New Atlantic Booksellers Meet for Spring Retreat and ABA Booksellers Forum

Even an April snowstorm failed to chill the enthusiasm of independent booksellers at the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA) Spring Retreat, held on April 6 - 7 at the Sheraton Society Hill Hotel in Philadelphia, where the focus was on sharing successful ideas and energizing store operations. Featuring sessions that ranged from organizing non-author store events to an up-tempo presentation of the marketing secrets of Seattle's Pike Place Fish Market, the retreat ended with an ABA Booksellers Forum attended by approximately 30 booksellers.

The forum was part of a working lunch, and attending from ABA were ABA Board member John Bennett of Bennett Books in Wyckoff, New Jersey; association COO Oren Teicher; Mark Nichols, director of Book Sense marketing; and Dan Cullen editor-in-chief of the Book Sense 76 lists, who all answered a number of questions and listened to member suggestions and feedback.

The forum covered a number of topics and continued more than 30 minutes beyond its scheduled 90 minutes. Topics covered included ABA's exploration of a gift card program; the Book Sense program, especially the Book Sense 76 bimonthly selection of titles; the Book Sense Bestseller List, including the NAIBA/Book Sense regional list; the new ABACUS program; and ABA advocacy efforts for e-tax fairness and free expression issues.

The first topic raised was a national gift card program. Teicher noted that, while ABA's goal is to provide a gift card that brands both the individual store and Book Sense and that is redeemable at any participating Book Sense store, there are several issues yet to be worked out, which involve both hardware and pricing. However, he reiterated that ABA is convinced that gift cards will supplant paper gift certificates in the coming years and that, with marketing, bookstores have the potential to significantly increase gift certificate sales through gift cards. Responding to questions regarding costs and technology, Teicher assured those at the forum that ABA would be sharing updates with booksellers as soon as possible.

Regarding the Book Sense 76, Carla Cohen of Washington, D.C.'s Politics & Prose suggested that a bimonthly listing of 76 titles was overwhelming for both booksellers and consumers. Other booksellers, such as NAIBA Vice President Lynn Gonchar of Tudor Bookshop & Café in Kingston, Pennsylvania, noted that they were selling books from the list through in-store displays and were reluctant to see the 76 downsize. For some stores, the 76 had broadened their customer and marketing reach. NAIBA President Sheilah Egan of A Likely Story Children's Bookstore in Alexandria, Virginia, said that the 76 list had provided her store with a tool for selling such adult trade titles as Hamlet's Dresser.

Throughout the discussion, attendees encouraged ABA's Cullen to work with booksellers toward making the nominating blurbs as descriptive and specific as possible. Cullen reminded the booksellers of upcoming Book Sense 76 deadlines and encouraged them to send nominations directly to him at dan@booksense.com. (For nomination deadlines, click here.)

Bennett noted that the reports on sales within his marketing area that he has been receiving since Bennett Books began reporting to the Book Sense Bestseller List through Nielsen BookScan were providing solid tips on inventory purchasing. He characterized reporting via BookScan as "very easy, literally, a two-step procedure," and encouraged any stores not currently reporting to do so. (For more on Nielsen BookScan, click here.) Teicher reminded NAIBA booksellers that by continuing to increase the number of the regional's reporting stores beyond the threshold necessary for Book Sense to generate a regional bestseller list they would ensure that the list continues uninterrupted.

Kaye Poloquin of Buckhill Book Shop, which is set to open in Lititz, Pennsylvania, on June 1, exhorted her fellow booksellers to "turn in all your numbers" for the new ABACUS project, noting that "ABACUS made the difference for me in getting my loan." Teicher told booksellers that the ABACUS deadline had been extended to April 30, and he explained that if 30 NAIBA bookstores participated in ABACUS, ABA would be able to break out the region's numbers, allowing in-depth comparisons with other regions. In a related note, Cohen thanked ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz for his recent open letter to booksellers offering his help in reviewing financial statements and answering business questions. (For more on Domnitz' letter, click here.)

Booksellers also praised ABA on its advocacy efforts and exhorted the association to continue to press hard on behalf of equitable collection of sales tax on online sales and in defense of the privacy of bookstore customer data. Jack Buckley of Ninth Street Books in Wilmington, Delaware, related how he had given his representative in Congress, Mike Castle (R-DE), who is also a customer, a printout of the titles Castle had purchased at his store in order to press home the threat of Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. Currently, under the Patriot Act, the FBI has vastly expanded authority to search business records, including the records of bookstores and libraries. The FBI may request the records secretly, and it is not required to prove that there is "probable cause" to believe that the person whose records are being sought has committed a crime. In addition, the bookseller or librarian who receives an order is prohibited from revealing it to anyone except those whose help is needed to produce the records.

Buckley noted his support for the Freedom to Read Protection Act, introduced by Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and he encouraged booksellers who had not yet written their representatives in Congress to do so.

Dean Avery of Ariel Booksellers in New Paltz, New York, said, "I was really proud … to see ABA taking the initiative and staying on" the issue of the equitable collection of sales tax on online sales. He noted online sales tax fairness was gaining increasing support and told fellow booksellers, "we're going to win."

Egan told BTW that the Spring Retreat "had been a great meeting -- there was a lot of energy." She summed up the stay in Philadelphia as "an infusion of enthusiasm." --Dan Cullen