SoCal Booksellers Rein in Catalogue and Claim Independence

by Bridget Kinsella, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 12/15/2006

As the year comes to an end, the Southern California Booksellers Association has made two changes; first, its board voted to bring the holiday catalogue in-house, then the group changed its name to better reflect its membership: the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association.

“In this age of cookie-cutter chain stores of all types, we here at the SCIBA feel that the most important thing we are celebrating is our success and diversity,” explained Jennifer Bigelow, the association’s executive director. “We represent a collection of wholly unique, vastly diverse independent booksellers that reflect the neighborhoods that surround them. No two stores are alike.”

The diversity, however, could make choosing titles for a holiday catalogue a challenge. SCIBA is forming a catalogue committee for feedback as it aims to create a new publication that appeals to more members. Kerry Slattery, manager of Skylight Books in Los Angeles, is on the committee, and she admitted that the catalogue has not always been a priority for her store. “The staff felt that the titles could be at any Barnes & Noble,” she said. “My hope is to have more of a balance of titles with things unique to the area and to the SCIBA stores.”

As it makes changes, SCIBA is taking lessons from other regional associations, particularly the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, which brought its catalogue in-house four years ago. At first, PNBA found it difficult to get publisher support for the catalogue, said executive director Thom Chambliss. The result is a smaller catalogue, but with fewer generic titles and more suited to PNBA member stores. PNBA also hooked up with Partners West to begin a promotional program that allows PNBA stores to return catalogue titles without penalty after the holidays, provided they ordered at least one copy of each title in the catalogue. “Now we have over 50 stores using the catalogue, and they are finding that if they carried all of the titles their sales went up,” said Chambliss.

Partners offers the same program for SCIBA members, but Bigelow said many stores didn’t know about it. Previously, SCIBA outsourced its catalogue and provided grants to help members distribute them in a variety of ways, from newspaper inserts to increased newsletter mailings. The grants ranged from $250 to $3,500. By producing its own catalogue next year, Bigelow predicted SCIBA would be able to increase distribution grants next year by 50%.

Michael Russo, SCIBA board member and owner of three Russo’s Books locations in Bakersfield, believes in the importance of the catalogue. “For years it has been the primary fourth-quarter marketing vehicle for us,” he said. For Russo, the catalogue provides a professional marketing tool that he thinks will only get better with SCIBA producing it.