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Being an independent bookstore in today’s retail environment means working tirelessly to stay connected with your community while also promoting yourself online as an alternative to other online retailers. All independent retailers, not just booksellers, are meeting this challenge in various ways. Come to this session to hear from Albuquerque’s independent retailer stars, ask questions, and discover ideas to apply to your bookstore.

Never has there been a greater need for diverse and international voices in the American market. In this session, panelists will discuss practices they have brought back to their stores from their experiences with Bookselling Without Borders, a fellowship program that sends U.S. booksellers to foreign book fairs as part of a book industry professional exchange program. Among other things, the Bookselling Without Borders program seeks to help booksellers develop concrete ideas for increasing sales of diverse and international literature in the indie market.

Independent bookstores are champions of innovation when it comes to business models. For the last few years, many bookstores have added bars to their business model by blending books with booze. This session will feature booksellers from both small and large stores who have experienced the successes and challenges of this business model.

Pre-orders are becoming an increasingly important way in which books are sold and marketed in 2018, and indie bookstores can and should take part in this growing business. Heavily influenced by television and social media, the months before a title’s publication are critical, and pre-orders are a growing component of a book’s ultimate sales. By working with publishers to take full advantage of pre-order opportunities, indie bookstores can avoid lost sales, lost PR, and lost market share. In this session, panelists will discuss ways that stores can successfully promote and sell pre-orders to become an integral partner to publishers and authors. Learn about new methods developed and tested by a task force of indie stores--including processes and protocols for stores using various POS systems--that all stores can use to maximize pre-orders through marketing, tracking, and reporting. The session will include bookseller participation from the pre-order task force.

Increasing margin through better buying and careful budgeting can improve your cost of goods. This session will use data from ABA’s ABACUS report to outline a path to improvements in a store’s cost of goods, leading to improved financial decisions and substantial savings. The booksellers on this panel are excited to share straightforward financial practices that will make a big difference to the financial health of your business. In this session, booksellers will learn:

• How to read the ABACUS report, including how to compare your data with national averages
• How to make small changes to cost of goods that will result in a positive financial impact
• How long it takes to see the results of small changes to cost of goods
• How to evaluate which financial changes are the ones that will most benefit your business with the least worry and work

There are many factors that go into publisher decisions for author visits and tours, and bookseller event grids help them make those choices. In this session, booksellers will see sample event grids from publisher panelists and learn more about how publishers approach author tours and what they are looking for from bookstores. Booksellers will learn:

• The number-one thing publishers are looking for in potential events
• How to make your event proposal stand out
• How to use Edelweiss to make your grids more specific
• Important ways to follow up after you submit the grid

IndieCommerce™ is the ABA’s e-commerce platform for independent bookstores. The system provides the tools for indie bookstores to create unique, content-rich, and easy-to-operate, fully transactional, e-commerce enabled websites. Over the past few years, the IndieCommerce team has been working closely with booksellers to to help them achieve their online marketing and sales goals. This session will highlight some of the most impactful changes that individual stores have made to their websites over the past year, including before and after examples.

One minute of planning can save you ten minutes in execution. Planning skills can make you a more effective bookseller and help prevent burnout because planning creates efficiency and leads to improved productivity. Cindy Dach, co-owner of Changing Hands Bookstores (Tempe, AZ), will teach booksellers techniques for time management, planning and organizing daily tasks, all with an eye toward completing the big-picture projects. This session is part of Changing Hands' professional development program.

Bookstores that sell direct to schools are an invaluable resource to the local community and a successful strategy for increasing cash flow and profits. Bookseller panelists who have worked closely with their school districts will share with Institute attendees how they too can foster a relationship with school districts and add to their stores’ bottom line. In this session booksellers will learn:

• How to find appropriate school contacts
• How to create teacher wishlists
• How to become a school’s one-stop book fair distributor
• How to manage in-school author visit orders
• Best practices for orders
• How to establish and manage subscription services

If you are thinking about opening a second location -- or if you have recently done so -- this session is for you. A panel of experts who have been through the process will share tips and provide insight on how to know if opening a second store is the correct decision for your business, and if so, how to navigate the process. The topics discussed will include:

• Review: Make sure your business is currently financially stable
• Resources: monetary, staffing, and current owner responsibilities
• Financing: Accessing traditional financing and other options

Market research: Ensuring your choice for the second location is sound

Community educators are important bookstore allies. They work closely with children, and children need books! Making sure bookstores are carrying what teachers are recommending is essential to strengthening the relationship between the two. In this session, event planners and buyers will share how they have implemented and had success hosting Educator Nights. Booksellers will learn:

• Why Educator Nights are important
• How to build a bookstore’s list of educator contacts
• The type of information educators are seeking out when they come to an in-store Educator Night

Important topics to discuss at these events

Pre-registration required; for owners and managers only. Register here As a bookstore owner or manager, having multiple responsibilities means your to-do list is never done. And as your business grows, your days only get longer. In order to keep your sanity, you need staff who can take on more responsibilities and grow with the business, providing leadership in your store and possessing the confidence to represent your store in the community. For this to happen, you need employees who can think strategically, take initiative, and feel empowered to solve problems. Alden Mills—Inc. 500 CEO, Navy SEAL, and author of Unstoppable Teams: The Four Essential Actions of High-Performance Leadership (HarperBusiness)—will teach important strategies you can apply immediately to develop leaders in your stores. You’ll walk away with Alden’s C.A.R.E.-based model that focuses on building relationships in four ways—with customers, co-workers, and community. This Advanced Education Session is designed for in-depth exploration among peers about management and operational concerns. Space is limited and registration is first-come, first-served. Each ABA member company is limited to two AES participants. ABA will attempt to accommodate all interested stores with at least one AES placement; assignments will be e-mailed prior to the start of Winter Institute. Presented twice on Thursday, 1/24: 9:20 to 10:20 am and 3:40 to 4:40 pm.

What if everyone read James Baldwin? He’s one of our most acclaimed 20th century thinkers, his writing exploring countless facets of American society and diving into subjects like sexuality, politics, marriage, police brutality, the Church, race, and love. He observed and critiqued humanity in a way that still resonates with so many of us in 2018 because his words and voice are timeless. Baldwin's groundbreaking work has inspired generations of fervent readers and fans, but what if we could widen that audience? Spread Baldwin's texts even further? Sell his work better, recommend him more frequently alongside other literary giants? We believe we can. Join the National Book Foundation for its new Author in Focus program featuring the work of James Baldwin, a four-time National Book Award nominee. The Foundation will be joined by two dynamic authors at Winter Institute as they help to answer the question of why James Baldwin's work has, does, and will always matter. This event was made possible by the Ford Foundation and Velvet Film.

Amy Webb is a quantitative futurist. She is a professor of strategic foresight at the NYU Stern School of Business and the Founder of the Future Today Institute, a leading future forecasting and strategy firm that researches technology and answers “What’s the future of X?” for a global client base. She is the author of three books, including The Signals Are Talking: Why Today’s Fringe Is Tomorrow’s Mainstream (PublicAffairs, December 2016) which explains how to predict and manage technological change. It was selected as one of Fast Company’s Best Books of 2016 and was a Washington Post Bestseller. Her bestselling memoir Data, A Love Story (Dutton/ Penguin 2013) is about finding love via algorithms. Her TED talk about Data has been viewed more than 6 million times and has been translated into 32 languages.

Jesse Mecham is the author of You Need A Budget: The Proven System for Breaking the Paycheck to Paycheck Cycle, Getting Out of Debt, and Living the Life You Want. YNAB is best-known for teaching “Four Rules” to help people really gain control of their money. Jesse puts his business lessons in action by teaching attendees how they personally can change the way they think about their money. He’ll teach attendees his “Four Rules” walking them through hilarious (because they’re so true!) examples of money mistakes, and what they can do today to start having their money line up with what really matters.