The American Booksellers Association recently presented a Marketing Meetup that focused on bookseller strategies for marketing romance titles in their stores.

The July 11 Marketing Meetup, hosted by ABA on Zoom.us [6], was titled “Catching the Romance Reader” and featured guest speakers Billie Bloebaum of Third Street Books [7] in McMinnville, Oregon, and founder of Bookstore Romance Day [8]; Tracie Fain of The Book House [9] in Atlanta, Georgia; Clarissa Murphy of Silver Unicorn Bookstore [10] in Acton, Massachusetts; and Angela Trigg of The Haunted Book Shop [11] in Mobile, Alabama.

Here are some of the tips the speakers shared on how indie booksellers can better welcome and promote romance books in their stores:

• Participate in Bookstore Romance Day [8] on Saturday, August 17, an event designed to give independent bookstores an opportunity to celebrate romance fiction and strengthen the relationship between bookstores and the romance community.
• Join The Romance of Bookselling Facebook page [12], where indie booksellers discuss romance fiction and ways to break the stigma around the genre.
• Build a relationship with your local Romance Writers of America (RWA) [13] chapter, which can help booksellers create romance-focused events and programming with local authors.
• Sign up for HarperCollins’ Heroes and Heartbreakers newsletter [14].
• Check out The Kiss Club on Libro.fm [15], which features a romance book for $3.99 each month.
• Clearly display romance titles in-store, stock a diverse selection, and organize by subgenre when possible.
• Be on the lookout for romance reviews in Publishers Weekly [16] and Shelf Awareness for Readers [17] to stay in the know about what to recommend to customers.
• Talk up the genre and publicize it in-store through staff recommendations and reviews, and be sure to market both in-store and online.
• Host and promote romance-themed book clubs and find readers on social media.
• Follow popular romance authors on social media, as they’ll also talk about what books are trending right now.

The American Booksellers Association now offers two opportunities for live online education [18]: 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 [18] to receive invitations for the Technology Meetups, Marketing Meetups, or both.