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.

On Thursday, August 8, at 11:00 a.m. EDT, the American Booksellers Association will host the second of two Marketing Meetups focusing on multi-store events. Booksellers can sign up now to participate in any upcoming Marketing Meetup [9].

The August 8 meetup, “Organizing and Marketing Multi-Store Events (Bookstore Crawls/Passports),” is the second of two meetups on how multi-store events are organized and marketed; see a recap of the first meetup on the topic here [10]. During this online conversation, bookseller speakers will continue to discuss Independent Bookstore Day in addition to other shop-local events, such as Find Waldo Local [11], Here’s Harry (a Harry Potter version of Where’s Waldo), and more. Guest speakers will be Beth Stroh of Viewpoint Books [12], Jessica Palacios of Once Upon a Time [13], Laurie Gillman of East City Bookshop [14], and Elissa Sweet of Bank Square Books [15] and Savoy Bookshop & Café.

On Tuesday, August 13, at 2:00 p.m. EDT, ABA will host a Technology Meetup on SMS services. Booksellers can sign up now to participate in any upcoming Technology Meetup [16].

SMS messaging is a communication channel that allows businesses to advertise and promote products to customers as well as to engage with them, all through text messaging. During the session, booksellers will hear from colleagues who are using various SMS services to communicate with their customers. Guest speakers for this session are Sarah Krammen of Dragonfly Books [17], Anne Holman of The King’s English Bookshop [18], and Colleen Callery of Books Are Magic [19], with additional information provided by Quail Ridge Books [20].

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.