Scenes From the Fall Shows: NCIBA & SCIBA

The 2010 fall trade show season wrapped up with shows in the Northern and Southern California regions, where, as with the season’s other seven shows, ABA staff was on hand to provide educational programming and to meet with booksellers on the trade show floor.

ABA Member Relationship Manager Kaitlin Pitcher with ABA President Michael Tucker, co-owner of San Francisco’s Books Inc., and Hut Landon, executive director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA), on the show floor at the Oakland Convention Center/City Center Marriott. Also attending the show, which ran from October 14 – 16, was ABA CEO Oren Teicher, who snapped this photo for BTW.

NCIBA's educational offerings ran the gamut, from blogging and merchandising sidelines to health care reform and ABA IndieCommerce.

At the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association (SCIBA) show on October 23, at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel & Spa in Hollywood, ABA Membership and Marketing Officer Meg Smith (far right) moderated the panel “Linked By Passion: Growing Sales Through Local Retail Partnerships,” which featured Heather Marquez of Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, Susan McBeth of Warwick’s in La Jolla, Kerry Slattery of Skylight Books in Los Angeles.

Photo: Guinevere Platt

Booksellers at the session “The Value of IndieCommerce” heard ABA COO Len Vlahos present information about the updated IndieCommerce product, via Skype from the association's offices in Tarrytown, New York. IndieCommerce recently moved from a Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 platform and launched improvements to book/e-book searches, as well as in the checkout process.

Photo: Guinevere Platt

The day was capped with the Authors Feast dinner, featuring the presentation of the 2010 SCIBA Book Awards.