region since 1998, but everyone seems excited about a weekend in Atlantic City," she said. "I expect this to be a large show."

New at this year's trade show is Monday morning's "Breakfast with Champions," a complimentary breakfast for all attendees, at which NAIBA will present its Book of the Year Awards and will honor Jerry Goodman of St. Martin's with the Helmuth Award. Another innovation to this year will be a Game Room, "where booksellers can sit around and play with the sideline products that can be found on the trade show floor," Dengler said. "This will be a lot of fun, and a chance for everyone to sample and play the games they are considering for their stores."

Attending the NAIBA show from ABA will be CEO Avin Mark Domnitz; Editorial Director/Editor-in-Chief of the Book Sense 76 Dan Cullen; and Manager of Communications, Industry Relations, and Trade Policy Kristen Gilligan.

An ABA budgeting and monitoring workshop kicks off Sunday's educational sessions. Domnitz will lead "Increasing Your Bookstore's Financial Odds," from 10:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. in Studio 3. The session will demonstrate how bookstores, like any other business, are best operated within a system of financial controls that allow the owner/manager to predict performance and then measure outcomes against those predictions. Most importantly, close control over cash flow is essential to the successful operation of any business. Through the use of a series of Excel worksheets, attendees will be shown how to integrate such a system into their operations. This workshop has been newly revised to focus on the issues of small and medium-size stores. Special attention will be paid to those factors that the early ABACUS results indicate are the drivers of profitability and success. This seminar is a must for owners, managers, and financial staff of bookstores.

On Monday, September 21, at the ABA/Book Sense booth, attendees participate in a hands-on demonstration of the new, electronic Book Sense Gift Card program. Booksellers receiving a demo will be automatically entered into a raffle to win a free $50 training session and a color inkjet printer. (This is the same printer that ABA offers at a discounted price through its business affinity program, CDW. For more details on purchasing one of these printers, click here). For a second chance at winning the training session, booksellers should bring a recent photo of a Book Sense 76 display (with store name, address, phone number, and contact name printed on the back).

NAIBA programming starts on Sunday morning, from 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. with the session, "Books That Are a Sure Bet -- Pick of the Lists," in Studio 2. This perennial favorite will feature an hour of titles from house reps (from 11:00 am - noon) and an hour with independent reps (from noon - 1:00 p.m.).

Concurrent with this session will be the "Title Source II Users Group Meeting" in Studio 1, sponsored by Baker & Taylor, and open to both users and non-users.
From 1:15 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. in Salon A, there will be the "Book & Author Luncheon," featuring Gerald McDermott Creation (Penguin Putnam), Joyce Carol Oates, Freaky Green Eyes (HarperCollins), and others soon to be announced.

From 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m., "It Pays to Play" consists of three concurrent sessions aimed at highlighting how booksellers working with staff, customers, and local community groups can bring financial and emotional payoffs. The three sessions will last for 45 minutes and will reconvene for the second hour so attendees can attend two out of the three sessions.

The sessions are "Community Partnerships," in Studio 3, which will demonstrate how working closely with neighborhood groups can give booksellers a dependable, reliable source of customers for events; "Non-Author Events," in Studio 2, will focus on how booksellers can have fun and sell tons of books by creating non-author events that will generate excitement in the store; and "Book Clubs," in Studio 1, will show booksellers all the ways they can market and service this burgeoning social group.

Following the educational sessions, from 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, booksellers are invited to attend the "Grand Opening Reception," held in Salon D of the Exhibit Hall, where they can preview vendors' trade show offerings.

Capping the busy day is "The Scrumptious Movable Feast," from 7:30 p.m. - 10 p.m. in Salon A. One of the highlights of the NAIBA trade show, the Movable Feast introduces booksellers to 20 of this year's hot authors. Authors will spend time at each table, talking about their books and answering questions, and attendees will leave with a bag of autographed books. The event will be hosted by Louis Auchincloss, author of 58 books, including Scarlet Letters (Houghton Mifflin). At the Movable Feast, Auchincloss will be presented the NAIBA Legacy Award for his outstanding contribution to literature.

Monday, September 22, begins with the "Breakfast with Champions," from 7:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m., where, in addition to the presentation of awards, NAIBA will conduct its annual meeting.

At 9:00 a.m., the trade show floor opens. Dengler told BTW that one of the highlights on the trade show floor will be "NAIBA the Magnificent," who will travel the trade show floor to prove that any book has an enchanting customer event lurking between its covers. "I'm excited about NAIBA the Magnificent and can't wait to see him work his magic," she said. "It is part of NAIBA's efforts to show booksellers all the great non-author events they can create, and having NAIBA the Magnificent walking the floor will give everyone great ideas. It will be a lot of fun."

For more information about NAIBA's educational programming and the trade show, contact the association at (877) 866-2422; fax 516-333-0689; or e-mail [email protected].