Upbeat at UMBA: Show Condenses, Enthusiasm Expands
by Brad Zeller, PW Daily for Booksellers -- Publishers Weekly, 10/4/2002
The atmosphere was both more frantic and focused this year, as more than 1,200 booksellers, publishers, and authors converged on St. Paul's RiverCentre on September 27-29 for the annual Upper Midwest Booksellers Association trade show. In a departure from previous years, this year's show pared the trade show exhibit down to one long session on Saturday and sandwiched the educational programs and author events around it on Friday and Sunday.By most accounts the new format made for a livelier show, as booksellers packed the floor all day and tried to accomplish all of their objectives in the condensed time frame. This, of course, caused some challenges for exhibitors and attendees.
"When you have to set up and tear down the same day it makes for a long afternoon," Iowa State University Press publicity manager Megan Scott said. "But the upside is that people are getting right down to business."
"Most of the reports we received indicated that people were pleased," UMBA executive director Susan Walker told PW Daily. "Obviously everyone had to adjust to the new schedule and figure out a way to make effective use of their time. With the educational programs and autographing schedule concentrated on Friday and Sunday we were able to really focus the attention of the booksellers on the exhibits, which we think is a positive."
Heinecken and Associates representative Wes Caliger was enthusiastic about Saturday's traffic. "Earlier today, people were just sort of looking around and gauging," he said. "But at the eleventh hour they all seemed to come back and we were writing orders like mad.
Like many of Saturday's participants, Amy Baum from St. Paul's Red Balloon bookstore was busy on the show floor. "I usually take the whole weekend off, and my objective is to see anything that I haven't seen," Baum told PW Daily. "My goal is to get catalogues. I want to find out what's coming that I haven't heard about yet. I'm really excited about Scholastic's list and Roaring Brook, which I think is probably the best thing to happen in kid's publishing for a long time."
Saturday's Book and Author breakfast featured titles booksellers said they were eager to sell. Jerry Bilek, a buyer for both the St. Olaf University bookstore and River City Books in Northfield, Minn., introduced the authors at the breakfast and called Michael Perry's, Population 485 (HarperCollins) "a great, really amazing story about a volunteer firefighter in New Auburn, Wisconsin...it's a unique and humorous look at finding your place in a community."
Susan Power, author of Roofwalker (Milkweed Editions), the long-awaited follow-up to the author's 1994 PEN Hemingway Award-winning Grass Dancer, was a hit at the breakfast, too, boosting traffic at the Milkweed booth. "Roofwalker is really picking up speed," Milkweed's Elizabeth Cooper said. "We did a big first printing--for us--and the back orders are already right up there with the total print run."
Erik Larson's true tale of a serial killer on the loose at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, The Devil in the White City (Crown, Feb.), also generated a lot of interest on the floor. Larson's Isaac's Storm was a favorite with booksellers.
As always, the show allowed independent, regional publishers to make a direct connection with one of the largest audiences for their books. "It's so nice to connect with booksellers," said Patricia Condon Johnston, publisher of Afton Historical Society Press, Afton, Minn. "We see the names on the orders, but it's great to put faces with the names. It's wonderful for us to be able to showcase our books like this. We've been busy writing orders all day."
Oren Teicher, chief operating officer of the American Booksellers Association, said he was encouraged by the turnout. "I've already talked to four or five people who have opened new stores," Teicher reported early Saturday afternoon. "There seems to be a bunch of new people, and that's exciting. The other remarkably good bit of news for us is that despite the fact that there are fewer stores, market share is holding, which means that the people who are surviving are obviously doing a little bit better."
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