Member Action Required to Claim Free BEA Badges

As announced last week, all ABA regular bookstore and provisional members who wish to claim free admission badges to this spring's BookExpo America must authorize the American Booksellers Association to share relevant information with BEA officials.

Every regular ABA store and provisional member is entitled to at least one free admission to BEA, with additional badges available to stores in an ABA dues category of two or higher (dues categories correspond to store sales volume). A category two store will receive two free BEA admission badges; a category three store, three free admission badges; etc., thus enabling larger stores to bring additional staff. One additional free BEA badge is available to each member bookstore represented at the Winter Institute to allow booksellers to continue the educational experience begun in Salt Lake City at this year's ABA Day of Education at BEA.

Bookstore and provisional members must authorize ABA to provide BEA show officials with the number of badges that they're entitled to receive by completing a simple form now on BookWeb.org. Specific sales data provided to ABA for dues calculation purposes will be kept strictly confidential.

All members planning to attend must register for the trade show via the BEA website; ABA is simply providing BEA with information about the number of free badges for which a member store is eligible.

The 2009 trade show will be at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center from Thursday, May 28, through Sunday, May 31. Reservations for Hotel ABA 2009, which returns to the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn, the popular home to ABA members during BEA 2007, are now open via the Marriott's dedicated reservation webpage, accessible via BookWeb.org.

In other news last week, ABA President Gayle Shanks outlined steps taken by the association to best serve members in these challenging economic times. Key among them is a 50 percent reduction in regular bookstore member dues for the calendar year 2009. (Read more.)