[4]A wonderful addition to the joyful sounds of ABA's Celebration of Bookselling at this year's BookExpo America will be Putumayo World Music [4]. The publisher of upbeat compilations of international music on CDs is sponsoring the highly anticipated Celebration, where Colombian singer and Putumayo artist Marta Gomez will treat guests to a live performance of original songs. The event, which is open to all BEA participants, will also feature selections of recorded music from around the world.

Putumayo's many collections -- with their distinctive, folkloric packaging and informative content -- appear in hundreds of independent bookstores, where they appeal to "Cultural Creatives," the U.S. market of over 50 million with non-traditional musical tastes.

Mitchell Books of Fort Wayne, Indiana, set up a Putumayo listening station last year, and it has "done extremely well," said book and music buyer Tommy Myers. "We placed the listening station in the travel department where it's also on the way to the children's section. Kids listen and dance with the headphones on. Parents love the music. We play it in the store as well.

"From the listening station, we've sold a lot of CDs that we normally would not have. I'd say that per month we're averaging about 20 to 25 sales from the listening station alone. I have to refill the CDs all the time."

Mitchell's top-selling CDs are Music From the Coffee Lands, French Cafe, and Music From the Tea Lands, along with various blues CDs, including Blues Lounge, American Blues, and Mississippi Blues. Myers noted that customers look to these CDs as a way to learn more about a type of music. Each of these CDs includes multiple artists. "There's one track per performer," said Myers. "It's a way for customers to get a good overview. If people are interested in a particular artist, they can then dig deeper. It's a good place to begin in an area they might not know much about."

Dan Storper, Putumayo CEO and founder, said that for booksellers who are interested in trying out the CDs, the company offers a variety of display options from counter to stand-alone units. "We offer a no-risk, 60-day trial, to test out the CDs without fronting any money," he said.

About the listening stations, Storper explained, "We want to make sure the store is busy enough to warrant it. We're pretty good about offering it to any bookstore that has the customer support."

Storper noted that with its wide range of world music -- Putumayo offers over 100 titles including Mali to Memphis, Tuku Music, Arabic Groove, and Women of Spirit -- booksellers can tailor the CDs to author events.

"I went into Book Passage in Corte Madera," Storper said. "The owner said that a Cuban author was coming to speak and that along with the book display, she'd display the Cuba CDs and play the music before he spoke."

When Putumayo World Music was first founded, Storper saw that bookstores were a fitting venue for playing and selling world music. "I began with booksellers in the first year," he said. "Bookstores were my personal interest. I spent a lot of time in bookstores, and I was struck by how customers in bookstores seem to be more worldly. They tend to be travelers, and they're more interested in different types of music."

Putumayo grew out of Storper's interest in Latin America. He founded the business in 1975 as a clothing company and eventually owned seven retail stores in the Northeast. It was his desire to find appropriate music to play in the stores that led to the development of Putumayo World Music. Storper sold the clothing company in 1997 to focus on the record label. Putumayo now distributes its music to more than 50 countries and has sold over 10 million CDs.

Free samplers of Putumayo CDs will be available at the Celebration of Bookselling and in the ABA/Book Sense Lounge (Room 1E 07-08), where a 16-title freestanding listening station will be on display.

The Celebration of Bookselling will be held in the Special Events Hall of the Javits Convention Center from 5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. on Friday, June 3. All convention goers are invited to the free event, which will feature the presentation of the Book Sense Book of the Year Awards.

For more about BEA and ABA programming, go to www.bookweb.org/aba/convention/ [5]. --Karen Schechner [6]