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With its huge array of both educational and inspirational panels to suit bookstores large and small, accompanied by ample opportunity to interact with publishers and receptions to perfect the art of networking, the American Booksellers Association’s (ABA) Winter Institute is a unique event. The 14th industry gathering, which concluded on Friday (25th January), saw independent US booksellers celebrating another bumper year, with sales up 4.9% and compound growth of 7.5% over the past five years.
And ABA c.e.o. Oren Teicher had more good news for the record number of 710 booksellers who had travelled to Albuquerque, New Mexico: calling 2018 “a pretty good year”, he revealed that the ABA added 95 indie bookstore members to a tally of around 1,870 companies with 2,500 locations. The new stores include 14 satellite branches of existing businesses.
Describing the independent sales channel as “reasonable healthy”, Teicher saw no reason why the upbeat run of the ABA’s member bookstores shouldn’t continue in 2019. But he warned against complacency. “The world around us is changing and booksellers need to realize that they need to chance and adjust accordingly. If something works now that does not necessarily mean it will still work in 12 months’ time.”
According to Teicher, the upward sales trend is a testament to the “commitment by indies booksellers to ongoing innovation, a strategic focus on store finances, sustained customer assistance, and community involvement.” But acknowledging that there are still member bookstores in communities that are not seeing these gains for a number of reasons, Teicher promised that ABA will continue “to do everything we can to help ensure that all member stores can meet their core business goals.”
One new example of where ABA is actively engaged to help booksellers generating new sales is pre-orders. A task force of 24 booksellers large and small has been working on maximising pre-order campaigns and helping booksellers communicate with customers. “The life of a book has changed significantly”, said the ABA’s Joy Dallanegra-Sanger. “Sales for the book begin as soon as it is announced.” Thus the ABA is concentrating its efforts on ensuring that metadata for new titles are available as soon as they are announced.
Among the Winter Institute attendees was again a large contingent of 18 booksellers and industry representatives from the UK, led by the Booksellers Association’s managing director Meryl Halls. “It is an incredible inspiring and energising event”, said Halls, who used the trip to Albuquerque to compare notes with the ABA and other international trade organisations. “While we have a lot in common, we are also taking home many ideas.”
BA president Nick Bottomley, the owner of Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath, was also working the floor in Albuquerque. “What I got out of this event is evenly split between insights of educational sessions and picking up little nuggets in conversations how the US indies do business,” he said.
Bottomley was also instrumental in organising a 15-date tour of the Bookshop Band, consisting of personal friends Beth Porter and Ben Please, with sponsorship from Gardners and US-based entertainment distributor All Media Supply. The band had several appearances during Winter Institute, with the most notable happening on Thursday morning in front of a packed house prior to a conversation between authors Margaret Atwood and Erin Morgenstern. When Atwood took her seat, she declared herself a big fan and urged booksellers to stock the Bookshop Band’s albums.