Industry Voices - All

By Kenny Brechner of Devaney Doak & Garrett Booksellers The business practices that made so many profitable independent bookstores love Koen Book Distributors are not, I emphatically believe, related to Koen's demise. These business practices were excellent, and it is vitally important to the northeastern independent bookselling community that they find a new home.

By Jay Hochstedt of Changing Hands Bookstore

By Chuck Robinson, co-owner of Village Books in Bellingham, Washington "If you build it they will come" is a great line from a great novel and movie. As a business marketing philosophy -- often adopted by booksellers -- it leaves a great deal to be desired. They will come when they are invited and invited and reminded and reminded. In other words, when marketing is used effectively.

By Hannah Willmott of Bermuda Book Store

On Sunday and Monday, October 24 - 25, 578 booksellers, 417 publishers, and a slew of authors gathered at the Borgata Hotel in Atlantic City for the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association Trade Show. "The show is always a great time for booksellers to meet new booksellers, and see old friends," said NAIBA Executive Director Eileen Dengler.

Attendance at the New England Booksellers Association (NEBA) fall trade show, which was held from Friday, October 8, to Sunday, October 10, at Boston's World Trade Center, was up slightly this year compared to last year's show in Providence, Rhode Island, reported NEBA Executive Director Rusty Drugan, who told BTW that "the educational programming ... was a hit throughout the show.

"The Little Trade Show With Heart" is the way Jim Dana, executive director of the Great Lakes Booksellers Association, described the regional's show, which was held in Dearborn, Michigan, from October 8 - 10. "A number of people commented to me on how 'close-knit' our group is, the 'family feel,' the 'intimacy,'" said Dana. Among the new and successful events at this year's show was the Quiz Bowl, sponsored by Simon & Schuster and inspired by A.J. Jacobs' book Know-It-All.

On Tuesday, October 5, Florida's Tampa Tribune published an editorial entitled "The Patriot Act's License to Snoop Causes Unjustified Anxiety " that began by stating, "Fears that the Patriot Act allows government agents to spy on everyone's library records are wildly overblown. All the three-year-old law does is open a variety of semiprivate files to scrutiny by agents conducting espionage investigations.

"Total attendance at this year's Upper Midwest Booksellers Association (UMBA) fall trade show, which was held from Friday, October 1, to Sunday, October 3, at the RiverCentre in St. Paul, Minnesota, was a bit lower than last year, said UMBA Executive Director Susan Walker, due in part to the closing of St. Paul's Ruminator Books and a change in the admissions policy, which affected the number of "peripheral people" in attendance.

By Robert Gray In July, NEA chairman Dana Gioia announced the dismal results of a survey of America's reading habits, including the news that those people admitting to having read fiction, poetry, or plays had dipped to 46.7 percent in 2002, down from 54 percent the last time the survey was done in 1992. A copy of the study still rests on my desk, taunting me.