Bookselling This Week: Live From BookExpo America -- Day 2

A Joyous, Groundbreaking Celebration of Bookselling: ABA Launches IndieBound

ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz announces the launch of IndieBound.

In the spirit of the Boston Tea Party, booksellers declared a new era of Independents at Thursday night's Celebration of Bookselling, sponsored by Ingram Book Company/Ingram Publisher Services. The American Booksellers Association -- building on a rising tide of localism -- launched its new program, IndieBound, to enthusiastic applause in an SRO ballroom. The program is designed to unite booksellers, readers, indie retailers, local business alliances, and others in support of local activism and local economies and to lead an Independent Revolution.

ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz told the hundreds of attendees that "the times -- they are a-changin'" and the moment is right for a program centered on localism. "America has clearly reached a tipping point -- the big store on the highway doesn't do it anymore ... as [shoppers] are turning to the people in their communities -- they are turning to people who believe the same things they believe in."

A video presentation featuring the ABA Board, launched the declaration of IndieBound, and the board -- wearing IndieBound spirit-line shirts ("This is the part where I save the day") took the stage.

"Independent booksellers in stores of all sizes will soon proudly be telling their customers and other indie retailers that 'we're IndieBound,'" said incoming ABA President Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona. "Locally owned, indie booksellers introduce readers to great new writing, contribute far more to the health of their local economies, and play a crucial role in maintaining the unique character of their communities. I can't wait to begin working together with other indie retailers to spread the IndieBound movement."

Following a year of study and planning, ABA designed IndieBound to tap into the growing national localism movement, with fresh ways for independent booksellers and other independent businesses to better convey their core strengths -- independence, passion, community -- to customers. A community-based website, IndieBound.org, has launched today as well, and will serve as the gateway for the entire indie community, with access to The Declaration of IndieBound manifesto, book-related related content, and more functionality planned for the coming weeks and months.

IndieBound's various features, and flexibility, generated kudos from independent booksellers from across the country. "IndieBound embodies so much of what I love about independent bookselling, the things that have made this industry my passion," said Jessica Stockton Bagnulo of New York City's McNally Robinson Booksellers. "It's about community, about integrity, about the revolutionary idea that you don't have to be big to be good, that freedom of thought and uniqueness are so much more valuable than economies of scale.... I think IndieBound is something that people are going to want to be a part of, and I think it will bring a whole new generation into our independent bookstores."

Linda Barrett Knopp of Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe in Asheville, North Carolina, appreciates the adaptability of IndieBound's resources. "The marketing materials ... are exciting, very indie- and local-oriented, positive, youthful, inclusive, and informative in a way that catches your eye and makes you want to be a part of it, either as a bookseller, author, or customer," she said. "I'm very optimistic about IndieBound and its reception by booksellers and the public. The timing is perfect, as we turn to our communities for support during challenging times."

Here's the part where indie booksellers save the day!

An integral part of IndieBound's purpose, to bring together local businesses of all stripes, is what appeals to Kelly Justice of the Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia. "The most exciting thing to me about IndieBound is being able to officially partner with my neighbor businesses in our pride and passion for the city of Richmond and the things that make it unique. As a new bookstore owner who has been an independent bookseller for 19 years, [I realize] this flexible, modular revolution allows me to focus on relationships with my fellow merchants and customers rather than meeting with graphic designers, marketing people, etc.... I'm ready to save the day in my hometown! Are you?"

Also noting IndieBound's potential for uniting booksellers with other local independent retailers is Michael Selleck, Simon & Schuster's executive vice president of sales, who told BTW, "IndieBound is great because it allows booksellers to design the program that best suits their needs, and it also gives them a leadership vehicle to reach out and strengthen independent businesses in their communities. Working together to enrich the local economy can only do good things for our authors, their books, and their readers."

David Young, chairman and CEO of Hachette Book Group USA, appreciates IndieBound's innovative style: "We are very excited about the new IndieBound program. It brings a fresh new look to this important initiative and is sure to reinvigorate interest," he said. "Hachette Book Group is looking forward to putting great energy into working with our independent bookseller partners."

The Celebration also honored the 2008 Book Sense Book of the Year Award winners, the Publishers Weekly Bookseller and Rep of the Year winners, and the 2008 Lucile Micheels Pannell Award winners.

Khaled Hosseini accepts his 2008 Book Sense Book of the Year Award for Fiction.

Accepting his Book Sense Book of the Year Award in the Fiction category for A Thousand Splendid Suns (Riverhead/Penguin), Khaled Hosseini, said, "Thank you so much for this show of faith in my writing ... support that came long before the publication of [The Kite Runner], and then for handselling the hell out of my books." Sharing his memories of biking to his neighborhood bookstore in Kabul as a boy, he described a growing love of literature fostered by the reading suggestions and encouragement from the store's owner. "I fell in love with books in that store," Hosseini said, "and you can't become a writer of books if you're not a lover of books." Saluting the assembled independent booksellers at the Celebration, he said, "Those of you who chose to make a living in this craft [of bookselling] are cultural ambassadors in the communities you have chosen to serve.... Without that very unique brand of word-of-mouth ... [many writers'] careers would not have taken off."

Also present to receive his award was Children's Literature winner Brian Selznick (The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Scholastic Press), and accepting via videos were Barbara Kingsolver and family for Book Sense Book of the Year Nonfiction winner Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (HarperCollins) and Mo Willemsfor Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity (Hyperion Books for Children) in the Children's Literature category.

Joel Sheldon, CEO and majority shareholder of Vroman's, Publishers Weekly Bookseller of the Year, said, "Bookstores are institutions that change people's lives ... we affect customers' lives because we answer questions, from the trivial to the most important of their lives." Both Sheldon and Allison Hill, Vroman's president and COO, saluted their bookselling colleagues. Speaking of her "120 extraordinary colleagues," Hill lauded them for their "work to make Vroman's the best it can be and, in our own small way, make the world better through bookselling."

Roy Schonfeld of Abraham Associates, PW's Sales Rep of the Year, told the audience "not to worry about marketshare ... but to concentrate on the cultural impact of bookstores in their communities."

In the Pannell Award specialty category, Flying Pig Bookstore owners Elizabeth Bluemle and Josie Leavitt were recognized for having "created a place that gives back to everyone who wants to be part of the book community" and for sharing their knowledge and experience with other booksellers at national and regional organizations, including the New England Independent Booksellers Association.

Clark Kepler of Kepler's in Menlo Park, California, accepted the Pannell Award in the general store category with members of his staff, who, he said, "bring books into the community and schools ... and are developing a whole new generation of readers at Kepler's.

Ed Begley, Jr., has, perhaps, become as well known for his environmental activism as for his acting career, and on Thursday morning in the Grand Ballroom of the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel, he discussed his eco-friendly calling at the Day of Education Plenary Session, which concluded with a lively Q&A period.

Ed Begley, Jr. kicked off the Day of Education with an intelligent, practical discussion about how to live an eco-friendly life.

Outgoing ABA President Russ Lawrence began the session by thanking "our good friends at Ingram, who will be ABA's major education underwriter for the next three years. They realized that independents are their growth opportunity."

Lawrence then pointed out how for this year's show, ABA has made an effort to be more environmentally friendly, and rather than printing education handouts and shipping binders across the country, the association has made all of its Day of Education session materials available to every member bookseller in advance of the show via BookWeb.org. He noted how ABA encouraged booksellers to recycle and reuse one of their older bags bring a bag from home to fill with trade show-related information available for pick up at the Welcome Desk.

In his keynote, Begley discussed both his hit HGTV series Living With Ed, a look at the day-to-day realities of "living green," and the book spurred by the show, Living Like Ed: A Guide to the Eco-Friendly Life (Clarkson Potter). But first he thanked the independent booksellers in the room. "You are the very fabrics of local communities, " he said, and pointed out how disappointed he was when his neighborhood bookstore, Dutton's, closed its doors. "I hope you all not only survive but thrive -- America needs you."

Turning the focus toward his environmental activities, Begley reported how he took the subway to the Renaissance. "That's what my book is about," he explained. "What's cheap and easy. This is stuff I've been doing since 1970. You can protect the environment and, oh, by the way, save money, too."

Begley started living a green life well before he ever became a successful actor. "I was a Boy Scout, and my father was a conservative Republican who liked to conserve," he told the audience of booksellers. "I got that from him. But perhaps the biggest influence was smoggy Los Angeles. In the '50s and '60s, it was a horrible, choking smog for 300 days of the year. It was that bad.... You couldn't catch your breath. By 1970, I felt I wanted to do something. I started composting, I bought an electric car -- which was essentially just a golf cart with windshield wipers -- and began recycling. I did it for the environment, but then something else happened. I did all this on a very modest budget and realized that I was saving money!"

It is this very epiphany that Begley hopes to inspire in others. "People give reasons why you can't [live green]," he said. "This book is about the reasons you can. You can't afford solar panels ... but can you afford a fluorescent light bulb? Or the subway for $3? Or bike riding?"

Begley also noted how, today, some will make claims that going green would hurt the country's economy. It was no different in smoggy Los Angeles 38 years ago. "In 1970, people said you can't clean up the smog because it would be too expensive! Guess what? The air is cleaner today, and no one went broke. There's money to be made selling catalytic converters. It's the same now. Sure, there will be jobs lost in the oil industry, but there's also money to be made making double-pane windows or weather striping."

As for how one starts to go green, Begley recommended starting like he did. "Go for the low-hanging fruit first, and you will save money, and eventually you may be able to afford the higher-hanging fruit." He also stressed that, while recycling is good, it's crucial that everyone buy recycled materials, otherwise "you're not completing the circle."

ABA's new president, Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands in Tempe, Arizona, welcomed booksellers to the Day of Education Lunch.

ABA's incoming president, Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona, welcomed booksellers who filled the Hollywood Renaissance's Grand Ballroom for the Day of Education Lunch featuring Amy Goodman, co-host of the global news hour Democracy Now! and co-author with her brother, David Goodman, of Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times (Hyperion).

Shanks noted that one of the best parts of ABA's day-long program, along with speakers like Goodman, was the "wonderful opportunity" for booksellers to learn from each other. She also thanked Ingram Book Company/Ingram Publisher Services for its sponsorship of the Day of Education, as well as the Celebration of Bookselling.

Introducing Goodman, Shanks said, "[She] reminds me why I'm a bookseller, and how important it is to put authors, books, and the community together. Amy doesn't practice trickle-down journalism. She goes where the silence is and breaks the sound barrier."

Amy Goodman autographed copies of Standing Up to the Madness for a number of booksellers who were moved by her address.

Goodman launched into her talk by declaring independent bookstores "sanctuaries of dissent ... where people can go to get independent information." Disseminating a wide spectrum of information is especially critical now, she said, with a presidential election in the offing and when thousands of young men and women are being killed in Iraq.

In outlining some of the stories of the ordinary people doing extraordinary things who are featured in Standing Up to the Madness, Goodman told the story of the four Connecticut librarians who successfully fought the U.S. government when they refused to relinquish patron records. She chronicled the experience of four students in Wilton, Connecticut, who when told by their principal they would not be performing their play based on the letters of U.S. soldiers who fought in Iraq, took their show to the New York stage. And she mentioned that, in 1955, Mamie Till Mobley stood up and demanded an open casket for her violently murdered son Emmett Till, so the public would know of, and see, the "brutality of racism."

Goodman also went on tell the story of the White Rose, a pamphlet written during Nazi Germany by Christian students who protested against the Third Reich. Six of the core members, including brother and sister Hans and Sophie Scholl, were caught and beheaded. The motto of the White Rose was "We will not be silent."

Speaking out and standing up, said Goodman, was the coin of the realm for booksellers and librarians. "They are the freedom fighters of our time," she said, closing to a standing ovation. "We will not be silent. That motto should be the Hippocratic Oath of the media landscape. Democracy now!"

The panel on Print on Demand featured (l. to r.) Phil Zuckerman of Applewood Books, Dan Sheehan of Ingram Book Company & Ingram Publisher Services, and Kelly Estep of Carmichael's Bookstore, with moderator Dan Cullen, ABA's senior director of editorial content.

Among the Day of Education's 15 sessions were a number of new offerings, as well as several that have become part of a core curriculum for both prospective and experienced booksellers. And based on comments offered by some of this year's attendees, new and returning sessions hit their marks.

Aggie Zivaljevic, backlist buyer at Kepler's Books in Menlo Park, California, found the new session "Buying, Merchandising, and Selling Graphic Novels, 101, fearturing Diamond Books Sales Manager John Shableski, cartoonist Scott McCloud, Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, events and publicity coordinator and graphics novel buyer for McNally Robinson Booksellers in New York City, and moderated by ABA's Lisa Winn, very helpful. "Our graphic novel section is doing great," Zivaljevic said. "[It has] doubled in size since last year ... The session will make me rethink how we shelve our graphic novels. Right now, we shelve them alphabetically, but we might change it to category: graphic novel, super hero, manga." She also said that she was very excited to check out the list of web resources that the panelists provided.

About the session "Green Retailing," Julie Summerfield of Haverford College Bookstore in Haverford, Pennsylvania, told BTW: "The session was fascinating. I work at a college bookstore like [panelist] Suzy [Staubach of University of Connecticut Co-op in Storrs, Connecticut], and one of my big goals has been to cut back on bags, so I wanted to hear how she was able to do that. I loved her Co-op Cares Bag Program, where every time a customer doesn't take a bag, the bookstore lets the customer donate a nickel to a [green] charity."

"Budgeting & Monitoring," which has become a staple of ABA's education program, attracted a mix of both prospective and experienced booksellers who recognize that understanding where the money is, is crucial to a successful business. Daniel Goldin, general manager of Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops in Milwaukee, takes every opportunity to attend this session, presented by ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz. "I go [to Budget & Monitoring] every time I can," Goldin said. "I'm doing more financial stuff every year, and two or three things sink in every time I go."

Watch for full reports on Day of Education sessions in upcoming editions of Bookselling This Week. And for all of this year's educational handouts, visit www.bookweb.org/events/bea/program.html.

ABA encourages booksellers at Hotel ABA to take the L.A. Metro rail system on Friday morning to avoid getting caught in rush-hour traffic. Thanks to Frommer's Travel Guides and John Wiley & Sons, members can pick up a free Metro Pass with directions to the convention center on the sleeve, while supplies last, at the Hotel ABA Welcome Desk, which will be open from 8:00 a.m. till noon on Friday. Step-by-step instructions with photos can also be downloaded.
The ABA Lounge, located in Room 515A of the L.A. Convention Center's West Building, opens at 9:00 a.m. on Friday and closes at 3:00 p.m. to allow all ABA members and staff to attend the association's Town Hall and Annual Membership meetings. The Bag Check Room, courtesy of Harper Mass Market, and the ABA Discount Shipping Program FedEx Shipping Center will be in Room 510.
An IndieBound Information Session has been added to the schedule on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. in Room 511A/B/C of the L.A. Convention Center's West Building.

ABA Program Schedule for Friday
All programming is at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
ABA's E-commerce Solution Users Group (Room 512 of the West Building)
Non-participants are also welcome to attend.

10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
ABA's Gift Card Program Users Group (Room 513 of the West Building)
Non-participants are also welcome to attend.

12:15 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.
ABA Author Luncheon (Concourse Hall)
Reservations required.

3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
ABA Town Hall Meeting (Room 502A of the West Building)

4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
ABA Annual Membership Meeting (Room 502A of the West Building)