A Q&A With ABA’s 2011 Director Candidates

ABA main store members have until April 25 to cast their ballots to elect three directors and a new president and vice president for terms on the Board, beginning May 2011. Electronic ballots and candidate bios were sent to all members in an e-mail from ABA on March 23.

BTW recently had the opportunity to ask this year’s three director candidates – John Evans, Matt Norcross, and Ken White – about the challenges facing independent bookstores and ABA’s role in helping members meet those challenges head-on. (Watch for interviews with the candidate for president, Becky Anderson, and for vice president, Steve Bercu, in next week’s issue.)

John Evans has been a bookseller for 30 years. In 1989, he co-founded DIESEL, A Bookstore with Alison Reid. The business currently has two locations, in Oakland and Brentwood, California, and is actively pursuing reopening a third location, in Malibu sometime this summer.

BTW: What do you perceive as the biggest challenges facing independent booksellers today?

John Evans: Integrating e-books and websites into bookstores’ daily operations; sales tax fairness; answering the echo chamber of tech and e-book booster-ism both inside and outside the industry with realistic assessments of the incorporation of digital changes into cultural practices; real estate issues; and succession planning.

What do you think ABA can and ought to be doing to meet those challenges?

J.E.: Most of these challenges ABA is addressing phenomenally well and throughout the various levels of the industry – educationally to booksellers; structurally through IndieCommerce; and through legal and industry advocacy. I think more could be done to get the word out through the media about the distinct, even vital, advantages of independent bookstores not just to communities, but also to publishers and the writing culture at large. The bookselling alternatives are fundamentally destructive to the culture they profit from, and this should be more widely understood.

What has been ABA’s biggest contribution to your store’s success?

J.E.: Keeping the virtues of independent bookselling visible and audible to the industry, the media, and readers, by presenting a united image and speaking with one articulate voice.

What makes you most optimistic about independent bookselling today?

J.E.: Quality will out. I believe that a significant portion of people value exactly what independent bookstores provide, despite confusing hype to the contrary, and I think that given more outspoken, and industry, support we will thrive in these drastically changeable conditions.

And, finally, since booksellers always like to know: What are you reading now?

J.E.: Since it’s Poetry Month and we are featuring it on our website, I’ve been reading a lot of poetry (Michael McClure’s Mysteriosos, at the moment), along with the latest from B. Alan Wallace, and I’m just about to finally begin The Tiger’s Wife (I know, I’m late to the party).

Matt Norcross is the owner, with his wife, Jessilynn Norcross, of McLean & Eakin Booksellers. His bookselling career began in 1992, when his mother Julie Norcross opened McLean & Eakin in Petoskey, Michigan. Matt has worked full-time at the store since 2003, and at the beginning of 2010 he and Jessilynn took ownership.

What do you perceive as the biggest challenges facing independent booksellers today?

Matt Norcross: Communicating to our customer the value independent bookstores offer the communities we serve is the number one challenge we face… We work hard to make our communities aware of amazing and often under-appreciated authors and books. However, we’ve struggled to communicate this message.

Part of this is because it’s a much more complicated message than the message our competitors choose which is, more often than not, “45% OFF!” and part of this is because we are much better at promoting the books we love than we are at promoting ourselves. The current state of the e-book market is very interesting because, with a couple exceptions (the Kindle’s proprietary nature and the lack of a dedicated/wireless device), the playing field is very level thanks to the agency model and all of the wonderful publishers who are supporting it. In the land of e-books, our competitors’ primary promotional tool (discount) is now gone, and we must work hard to make our customer aware of this.

What do you think ABA can and ought to be doing to meet those challenges?

MN: ABA is uniquely positioned to coordinate the type of promotions needed to raise customer awareness on this issue. This challenge of raising awareness of the value of independent bookstores, as well as the leveling of the playing field in the e-book market, is something that must be communicated on the national level ,and this is something I feel only ABA can do. The exciting thing is that, more than ever, I feel our partners in publishing want us to overcome this challenge, and I’m optimistic that ABA will find effective ways for independents bookstores to partner with publishers and others to overcome this challenge.

What has been ABA’s biggest contribution to your store’s success?

MN: Along with our regional association, the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association, ABA has helped us maintain a feeling of empowerment and connectedness in the face of overwhelming adversity. Through amazing educational offerings, our store has learned to have tight controls over our inventory and finances, and through programs at regional meetings, BEA, and the Winter Institute we’ve never felt we were in this all alone.

What makes you most optimistic about independent bookselling today?

MN: I don’t want to sound like a broken record but ... what makes me most optimistic about independent bookselling is the agency model. We have a long road ahead of us in the e-book market, but we never had such equal terrain as our competitors.

And, finally, what are you reading now?

MN: 2030 by Albert Brooks – After what happened in Japan, this book went from fun Sci-Fi to terrifying near-reality!

The Last Stand by Nathaniel Philbrick – A thorough examination of Little Big Horn and the events that lead to it. Philbrick is one of my favorite historians.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline – A terrific near future, cyber punk-type novel that is oozing ’80s pop and video game culture. I can’t wait to start selling this one!

Ken White is manager of the General Books Department at San Francisco State University Bookstore in California, where he has worked since 2001. Ken’s career also includes stints at a small specialty bookstore as well as at a large publisher. He is coming to the end of his first three-year term as a member of the ABA Board, and is up for election to a second three-year term.

What do you perceive as the biggest challenges facing independent booksellers today?

Ken White: The world is changing so fast. New technologies come like tsunamis, collapsing structures in their wake, and then disappear, outmoded. How can booksellers embrace new technologies and at the same time retain their core values and the culture of reading?

What do you think ABA can and ought to be doing to meet those challenges?

KW: Look, listen. and learn. Environmental scanning, watching for what is just on the horizon, is something very hard to do from the sales floor. The trade association is much better suited to keep tabs on the latest innovations. We need to listen to member stores, keep tabs on how they’re doing – find out where their concerns are in the day-to-day running of their businesses. Then put those two things together to figure out how to best leverage innovative ideas and tools in running our businesses.

What has been ABA’s biggest contribution to your store’s success?

KW: The IndieCommerce website is great. I’m a fan of Edelweiss and Above the Treeline, but the seminar series “The 2% Solution” really taught me how to think about running a store. It was the best education ABA ever put together! Stuff like that is all based on the ABACUS survey, which is why it’s so important that more stores participate! In general, I find that Winter Institute and the ABA Day of Education (at the BEA trade show) are the most compelling annual events worth traveling for.

What makes you most optimistic about independent bookselling today?

KW: When you catch someone in your store scanning the bar codes off of the books on your display tables, it’s hard not to be discouraged. But whenever booksellers get together, I am constantly impressed and humbled by the passion, experience, and intelligence of my peers. There might still be a lot of transition ahead, but with minds and hearts like ours, I think we’ll figure it out.

And, finally, what are you reading now?

KW: I’m reading The Last Werewolf  by Glen Duncan, and it is good! July 2011, Knopf.