The American Booksellers Association now offers two opportunities for live online education [8]: a twice-monthly Marketing Meetup and a monthly Technology Meetup.

All member booksellers are invited to participate in these online discussions; subscribe to the mailing list here [8] to receive invitations for the Technology Meetups, Marketing Meetups, or both.

ABA’s Marketing Meetups are conducted through Zoom.us and held at 11:00 a.m. EST on two Thursdays a month. Registration is required to attend the Marketing Meetups [9].

Upcoming Marketing Meetups include:

July 25: Organizing and Marketing Multi-Store Events (Bookstore Crawls/Passports), Part 1: In the first of two meetups on how multi-store events are organized and marketed, bookseller speakers will focus on Independent Bookstore Day [10] and how regional businesses put together bookstore crawls and passports. Guest speakers will be Clarissa Murphy of Silver Unicorn Bookstore [11]; Katie Eelman of Papercuts J.P. [12]; Eric Lorberer of the literary organization Rain Taxi [13]; Tom Nissley of Phinney Books [14]; and Jessica Stockton Bagnulo of Greenlight Bookstore [15].

August 8: Organizing and Marketing Multi-Store Events (Bookstore Crawls/Passports), Part 2: In the second of two meetups on how multi-store events are organized and marketed, bookseller speakers will continue to discuss Independent Bookstore Day in addition to other shop-local events, such as Find Waldo Local [16], Here’s Harry (a Harry Potter version of Where’s Waldo), and more. Guest speakers will be Beth Stroh of Viewpoint Books [17]; Jessica Palacios of Once Upon a Time [18]; and Laurie Gillman of East City Bookshop [19].

August 22: Holiday Marketing Campaign Plans (watch BTW for more details in the coming weeks)

ABA’s Technology Meetups are conducted through Zoom.us and held at 2:00 p.m. EST on one Tuesday a month. Registration is required to attend the Technology Meetups [20].

Upcoming Technology Meetups include:

August 13: SMS Services (watch BTW for more details in the coming weeks)

Booksellers must register to attend the Marketing or Technology Meetups; to attend both types of meetups, booksellers will need to register for each. Booksellers who sign up through Zoom will be added to ABA’s Marketing and/or Technology Meetup mailing list.