About Bookselling

Hiring and retaining smart, well-read, personable booksellers is one key to staying competitive in the marketplace. While the ability to pay high salaries and offer bonuses and perks can go a long way toward attracting and keeping qualified employees, that's not the only solution to the compensation conundrum. By thinking creatively, and strategically, about the intangible benefits of working in a bookstore, store owners and managers can find ways to show employees they are valued, and that the bookstore is a great place to work, now and for years to come.

The American Booksellers Association has posted online the video vignettes featured in its popular education session "Handselling: Customer Service With Results." The video shorts dramatize 10 potential customer service scenarios to show the best and worst practices in five key areas.

The city council of Madison, Wisconsin's state capital and home to well over 50,000 University of Wisconsin students, has passed new legislation, to take effect in mid July, aimed at combating the problem of textbook theft and resale. Opponents of the legislation, including local independent bookseller Sandra Torkildson, fear that provisions of the new ordinance, which force booksellers to record data about individuals offering textbooks for resale, will inhibit customers' right to privacy.

Kurt Vonnegut Dies at 84 Kurt Vonnegut, considered a key figure in 20th-century American literature, died April 11 at 84. He had suffered brain injuries resulting from a recent fall at his Manhattan home, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz. Vonnegut's more than a dozen books, short stories, essays, and plays, including Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat's Cradle, and most recently A Man Without a Country -- offered elements of social commentary, science fiction, and autobiography via dark humor and satire.

ABA member booksellers have recently notified the association about a check fraud scam that appears to be growing. The scam involves a check to a vendor that is stolen prior to reaching its destination. The perpetrator alters either the check amount and/or payee information and then finds someone who will cash the check and send part of the payment back to the scammer.

Due to the "warm welcome the book community gave to its 50th anniversary calendar," the International Booksellers Federation (IBF), a non-governmental organization of booksellers associations and booksellers from around the world, announced this week that the IBF calendar for 2008 is in preparation.

In celebration of its 50th anniversary, the International Booksellers Federation (IBF), a non-governmental organization of booksellers associations and booksellers from around the world, has announced plans for the publication of a calendar featuring photographs of 50 bookshops in all IBF member countries.

A new, 22,000-square-foot Cody's Books is officially set to open on Thursday, September 29.

As Gayle Shanks, owner of Changing Hands in Tempe, Arizona, emphasized at the BookExpo America education session "Buying, Selling, and Managing Gifts, Sidelines, and Other Non-Book Products 101," sidelines are best served fresh, although, of course, this doesn't preclude keeping around those top-sellers.

Based on the results of the 2005 Education Survey distributed to bookseller members last fall, ABA developed a rich and thorough series of educational offerings presented in an all-day education program on Thursday, June 2, at BookExpo America. Currently, ABA is working to bring many of these sessions to the Web in robust audio/video presentations to meet the needs of all ABA member booksellers. Until those presentations are ready, ABA has made available on BookWeb PowerPoint presentations of five of the Thursday morning education sessions: