On Wednesday, April 10 at 2PM EST, SIBA is hosting “Summer Reading for Kids” as part of our Publisher Picks: Best Bets for SIBA Booksellers series.  In this bi-monthly series, publishers, editors, marketing directors, and reps present their favorite frontlist titles via Zoom to booksellers. Besides forging important connections with publishers and their reps, attending booksellers will discover new titles to add to their store shelves and earn 10 B3! points. The following industry folks will present on 4/10: Becky Monds, the Editorial Director for the fiction department at HarperCollins Christian Publishing, John D’Esposito, an Inside Sales Representative with IPG, Nadia Almahdi, the marketing manager at Little Bee Books, and Catherine Onder, Senior Vice President and Publisher of the Books for Young Readers group with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

More information on our presenters:

Becky Monds is the Editorial Director for the fiction department at HarperCollins Christian Publishing. After working as an events coordinator and marketing manager at an independent bookstore in Nashville, she joined Thomas Nelson in 2007 as an editor in Fiction. She loves spending time with her husband and twin preschoolers, knitting, waterskiing, and, of course, reading great fiction.

John D’Esposito joined the IPG team in November 2018 as an Inside Sales Representative – a role created to strengthen the company’s relationship with booksellers in the Southeast.  A New York native, he has worked in publishing for the past 8 years, most recently in foreign rights at both HarperCollins and Trident Media Group. His favorite authors include Donna Tartt, Lauren Groff, Ned Vizzini, and Karen Russell.

 

Nadia Almahdi is the marketing manager at Little Bee Books. After working at Scholastic and Book of the Month, she joined the Little Bee team in December 2017, overseeing marketing for children’s books across the Little Bee, BuzzPop, and Yellow Jacket imprints. She loves getting to work on different book formats and helping to instill the love of reading in kids of all ages. In her free time, she enjoys baking, travel, and reading.

Catherine Onder is Senior Vice President and Publisher of the Books for Young Readers group. In addition to overseeing HMH’s children’s publishing, she edits such authors as Erin Bow, Ally Carter, and Traci Chee.

 

  

 

The Independent Booksellers Consortium is a small, membership organization formed of independent booksellers from across the country.

As the sole paid staff member, the Executive Director is responsible for all administrative facets of the corporation’s day-to-day functioning as well as ongoing service to its members. The Executive Director reports to the President of the Board on a weekly basis and is responsible to the Board of Directors made up of bookstore members. The position is 30 hours per week.

Responsibilities and Duties Include:

• Organize, plan and execute logistics for two member meetings and additional smaller meetings throughout the year to share best practices and further industry learning.
• Manage all financial, legal and administrative aspects of the Corporation.
• Facilitate communication among members.
• Manage and facilitate all committee work to ensure progress towards organizational goals.
• Regularly report to a board of directors and respond to the goals/needs of the board.
• As directed, on occasion, communicate IBC interests to industry partners.
• Develop and maintain member programs and vendor relationships.
• Other duties as needs of members and the industry change.

Qualifications Include:

• Ability to work independently from a home-based office including managing your own payroll.
• Strong organizational skills including attention to detail and project management skills.
• Strong communication skills including working with a diverse set of individuals.
• Proficient in basic budgeting: creating a budget in excel, generating budget vs. actual reports, and managing to a budget with the Board Treasurer. Proficiency in basic Quickbooks (or like programs) preferred.
• Knowledge of bookselling, retailing and publishing industries preferred.
• Experience planning meetings required.
• Ability to travel at least three times a year for multiple days.

To apply, send a cover letter, resume, and list of references to executivedirectorsearch@independentbooksellers.com. Please use IBC Job in the subject line.

Salary $35K-40K, other benefits to be discussed at the time of interviews.

 

 

April Indie Playlist promotion sponsored by three indie publishers with special terms AND a $500 display contest prize!

Seven Stories Press is teaming up with Catapult and Europa (Grove will be joining them in June!) to offer their collection specials for April, June, and October.

The April Indie Playlist features prize-winning titles and quick-reads, runs March 28-April 29, and includes special terms for independent bookstores. The publishers are also sponsoring a $500 prize ($250 to the individual bookseller and $250 to the bookstore) for the best display featuring books from one of the playlists. The display contest is open to all bookstores nationally and must include some of the featured titles, but may include other books as well. Submit a photograph of the display to NAIBAeileen@gmail.com by May 6th, 2019. A panel of judges from NAIBA and 7 Stories will select from the submissions and award the prize based on inventiveness and selling effectiveness. Good Luck!

Prize-Winning April Indie Playlist

Quick Reads April Indie Playlist

SIBA has recently seen an uptick in the number of bookstore events appearing on the "ARTS Calendar" -- SIBA's promoted calendar of events at her member stores. The average number of events has been climbing steadily, from about 50 to 70 per week. In fact next week, March 10-16, 2019, lists over 100 events!

With the extra events has come extra interest -- especially from authors and publishers looking to see if their events are listed, and from bookstores who don't see their events on the calendar at all. SIBA's membership has climbed by more than 20 new bookstore members over the past year, so we thought a short refresher would be of use to new members, or members who haven't taken advantage of the ARTS Calendar and would like to start:

What is the ARTS Calendar?

The ARTS events calendar is one of the most actively accessed parts of SIBA's consumer-targeted website, authorsroundthesouth.com. An average of a 150 bookstores list between 50-80 events every week. SIBA booksellers can post their store events, which are collected in a searchable calendar, included in the Lady Banks newsletter, and shared on SIBA’s social networks, including author tags and hashtags. Listing events on the ARTS calendar is one way SIBA works to increase the visibity of its member stores in their own community and within the book industry.

How do I enter events on the ARTS Calendar?

You can enter events here:
https://sibaweb.site-ym.com/page/stars_bkstore#form

You don't need to be logged in to use the form, although it will be easier if you are. It will take up to 24 hours for each event to appear on the site calendar.

Do I have to enter each event separately?

The form is for a single event entry. You can also upload your event list as a batch using the ARTS Calendar Event Spreadsheet, which can be emailed to nicki@sibaweb.com.

Do we earn B3! credit for entering our events?
Yes! Stores earn $.50 in B3! credit for each event submitted via the form or spreadsheet. SIBA has several members who regularly earn enough credit to pay their membership dues just by entering events on the calendar

Why are there already events listed for my store in the calendar? I haven't entered any!

SIBA elves like to spend their free time entering events on behalf of our member stores. They get event information from your store websites and newsletters. While we can't promise that all of your events will be added to the calendar, we make an effort to represent every store with an accessible and active events calendar.

"What's significant about this isn't that Stefani hand-sold my book, or that any indie bookstore did. It's more the fact that customers at an indie bookstore trust the booksellers."–Cathy Salustri, author of Backroads of Paradise: A Journey to Rediscover Old Florida 

Last week the iconic Tampa, FL bookstore Inkwood Books announced that it would be closing at the end of March. The news prompted an outpouring of community support, ranging from grief to "good luck for the future" to some truly original emoticons.

It also, as such things are wont to do, prompted many people to share their memories and feelings of why the long-standing independent bookstore was so important in their lives.  "As a literary and Florida writer, Inkwood is one of the main reasons anyone ever read a Connie May Fowler book," wrote none other than Connie May Fowler herself.  "Working there inspired my husband and I to open my own bookstore" wrote a former staff member.  "You guys were my daughter's first bookstore" said someone else. The columnist Cathy Salustri wrote an extended and heartfelt tribute to the store in the Tampa edition of Creative Loafing, recounting her journey into the wide weird world of promoting her first book with Inkwood's owner Stefani Beddingfield as a willing and generous guide. "What's significant about this," she sums up, "isn't that Stefani hand-sold my book, or that any indie bookstore did. It's more the fact that customers at an indie bookstore trust the booksellers."

Need a Mini-Wini? Let SIBA in the Springtime be your miniature Winter Institute: your time to reconnect with colleagues, writers, find inspiration and innovation.

 Visit indie bookstores, enjoy Happy Hour, and dinner with writers and booksellers, learn about ABACUS and pre-orders from the ABA and enjoy a full day of EUREKAsiba Talks on a wide variety of topics from a variety of presenters from booksellers to publishers to writers to industry pros. These talks are the cornerstone of SIBA in the Springtime and I’m quite proud of what SIBA is building in this program for SIBA members. This is a day together that flows from presentation to small group discussion & sharing to presentation to more discussion & note-taking.  It is a most intimate opportunity for everyone and must be experienced to be fully appreciated.  Don’t let this pass you by.  We want to see you in Atlanta in March.  Make your hotel reservation today and join us!

 

SIBA in the Springtime & EUREKAsiba

Monday, March 18 –Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Embassy Suites by Hilton Atlanta Airport | Hotel Reservations

REGISTER

B3! Webinar: Time Management 101 for Booksellers

When: Wednesday, April 3 at 2PM EST on Zoom  

Cindy Dach, co-owner of Changing Hands Bookstores and First Draft Bookbar (Tempe, & Phoenix, AZ), will present techniques for time management, planning, and organizing daily tasks, all with an eye toward completing the big-picture projects. Finding it hard to deal with interruptions, protect your time, and achieve your goals? Dach has developed tools and approaches specific to the world of bookselling to address these problems and be more effective. Please RSVP lindamarie@sibaweb.com to attend.   

February Small Press Presents: Spring and Summer Picks

Publisher Picks: Best Bets for SIBA Booksellers: Publisher Picks brings publishers and booksellers together outside of rep visits to stores and the Discovery Show.

Featuring: Michael Reynolds, Editor in chief of independent publisher, Europa Editions, Carin Siegfried, the Mid-Atlantic field sales representative at Macmillan, Emily Midkiff, editorial assistant and marketing director at Month9Books, Meg Reid, Director of Hub City Press, and Lynn York, publisher of Blair. 

Edelweiss collection of presented titles

THE SMALL BUSINESS HABIT OF WEARING TWENTY HATS: A EUREKAsiba TALK

Schedule | Hotel | Register 

I think small businesses, in this case indie publishers and indie bookstores, have this characteristic in common: we’re all doing too many different things. At Europa, we’ve attempted, and I think mostly succeeded, at turning this into a strength, and certainly my own skill set and career path into publishing make me unsuited to wearing only one hat. I think the way of staffing, approaching work flow, and more intangible things like an editorial aesthetic or style of community outreach are informed by the diversity of skills we have and jobs we do.

Michael Reynold’s talk is part of SIBA in the Springtime (SITS) & EUREKAsiba, a program of bookseller education in an intimate format, designed to emphasize creative and innovative solutions to running a business. SITS takes place Monday, March 18 –Wednesday, March 20, at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Atlanta Airport. Here’s a link to REGISTER!

Micheal Reynolds is the Editor in chief of independent publisher, Europa Editions. He is the recipient of numerous industry awards, and has served on the jury for the PEN/Heim Translation Fund, the Gutekunst Prize for Young Translators, and the foreign jury of the Strega Prize. He is a regular speaker at the Columbia School of Journalism’s Columbia Publishing Course, and at publishing and translation conferences in America and internationally. He is the founder of Bookselling Without Borders, a scholarship program that diversifies the culture of reading by building bridges between the American bookselling community and the international book industry. He is also an author and a translator whose published translations include three historical mysteries by Carlo Lucarelli, and Viola Di Grado’s prize-winning novel, 70% Acrylic 30% Wool.

The 2019 Southern Book Prize Winners

(Asheville, NC) – Celebrate Independents!  Announcing the 2019 Southern Book Prize Winners -- the best in southern literature, from the people who would know . . . Southern Independent Booksellers and their independently minded customers. Nominated by booksellers and selected via popular vote by Southern booksellers and their customers, the chosen books represent the indie answer to the question “What was the best Southern book of the year?”

 

2019 Southern Book Prize Winners

FICTION
The Line That Held Us by David Joy
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 9780399574221
“With the Southern grit of Daniel Woodrell and the rich Appalachian cadence of Ron Rash, David Joy is the new voice of Southern noir. In The Line That Held Us, Joy drags the reader by the gut on a dark and twisted journey of violence and vengeance in a story that will not be soon forgotten.” – Bookmarks, Winston-Salem, NC

 

CHILDREN’S
Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe by Jo Hackl
Random House Books for Young Readers, 9780399557385
“Cricket is all alone -- her mama ran away, and her dad died, and now she's stuck with her Aunt Belinda, who doesn't want her. So Cricket sets out on a quest to find and solve a clue trail that she hopes will lead her to her mama and make everything right in her world. On the way, she learns to rely on herself and discovers that some treasures aren't monetary but are just as valuable. Fans of Sheila Turnage's Three Times Lucky will love Cricket and her journey of self-discovery.” – Fiction Addiction, Greenville, SC

NONFICTION
The Best Cook in the World by Rick Bragg*
Knopf, 9781400040414
“Rick Bragg is the whole package. Intelligent, to the point, hilarious and beyond generous with his time and storytelling. A true man's man and momma's boy who makes us cry with laughter. He embraces his Southern roots and contributes to the overall reason we all love the South.” – Page 158 Books, Wake Forest, NC

*recipient of the 2019 Conroy Legacy Award

The 2019 Southern Book Prize represents a change in both format and timing from past years. Previously timed to be announced in the summer, voting in 2019 began November 10 as part of the Love Your Bookstore Challenge Week, and was opened to Southern booksellers and their customers.  Winners were selected by popular vote and will now be announced on Valentine’s Day.

The response to the new format was enthusiastic as booksellers, readers and writers all rallied around their favorites on the ballot. Over 2800 ballots were submitted by Southern readers, representing over 150 Southern independent bookstores and confirming the Southern Book Prize as a true “Southern Readers’ Choice” award. “It was a phenomenal response” said Wanda Jewell, the Executive Director of The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, which administers the Southern Book Prize. “It illustrates the magic that happens when independent bookstores get behind a book and get their customers involved.”

For more information about the Southern Book Prize:
https://www.authorsroundthesouth.com/read-this/siba-book-awards