Bookselling

More Successful Trade Shows
Kevin Howell and Sam Weller -- 10/16/00
Mountains and Plains and Great Lakes booksellers hold energetic regional conventions



In This Article


MPBA Expands Education and
Shares Handselling Picks
The snow and rainy weather kept some of the day-trippers from Wyoming away from the September 22-24 Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association meeting and trade show in Denver, Colo. But that didn't stop both of MPBA's fund-raising events from selling out completely. More than 250 people attended the Sunday morning breakfast with Steven Kellogg and Tomie de Paola, while 340 people attended the Saturday evening Author Banquet for Literacy, which featured guest speakers James Patterson (Roses Are Red), Diane Mott Davidson (Tough Cookie), John Dunning (Two O'Clock, Eastern Wartime) and first-time novelist Claire Davis (Winter Range).

"Last year when we had Dave Barry hosting our banquet, we had our best attendance ever," said Lisa Knudsen, MPBA executive director. "But this year we matched those figures." The preregistration figures of 130 bookstores also matched last year's.

As usual, the MPBA conference was top-heavy with seminars, presentations and workshops. Friday had two concurrent all-day learning events (an eight-hour mini-Publishing University sponsored by the Publishers Marketing Association and six-and-a-half-hour Zingtrain workshop on customer service). There was also a two-hour-plus presentation on inventory management and financial strategies.

Last year MPBA raised its educational budget from $10,000 to $25,000. "The best thing we can do with the money we raise is put it into educational programs," said outgoing president Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Ariz. The organization's new president is Andrea Avantaggio, owner of Maria's Bookshop in Durango, Colo. "We're totally jazzed about what has been going on with our educational outreach and training programs," said Shanks. "And this year we've expanded further by hiring Donna Paz to come up with new educational training."
ABA CEO
Avin Domnitz.
Avin Domnitz's workshop on taking Book Sense to the next level was well-received. He told the packed audience this could be accomplished by: (1) training staff to sell and market Book Sense gift certificates; (2) using the Book Sense 76 list to create displays; and (3) reporting bestsellers weekly to the Book Sense bestseller list. Technophobes were relieved to hear that electronic downloading of bestseller information is coming soon and will require no correlating of information by owners. No date is set for this advance, as Book Sense technicians are working on finding software that will work with the myriad of inventory systems out there.
For the second consecutive year, MPBA was offering a $50 reimbursement to bookstores that joined the ABA and signed up for Book Sense. The organization is also offering a onetime $100 reimbursement to stores offering proof of promoting Book Sense in any advertising. "We have been cheerleaders for the ABA," said Knudsen. "The benefits of the ABA's programs, such as Book Sense, are amplified when more and more people join. So we're happy to encourage people to join and find out just how much support the ABA offers booksellers."
Executive director
Speaking of support for booksellers, the Publishers Association of the West (formerly the Rocky Mountain Book Publishers Association) just announced that Knudsen will receive its Jack D. Rittenhouse Award at its November 4 National Publishing Conference in Colorado Springs. "Lisa's contributions have been felt by almost every publisher in our association and bookseller in our region," said executive director Alan Bernhard. The award, established in 1990, honors people who have made a lasting mark on the book world in the West. Previous winners include Tony Hillerman, the Tattered Cover's Joyce Meskis and the late Gordon Saull.
The Gordon Saull Award for rep of the year was given at the MPBA's Saturday evening banquet to David Waag of the Karel Dutton Group. Waag told PW, "I'm honored to be mentioned in the same breath as Gordon Saull. He represented what Utah bookselling could be." The bookseller of the year award went to Nancy Rutland, owner of the 16 year-old Bookworks in Albuquerque, N.Mex.

There was strong buzz on a wide range of titles. Daviona Frankhauser, a new book buyer for the Hastings chain, thought Graphic Arts Center's $50 Primal Forces,by father-and-son photographers David and Marc Muench, was an ideal cross-regional title. "This book has amazing photos and I think it could sell anywhere," she said. She also noted Lawrence Schimel's anthology of stories and essays on being Jewish and gay, Kosher Meat (Sherman Asher), saying, "I can't think of another book like it. It's getting good publicity and it's a topic that hasn't been addressed." The Beatles Anthology (Chronicle) got high marks for the widest appeal for gift givers.

"Claire Davis's Winter Range [Picador] is filled with wonderful small-town characters and her wonderful use of language reminds me of Ivan Doig," said Betsy Burton, one of the founding partners of the 23-year-old Kings English in Salt Lake City. As for The Art Fraud Detective (Larousse Kingfisher Chambers), she said, "I haven't seen anything I'll have more fun handselling. It's perfect to sell to parents, too." She deemed Mark Spragg's Where Rivers Change Direction (Riverhead) "the perfect stocking stuffer. You can sell it to absolutely everyone. It reads like fiction and it will be loved by the most literary of readers and those just looking for a good read." Pia Toya: A Goshute Indian Legend (Univ. of Utah Press), a "beautiful and striking" retelling of a creation myth by the children of Ibapah Elementary School, and Muriel Spark's Aiding and Abetting (Doubleday), a "hysterical, darkly comic novel about people up to no good at all," were also high on her list of hot forthcoming titles. "And I can't wait for the new Amy Tan [Putnam's The Bonesetter's Daughter] and John le Carré [Scriber's The Constant Gardener]. They're late releases, but I love January releases. People with gift certificates are loaded down with free money looking for new titles."
--Kevin Howell


GLBA's "Buyers Show" a Hit
With Vendors and Booksellers

As the dust settled after the 11th annual Great Lakes Booksellers Association trade show held September 29-October 1 in Toledo, Ohio, both exhibitors and booksellers called this year's regional meeting the best ever. And while attendance was just slightly lower than at last year's event, GLBA board members and show attendees insisted that they have much cause for celebration.
GLBA executive director Jim Dana, president
Tom Lowry and past president Rita Williams.
In total, 405 attendees filed through the doors of Toledo's SeaGate Centre (compared to 467 in 1999). Booksellers traveled from throughout the organization's region, which includes Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and southern Wisconsin. The 2000 show boasted a total of 390 exhibitors and authors. The convention floor was just two exhibitor booths shy of last year's number.
But despite the ever-so-gentle dip in attendance, incoming GLBA president, Tom Lowry, owner of Lowry's Books in Three Rivers, Mich. (where Lowry is also mayor), was pleased with the show's turnout. "With all of the consolidation going on in the publishing business, the fact that we were able to keep the numbers about the same is fabulous," he told PW. "There were enough new vendors this year to balance it out. We're ecstatic with this."

Continuing with its annual tradition, and differentiating itself from other regionals, the GLBA trade show was a one-day event, held on Saturday, and sandwiched between a myriad of author events and seminars on Friday and Sunday.

Friday morning kicked off a duo of standing-room-only Book Sense seminars. Another wall-to-wall program was entitled "Ideas That Work," which showcased independent bookstore marketing success stories. The seminar was moderated by former GLBA president, Terry Whittaker, owner of Viewpoint Books in Columbus, Ind.

At the annual Book Awards Banquet, Patricia Willis, author of The Barn Burner (Houghton, $15), won the children's book prize while A. Manette Ansay won the fiction award for her book Midnight Champagne (HarperPerennial, $13). P t Thomas Lynch also received a prize for his recent book of essays, Bodies in Motion and at Rest: On Metaphor and Mortality (Norton, $23.95).

But it was the Saturday trade show that had attendees smiling and heaping praise on GLBA's executive director, Jim Dana. As the doors to the convention center opened, there was a rush of business that carried on until the very closing minutes of the show. This was more than just a schmoozing event: there were a lot of orders being placed at the 2000 GLBA show.

"From both sides of the aisle," said Dana, "from both exhibitors and booksellers, we have had really rave reviews. Many are calling it the best show ever. There were more orders written than ever before, but beyond that, exhibitors had really positive contact with booksellers. In our view, this was quite a successful show."

A survey of attendees ech d Dana's statement. "We will definitely be back next year," said Michael Ritter, sales manager for first-time attendee Sourcebooks Inc. of Naperville, Ill. "This show is really in our own backyard and it gives us a chance to know the independents a little better."

Fran Olson, a Chronicle sales rep, added that there was "more traffic than ever before. We wrote orders and we met new people. It was fantastic."

Eric Miller, co-owner of Miller Trade Book Marketing, a publishers' rep based in Chicago, also called this year's GLBA the best ever, and he has exhibited at all 11 GLBA shows. "The level of enthusiasm was better than ever," Miller told PW. "The show has really become established. While other trade shows are more centered around schmoozing, GLBA is more grassroots. It's a working show."

Another rousing success story at this year's trade show was the annual silent auction, conducted by Jennifer Scheuing of Borders Books in Oak Brook, Ill. The auction benefited the GLBA's First Amendment Fund. The auction broke all GLBA records, as show exhibitors donated 70 lots of books and sidelines from their booths. Last year's auction, by comparison, gave away 50 lots. "It was overwhelming," said Scheuing.
--Sam Weller