Seattle Spring Show Highlights the Positive

On March 16 to 18, at the Seattle Airport Hilton Hotel, in conjunction with the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) Spring Show, the American Booksellers Association held a Booksellers Forum and Education Program. The ABA educational sessions presented were "Know Your Customers: Increase Sales," and "Improving Efficiency to Increase Sales." Among other highlights of the Spring Show were PNBA's 2006 Book Awards Banquet and BuzzBooks.

"I thought there was a lot of great information and excitement at the show," said Libby Manthey of Riverwalk Books in Chelan, Washington. "I don't know if there was a carry over from the Winter Institute, but there was a really positive feeling."

The PNBA 2006 Book Awards Banquet was a highlight, said Manthey. "It was so nice to see the intimate relationship writers and booksellers have. The Saturday morning author breakfast was wonderful as well."

Suzanne Perry from The Secret Garden in Seattle agreed with Manthey's review of the overall mood of the show. "What stood out," she said, "was feeling of how we really are a community. Everyone had the attitude of 'Let's share our good ideas.' There were no proprietary feelings."

Brian Sweet of Trail's End Bookstore in Winthrop, Washington, told BTW that he goes to the shows for the educational programming, and he always attends the regional shows where he gets "the most bang for the buck." ABA's seminars, said Sweet, "are especially focused on finance and the fine details of running a store. Those are the kind of details that separate a good store from one that's struggling." And, he added, "The seminars just keep getting better and better."

Representing ABA at the meetings were CEO Avin Mark Domnitz, Director of Membership Marketing Meg Smith, and Board Vice President Russ Lawrence of Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Montana.

Sweet said Domnitz' presentation of "Improving Efficiency" reminded him "how much our time is worth as owners and managers.... Avin encouraged us to track the way we spend our time on paperwork, e-mail, and to have an increased awareness of where our time is spent."

Riverwalk's Manthey reported that the "Know Your Customers" addressed the need to recognize customers' varied purposes for visiting a bookstore. "We talked about how people are motivated for different reasons when they shop and the same customer can have different reasons every time -- [such as] entertainment or discounts. We looked at how to hit those different areas and how a customer survey can help."

Domnitz and Smith, with Chapter One's Lawrence, facilitated the forum, where they presented updates on the association's programs and initiatives, and booksellers asked questions and discussed a variety of subjects. Among the topics was Above the Treeline -- an online software product designed to help bookstores improve finances by optimizing inventory selection. Several booksellers who signed up for Above the Treeline under a special partnership agreement between ABA and Above the Treeline offered comments about its benefits.

Christy McDanold, owner of the Secret Garden, told BTW, "I listened to several people who are already using Above the Treeline. We're going to do it. We looked at the cost of it, and with the help of ABA, it's a 'Duh, do it!'"

Also discussed, said McDanold, was the issue of the publisher/bookseller relationship. "Avin said pretty strongly that it's not 'Us and Them.' We all have a bottom line and that's where the publishers are coming from." McDonald added, "I hope that message gets amplified."

For Suzanne Perry, one important forum subject was maintaining the independent advantage. "It came up that as independent booksellers, we won't lose our advantage unless we give it away. What that means to me is that we have a built in advantage of community involvement, the paradigm shift away from supporting huge conglomerates, bringing authors to the community. That was a new piece to me: It's our advantage unless we give it away."

New this year at the show was the BuzzBooks program, which PNBA conceived as a way for publishers to reach booksellers with a succession of exposures for particular titles. The program involved booksellers taking a punch card listing Buzz titles to participating publishers' booths to hear a sales pitch, having the card stamped at each, and then choosing their favorites in both the Children's/Young Adult and Adult categories.

The BuzzBooks as chosen by PNBA booksellers were Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz (FSG) in the Adult category and Prince Ezrick and the Morpheas Curse by Jordan McMakin (Canterwine Press) in the Children's/YA. In addition, in a random drawing, four participating booksellers won $300 each. --Karen Schechner