2002 GLBA Fall Trade Show Preview

The Great Lakes Booksellers Association Trade Show will be held September 27 - 29 at the Hyatt Regency in Dearborn, Michigan. The show will feature a broad range of educational programming, author events, and a full-day trade exhibit from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 28.

A number of special events are planned for the three days of the show. The Great Lakes Book Awards Presentation will be held on Friday, September 27, at 11:45 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. The winning authors will be present and will autograph following the luncheon.

Twenty or more authors will participate in a "moveable" Authors Feast on Friday from 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. There will be an author at each table who will change tables as the dinner courses change. In addition to the chance to talk with favorite authors, attendees will receive many signed copies.

Following the Authors Feast, attendees can join Michael Rosen, author of Midnight Snacks (Broadway Books), to continue chats and have a snack.

GLBA members are invited to Breakfast with the Board at the GLBA Annual Meeting and Town Meeting from 8:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, September 28. Among the items on the agenda are the introduction of new board members and officers; a review of the annual report; revision of GLBA's strategic plan; and new programs such as Regional Access, the new Connectivity Package, and the Midwest Independent Bestseller List.

At 6:15 p.m. on Saturday, attendees are invited to the New Voices Reading Room to hear authors Mike Perry (Population: 485, HarperCollins); Bonnie Jo Campbell (Q Road, Scribner); Nancy Zafris (Metal Shredders, Blue Hen) read from their works.

Following the Reading Room and an Author & Rep Reception will be the Booksellers Banquet at 7:30 p.m., featuring Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex, FSG); Erik Larson (Devil in the White City, Crown), and Jennifer Crusie (Faking It, St. Martin's).

Speakers at the Sunday morning (7:45 a.m.) Children's Book & Author Breakfast will include Pam Munoz Ryan (When Marian Sang, Scholastic), Jerry Pinkney (Albidaro and the Mischievous Dream, Phyllis Fogelman Books/Penguin Putnam) and Lois Lowry (Gooney Bird Greene, Houghton Mifflin).

Tickets are required for the Friday Book Awards Luncheon, the Authors Feast, the Booksellers Banquet, and the Children's Book & Author Breakfast.

Jim Dana, executive director of GLBA, said that educational programming will "focus on helping booksellers differentiate themselves." Of special interest are sessions on remainders and sidelines that will teach booksellers how to get the most out of annual merchandising shows. "Remainders: Here's the Science, the Art's Up to You" will feature Brad Jonas, of Powell's Bookstore in Chicago and a co-founder of the Chicago International Remainder and Overstock Book Exposition (CIROBE). Jonas will present strategies for buying remainders and will show booksellers how to work CIROBE to discover titles that will improve their bottom lines. This session will be held on Friday, September 27, at 10:45 a.m.

Megy Karydes, director of marketing for Gift & Home for Chicago's Merchandise Mart, will show booksellers how to plan for a gift show and will provide strategies for "shopping the mart," at "Playing in the Sidelines" on Friday at 3:15 p.m.

Educational programming begins on Friday, September 27 at 8:30 a.m. at the First-Timers Breakfast, where newcomers can find out what the show has to offer and how best to take advantage of it, from GLBA staff and experienced booksellers.

A day-long training program for frontline booksellers, "Bookselling Behind the Scenes," which runs from 9:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. on Friday, will explore the inner workings of the book industry, the retail book business, and the resources available to meet customer needs with greater ease and effectiveness. The goal is to make bookselling creative, fun, and rewarding through a better understanding of store operations and computerized bookstore systems. This session incorporates elements of the panels on "Plugging In," "Book Sense Updates" and the new "ABA Book Buyer's Handbook Online."

At "Ideas That Work," at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, booksellers will share ideas about marketing and promotional events, newsletters, etc. that have worked for them. Attendees are asked to bring samples, clippings, photos, descriptions, etc., to this popular and productive panel. Also, in the same time slot from 9:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m., will be the Kids' Pick session presented by Shirley and Rebecca Mullin of Kids Ink, in Indianapolis, Indiana. They will offer a lively commentary on publishers' fall lists and seasonal favorites.

"Plugging In" (Friday, 10:45 a.m. -11:45 a.m.) will go beyond explaining why booksellers need to be connected, to explore very specifically how to get online. Attendees will receive information on GLBA's new "Connectivity Package," lists of useful Web sites, and demonstrations of how to download useful information and materials.

Also at 10:45 a.m., "Great Books: The Bookstore Connection," a collaboration between The Great Books Foundation and Penguin Books, will explore how booksellers can capitalize on the current interest in reading groups and the Great Books Foundation's Shared Inquiry method of discussion. In connection with this partnership, the Foundation can support bookstores' book groups by providing discussion guides and by conducting workshops on forming book groups and the training of group leaders through your store.

From 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. on Friday, trade show attendees can discover what it means to be a "Midwestern Writer," as a novelist, a poet, and a naturalist discuss their work and what it means to write with a Midwestern "voice," at the panel "Writers of the Heartland"; how to optimize co-op collections and the costs in time and other resources at "Free Money: Co-op for the Taking"; and what's new at Book Sense, including information on new promotions, new 76 plans, and more.

ABA staff will also discuss how to use the new electronic Book Buyer's Handbook at a session from 3:15 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. The Handbook's new Special Offers feature will be explained, and publishers can learn how to update their listings online at any time. Access to this kind of instantaneous information from thousands of publishers, wholesalers, distributors can help make stores more competitive in a fast changing retail climate.

In the same timeframe, "Novels for Young Readers & Teens" will be the subject of a panel featuring Laurie Halse Anderson (Thank You, Sarah, Simon & Schuster Children's), Gloria Whelan, (Fruitlands, HarperCollins Children's), and others.

Other Friday afternoon sessions include, from 4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m., "Newsletters Online & In Print"; and "Say Yes to Change," presented by George and Sedena Capannelli (F&W Publications). This interactive workshop will provide attendees with tools for dealing with change, challenge, and transition within the book industry and in bookstores in particular.

Educational programming continues on Sunday, September 29, with an exploration of the bookseller/rep relationship at a panel entitled "I Drove Two Hours for This?" which will identify and emphasize the benefits that result from a good relationship; an author panel featuring mystery writers Ace Atkins (Dark End of the Street, HarperCollins), Joseph Heywood (Blue Wolf in Green Fire, Lyons Press), Kathleen Hills (Past Imperfect, Poisoned Pen), and others; and "Blowing Your Own Horn: How and Why to Create Your Own Store Promotional Packet"; all from 9:45 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.

The last panel of the show, "Plenary Session: Voices on the Edge: Independents' Role in Bringing to the Public The New, the Radical, and the Unconventional," which will take place from 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, will be moderated by David Schwartz of Harry Schwartz Booksellers in Milwaukee and will feature poet Nikki Giovanni (Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea, Harper) and author Bill Ayers (Fugitive Days, Beacon Press). This session will celebrate the writer as gadfly, critic, and pariah, and the booksellers whose willingness to sell their books makes it possible for them to be published and constitutes a crucial element in our nation's guarantee of free speech and a free press.

GLBA has planned autographing sessions on Friday and Sunday.

For complete, up-to-date information, contact GLBA at (800) 745-2460; tradeshow@books-glba.org; or visit www.books-glba.org.