Around Indies

Boulder Bookstore to Charge for Author Events

In an effort to remain competitive, starting next week, Boulder Book Store, in Boulder, Colorado, will begin to charge a $5 to $10 fee for in-store author events, reported the Daily Camera.

“More and more, we compete with other bookstores vying to host popular authors,” owner David Bolduc wrote in an e-mail to customers. “Publishers place certain expectations on us when we host events, and so in order to continually attract authors, we must fulfill these expectations. Oftentimes, in return for sending an author to a bookstore, publishers expect us to attract a certain number of people and sell a certain number of books.”

With the purchase of a ticket, customers will also receive a $5 coupon that can be used toward the purchase of the author’s book, or any other book on the day of the event.

Aaron’s Books Receives Literacy Award

On April 26, Aaron’s Books, in Lititz, Pennsylvania, received the 2011 Celebrate Literacy Award from the Lancaster-Lebanon Reading Council. The award is given annually to a person, business, or organization for “exemplary service in the promotion of literacy.”

The owners of Aaron’s Books, Todd Dickinson and Sam Droke-Dickinson, were honored for their efforts to promote reading and a love of books to all ages through book clubs, author events, children’s activities, community outreach, support of Lancaster Reach Out and Read and Lancaster Public Libraries, and producing the Litiz Kid-Lit Festival, now in its third year.

Eagle Harbor Lobbies With Limerick

Today, April 28, Eagle Harbor Book Co., in Bainbridge Island, Washington, is celebrating Doggerel Day, the store’s annual celebration of limericks. The store asks for blind limerick submissions and awards the winners with prizes. Last year, Washington Congressman Jay Inslee won, and this year, he came in third. The store plans to lobby him, along with the rest of the audience, with a verse composed by staff member Ann Combs, in response to the ongoing Patriot Act fight:

Let’s hope that the Patriot Act
Won’t continue to stay all intact
We’ll be happy indeed
If the Books that we read
Remain private and mostly untracked.