Marketing

Booksellers with Book Sense should be on the lookout for new Book Cash checks that are being distributed as part of three new Book Cash promotions, with Bausch & Lomb, Coca Cola, and Albertsons.

Book Sense has established a marketing partnership with The Minute Maid division of The Coca-Cola Company to attract consumers participating in reading groups to independent bookstores with Book Sense. The new sweepstakes promotion for BACARDI® Mixers will run for four months starting in July. Bookstores participating in Book Sense must sign-up to participate in the program.

At the Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans, author events are a pretty common occurrence -- the independent bookstore averages around 30 events in a year. However, author Susan Vreeland's appearance at the bookstore this past February was different. The author of The Passion of Artemisia (Viking hardcover, Penguin paperback) and Girl in Hyacinth Blue (MacMurray & Beck hardcover, Penguin paperback) came to the Garden District because the owner and staff of the store had nominated her titles for the Book Sense 76.

On Thursday, March 13, Book Sense, HarperCollins, and the History Channel launched their latest national marketing program for independent bookstores with Book Sense. Designed to tie in with the April 14 History Channel broadcast of the documentary based on the book April 1865: The Month That Saved America, by Jay Winik (Perennial), the cooperative promotion runs until the end of April.

As florists await February 14 and poultry farmers the fourth Thursday in November, this year, booksellers have June 21. The laydown date for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix may well be the day a record number of copies of a single book are sold.

Once again, Book Sense is working with The New Yorker to put together a special spring insert featuring titles selected by independent booksellers. The latest New Yorker Book Sense appearance is set for the May 5 issue, and the emphasis will be on books that make great gifts for Mother's Day, Father's Day, and graduation. To complement the story, the magazine is seeking photographs of bookstores with Book Sense. All Book Sense stores are encouraged to send photographs of their stores, especially good exterior shots.

Ingram Book Group has collaborated with OurSelves, a new newsletter and Web site (www.ourselves.com) aimed at women between the ages of 45 and 65, to develop a merchandising program to reach women baby boomers, a demographic group of significant book buyers.

By Ed Avis Writers buy books. According to a survey in 2000, nearly all readers of The Writer magazine purchased books in the last year, and 60 percent of them bought at least one book each month. How do you get those folks into your store? Starting a writers' group is one way.

Book buyers on the Coos Bay/North Bend coast of Oregon look forward to Books By the Bay owner Trish Midyette's birthday. Last November 28, she turned 36, and her patrons eagerly await her advancing years. Customers of the store know that every November 28 is declared Trish's Annual Birthday Blast, and, to show appreciation to all her customers, Trish discounts books one percentage point for each year of her life.

By Carl Lennertz Here's an update on books to watch, thanks to the almost 400 stores who reported last week! Are you one of the stores contributing to that wealth of knowledge? Hardcover Fiction: