March Madness Recap: Louisiana Booksellers congregate at Baldwin & Co.
by Candice Huber, owner, Tubby & Coo's Mid-City Bookshop

The first March Madness event, held March 1st at Baldwin & Co. in New Orleans, was attended by booksellers from Louisiana, including Frenchmen Art & Books, Cavalier House Books, Blue Cypress Books, The Conundrum, Garden District Bookshop, Community Book Center, The Historic New Orleans Collection, and Tubby & Coo's.

As the event host, DJ Johnson from Baldwin & Co. opened the event with a tour of the store's multi-faceted business model, including the store cafe, podcast studio, ART Bar/event space, and short term rental space. (The bookstore -- located in a building which used to be a a funeral home --may be haunted.) Baldwin & Co's business model supports its nonprofit arm, the Baldwin & Co Foundation, which hosts events and book festivals in support of NOLA's Black community and writers.

The tour was followed by a presentation from Sarah High of Bookshop.org, who discussed how the platform can be used by booksellers to support virtual book festivals and school book fairs, customer registries and wishlists, and direct to home ordering and preorder campaigns. Bookshop also plans to make ebooks part of their indie bookstore platform by the end of 2023.

The lunchtime speaker, author Terah Shelton Harris, who is also a librarian, held a spirited discussion with booksellers on building working partnerships between bookstores and libraries. The subject was of special interest to NOLA stores because of local laws that prevent bookstores from acting as booksellers for library events.

"Overall, we had a great day of networking and learning at Baldwin & Co.!" -- Candice Huber