SEBA Show Worth Every Bit of the Effort

Despite three major storms, which hit the southeast in quick succession, the Southeast Booksellers Association (SEBA) held a successful trade show in Atlanta from September 10 - 12. SEBA Executive Director Wanda Jewell told BTW that three exhibitors and seven bookstores had to cancel due to the weather, but "Atlanta is always [SEBA's] best attended show and our numbers were high this year." The show highlights, according to Jewell, were "opening exhibits from 8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. to core bookstore members only, the spelling bee, the parties and the authors, the Thursday bookselling school filled to overflowing, the Moveable Feast -- the whole SEBA show!"

The virtual SEBA trade show will be up and running by October 1 so that core members and exhibitors can experience the show over and over again.

For those who didn't attend this year's SEBA show -- for whatever the reason -- here Nicki Leone of Bristol Books in Wilmington, North Carolina, makes the case for why you shouldn't miss another one.

By Nicki Leone of Bristol Books in Wilmington, North Carolina

It was a seven-hour drive there, and a seven-hour drive back, but my trip to this year's Southeast Booksellers Association Trade Show was worth every bit of the hassle. The SEBA show is also an incredibly important part of our business strategy at Bristol Books. We are not a big store, and I know how hard it is to justify a trip like this when you have no travel budget and barely enough staff to cover the gap, but I think I'd be lost without the education and support that a show like SEBA provides. In fact, in our current economic climate, I don't think we could afford to miss the opportunity to network with so many other people in the industry. It is easy to become isolated, easy to fall into a rut when you only have yourself to look to for inspiration. Being at a show like SEBA tends to jumpstart my thinking. It is a relief to find so many other people facing the same economic hurdles that I am, and exciting to hear the many creative ways they have of confronting them.

That's right -- I don't go to SEBA for the great hotel coffee. I don't even go for the free books! I go to rip off other bookstores' ideas. A significant number of the successful strategies we use at Bristol Books came originally from talking to other booksellers, either at the trade show, or at one of the many SEBA-sponsored "Revivals" and "Shoptalks."

My favorite bookselling tip I heard this year? Leslie Reiner of Inkwood Books in Florida told me that her store, which is trying to contend with the polarized and heightened emotions of their customers around this year's election, is having an "Open Mind Sale": Buy a book of any political persuasion, and you can buy one of the opposite opinion for 50 percent off! What a great idea!

Here is another bit of advice: Kelly Justice from Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia, has found that using author photos instead of book jackets on signs and flyers announcing events generates a lot more customer interest. (Kelly's other great piece of advice was "never use real food in store window displays." I think I'll take her word on that one.)

The other thing I don't do at SEBA is place a lot of orders. I always come prepared with a few, just for a chance to win the $1000 raffle at the end of the show, but it isn't really a priority. (I never win any raffles anyway. It is a standing joke with those who know me --I am the kiss of death to anybody's lucky streak.) What is a priority, after talking to as many other booksellers as I can (and stealing all their good ideas), is to talk to everybody else I possibly can. I love talking to the authors, because it helps me sell their books when I get back home. I love talking to the publisher reps, because they all have their favorite books on the list, and it is much more interesting to hear what they like in person, rather than trying to interpret the difference between what they are pushing, and what they are really reading.

And that is the other thing I do at SEBA -- I ask everyone what they are reading. Trust a bunch of book people to know a good book. So when Bill Verner told me to try No Laughing Matter by Peter Guttridge ($13, Speck Press), it made it to the top of my bedside stack. Robert Segedy from Branch's Book Shop waxed eloquent about Kate Atkinson's Case Histories. And Carl Lennertz, (whom I have always thought of privately as "the amazing Carl" for his tireless defense of Book Sense and Independent Bookstores) was all full of a story collection called The Secret Goldfish by David Means.

There are other things to do at trade shows, of course. There are the educational sessions: [ABA CEO] Avin Domnitz's "The 2% Solution" analysis of bookstore profitability was as thorough as it was devastatingly accurate. There are the speakers: Jill Connor Browne, who told a charming story about an anatomically correct vibrator. Russell Wallace, who was moved to tears to be "back in SEBA country." There are the meals: The famous SEBA "Moveable Feast" where eight people sit around a table and are visited in quick succession by six authors, all shouting fascinating things about their new books across the plates of poached salmon. George Singleton was especially good at this. And there are the cocktail parties, and all the free wine: I toddled my way through enough glasses of Chardonnay not to complain when someone handed me a basket and said "Here, collect the raffle tickets for the door prize." (Did I mention that I never, ever win raffles?)

Attendance at SEBA seemed a little light this year, no doubt most of the Florida bookstores were recovering from Frances or preparing for Ivan. But it was, as always, a wonderfully fun and friendly group of people. We all fought over the book bags at the HarperCollins booth, and grabbed at the "Impeach Cheney First" pins at the Norton table (the most popular giveaway at the show, by far), traded stories, advice, and generally reminded each other that we are not in this business alone -- there are people right there with you, each of them as committed, as passionate as you are about books and reading and the transformative power of literature.