Emerging Leaders Get a Taste of IndieBound

The "under-fortyish" community of booksellers and publishers got another taste of IndieBound this week at an event organized by Emerging Leaders NYC.

Booksellers from New York-area bookstores, including McNally Jackson, Book Culture, Logos Bookstore, Moravian Bookshop, and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, met at Flatbush Farm, an independent and locally-focused restaurant in Brooklyn. Several ABA staff members joined the Emerging Leaders to share the latest IndieBound news.

"The ELNO [Emerging Leaders Night Out] team picked a wonderful spacious venue," said Book Culture marketing manager Kelly Amabile. "I was introduced to several NYC booksellers and publishing folks that I had not met before, [and] got to see a demo of IndieBound's online community."

Although the community section of IndieBound.org will not be launched until September, IndieBound Outreach Liaison Paige Poe and ABA Web Content Coordinator Matt Supko offered the booksellers, editors, and publicists a sneak peak.

Moravian Bookshop assistant buyer Stephanie Anderson, who traveled to the event from her store in Pennsylvania, was impressed by the comfortable atmosphere. "Everybody I met was so approachable and interesting to talk with," she said. Although she had a two-hour bus ride ahead of her, Anderson said the chance to meet so many young people in the book industry made the trip worth it. "I also really liked that it wasn't just booksellers, but also people from publishers," she said. --Sarah Rettger