Booksellers Forums Head West

From Sunday, March 25, through Wednesday, March 28, the American Booksellers Association will be hosting three Booksellers Forums on the West Coast. ABA staff will be on hand to host open forum discussions and to present educational sessions at events in San Francisco and Long Beach, California, and Portland, Oregon.

During the Booksellers Forum at each, participants are invited to share ideas and discuss industry issues, as well as receive updates on various association projects from ABA staff. Booksellers are encouraged to come with questions and comments.

The ABA education component at all three includes “The Best of Winter Institute 7’s Best Practices Sessions.” This is a roundup of booksellers’ top tips on finances, relationship building,children’s bookselling, technology, and more from the 2012 Winter Institute in New Orleans.

Sunday, March 25: San Francisco, California

ABA programming will be presented as part of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association [1]‘s Spring Gathering, which runs from 8:45 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Thoreau Center, Presidio National Park (1007 General Kennedy Avenue.) On hand to meet with booksellers and present educational sessions will be ABA CEO Oren Teicher, Senior Program Officer Joy Dallanegra-Sanger, and Technology Director Matt Supko.

In addition to the Booksellers Forum and “The Best of the Best of Wi7,” ABA will present “Does Your Website Say ‘Buy it!’” This session will help booksellers look at their websites with fresh eyes. Questions to be examined include: Does the site reflect your store’s personality or point of view? Does it have a similar look and feel? And most important, how does your e-commerce site encourage your visitors to actually buy a book?

Below is a look at the ABA schedule; for regional programming and registration, contact NCIBA [2].

• 8:45 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.: ABA Forum and Continental Breakfast
• 10:15 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.: Does Your Website Say “Buy It!”
• 2:40 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.: The Best of Winter Institute 7’s Best Practices Sessions

Tuesday, March 27: Long Beach, California

Join ABA CEO Oren Teicher and Board member John Evans of Diesel, A Bookstore [3] at an ABA Booksellers Forum and “The Best of Winter Institute 7’s Best Practices Sessions” at the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association [4] Spring Meeting, to be held from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the Hilton Long Beach Hotel (701 West Ocean Boulevard).

Here’s the schedule to date:

• 10:00 a.m. - 11:15 a.m.:  ABA’s The Best of Winter Institute 7’s Best Practices Sessions
• 11:30 a.m. - Noon:  SCIBA Bookseller Roundtables
• Noon - 1:45 p.m.:   ABA Booksellers Forum and Sandwich Buffet Lunch
• 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.: SCIBA Panel on In-store and Offsite Author Events
• 3:15 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.: Recap of SCIBA Roundtables
• 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.: Readings & Conversations With Authors
• 5:15 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.: Authors Signings / Reception

Booksellers who are planning to attend are asked to RSVP to SCIBA Executive Director Jennifer Bigelow [5] by March 22.

Wednesday, March 28: Portland, Oregon

ABA CEO Oren Teicher and Technology Director Matt Supko will host an ABA Booksellers Forum and the education session “The Best of Winter Institute 7’s Best Practices Sessions” in conjunction with the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association [6]at O’Connor’s (7850 S.W. Capitol Highway).  The program, which also features a PNBA session on new media, will be capped by a visit to Annie Bloom’s Books [7] (7834 Southwest Capitol Highway).

Here’s the schedule:

• 9:00 a.m. - 10:15 a.m. : PNBA’s “One Great Idea That Worked in Our Store”
  Booksellers are asked to come prepared to talk for about two-minutes about a store event, promotion, outreach, or initiative that had good results. The session will be moderated by PNBA President Jamil Zaidi of The Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle and will include several other PNBA Board members speaking about their latest ideas
   
• 10:30 a.m. - Noon: The Best of Winter Institute 7’s Best Practices Sessions
• Noon - 2:00 p.m.:  ABA Booksellers Forum and Lunch
• 2:00 p.m.: Visit Annie Bloom’s Books

To provide ABA with a headcount for the forum lunch, booksellers who are planning to attend are asked to RSVP by March 23 to Nathan Halter [8], ABA’s member relationship manager for the PNBA region.

The complete list of ABA’s spring Booksellers Forums is available here [9]. ABA education is sponsored by the Ingram Content Group.