What’s on the Shelf at Lady Banks during January?

SIBA promotes six new books every month to consumers in our Lady Banks Bookshelf promotion.These titles appear at the top of our weekly Lady Banks Commonplace Book newsletter, which has a circulation of over 60k.  We also feature them above the fold on the homepage of Authors ‘Round the South and on the cover image of the ARTS Facebook page with buy links promoted to our 15,000 Facebook friends. A different member store is featured with the titles every week. 

Since SIBA redesigned Lady Banks Bookshelf in the spring, this promotion experienced a 23% increase in audience reach(from 17K to 22.5K), and a 16% jump in engagement (from 585 to 700) in on social media, and a 10% rise in impressions, 14% rise in click throughs via email. SIBA attributes the success to a more strongly focused target audience, more active engagement with member bookstores, and a fresh, more visually appealing presence that also appeals to the reader's sense of adventure and individuality.

By promoting through Lady Banks, publishers are making an investment in SIBA member bookstores’ attention and market. SIBA works with them to select titles your customers are looking for, and then we drive those customers to your stores.  It’s very worth your while to bring Lady Banks Bookshelf titles in before the month begins, and put up a display.

What’s up for January:

• Life Admin: How I Learned to Do Less, Do Better, and Live More by Elizabeth F. Emens

• Woke Baby by Mahogany L. Browne, illustrated by Theodore Taylor III

• The Undiscovered Country by Mike Nemeth

• The Shallows: Poems by Stacey Lynn Brown

• Any Other Place: Stories by Michael Croley

• The Roots of Rap: 16 Bars on the 4 Pillars of Hip-Hop by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Frank Morrison

  
  

Here's a link to the collection on Edelweiss: 

Book Subscription Services B3! Webinar with Jamie Rogers Southern and Julie Jarema on Wednesday, January 9 at 2PM

Want to launch a subscription service at your store, or improve an existing one? Two booksellers with successful subscription services will share their approaches and offer advice to attendees.  

Jamie Rogers Southern is the Operations Director of Bookmarks, a literary arts nonprofit organization in Winston-Salem, NC. Bookmarks offers a Signed First Editions Club and a Young Reader Subscription Service. Customers can choose between a six-month or yearly subscription and have the option of receiving the books by mail or picking them up in-store.

Julie Jarema is a Bookseller and the Book Subscriptions Manager at Avid Bookshop in Athens, GA.  Avid’s subscription service includes all reading levels and  is tailored to suit each customer’s individual tastes. It  is available in six-month and twelve-month options.

Please rsvp lindamarie@sibaweb.com to attend.

Southern Book Prize Drawings

To help bookstores promote the Southern Book Prize and get their customers involved in voting, SIBA is running a drawing for one of the Finalists every weekend between now and the voting deadline on February 1st. This weekend, anyone who submits a ballot by 12/10 will be entered in a drawing to win a copy of either Kate DiCamillo's Louisiana's Way Home, or Therese Anne Fowler's A Well Behaved Woman.

All stores need to do is promote the Southern Book Prize ballot. Every ballot submitted that lists your store earns you $.30 in B3! credit.

The ballot: www.southernbookprize.com

Some graphics you can use on social media. Be sure to tag your posts with the #VoiceYourChoice hashtag Click on an image to download a full size version:

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Call for Nominations: PW Bookstore and Sales Rep of the Year 2019

Publishers Weekly has put out the call for nominations for PW Bookstore and Sales Rep of the Year 2019. The deadline for nominations is January 8. Authors, booksellers, publishers, distributors, and others with ties to the book industry are invited to nominate their favorite bookstores and sales representatives for the Bookstore and Sales Rep of the Year Awards. (Please note that candidates cannot nominate themselves, nor can family members nominate them.) Finalists will be named in January at Winter Institute in Albuquerque. Winners will receive a write-up in Publishers Weekly in May 2019 and will be honored at an awards ceremony in New York City.

Bookstore of the Year: PW will honor an independently owned bricks-and-mortar bookstore in the U.S. that has been in operation for at least four years. In your nomination, please note what makes the bookstore special and provide contact information, including your name and industry affiliation. Bookstores that have previously received the award cannot be nominated, nor can sister stores of bookstores that have previously won.

Sales Rep of the Year: PW welcomes nominations for outstanding telephone and house reps as well as independent sales representatives. Please include an example of the rep’s commitment to excellence, as well as contact information, including your name and industry affiliation. Sales representatives can only win the award once.

Please email nominations for PW 2019 Bookstore of the Year and PW 2019 Sales Representative of the year to Judith Rosen at PWawards@publishersweekly.com.

December 1 is Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day

2018 marks the 9th annual Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day (www.takeyourchildtoabookstore.org), an initiative created to "instill a love of bookstores in children so that they will value and support this most precious of resources as they go on to enter and create communities of their own," will be held Saturday, December 1.

Download a flyer here

Founded by Jenny Milchman, author most recently of Wicked River, the first TYCTB was celebrated by 80 bookstores and has now grown to more than 800 stores in every U.S. state, seven Canadian provinces, and countries on five continents. For 2018, Milchman teamed up with children's poetry author Brett Fleishman to write a special poem in celebration:

They entered the store
At 11:04
Both the Mom and her teenager Quinn
Right behind were two more
Hand in hand through the door
Came a Dad and his younger son Flynn
With their books on the floor
They looked happy for sure
As more kids and their parents came in
When they left the group swore
They'd return, but what for?
For more books since those books made them grin

JKS Communications will be giving away nine $10 bookstore gift cards to winners across the country who celebrate the day on social media using the hashtag #tycbd, as well as one grand prize winner who will receive a $50 bookstore gift card and signed copies of Fleishman's poetry volumes and Milchman's latest book.

A Great Start to the Holiday Season for Many SIBA Stores

It was a big weekend for booksellers across the country. In SIBA territory, the reports coming in are exuberant! I volunteered on Saturday at Avid Bookshop’s Five Points location in Athens, GA, where customers were greeted personally and guided to books they wanted and some they didn’t know they wanted! Avid’s sideline selection is stunning--by turns hilarious and honoring of all things literary and unique. I purchased a lovely hand-felted angel ornament for a friend, and a birthday card from Red Caps Press. I intend to pick up a set of “Journals for the Middle Child” on a future visit. A gift to myself :)

I worked with John and Christy, both on Avid’s events team, and with Janet, the store’s owner. This is the first year of The Avid Bookshop Bash (TABB), five days of celebration centered around the weekend after Thanksgiving. After each purchase, Avid booksellers offered customers prizes ranging from gift cards to commemorative bookmarks. As I wrapped gifts, I overheard so many customers praising the store and staff and making plans to come back before TABB ended on Giving Tuesday.

More reports from SIBA stores about their weekend sales:

Kimberly Daniels Taws, The Country Bookshop, Southern Pines, NC:

“Small Business Saturday was a big day for us. We gave everyone 10% off (something new for us) and we were up 42% over last year! This is really interesting and I think driven by our "spend $50 and get a gift" because we only had 8 more transactions than last year but sold 121 more units. The incentive of a gift at that price point, just higher than a hard cover and a paperback caused people to really increase their units per purchase. We saw a GREAT many out-of-towners, and locals who are discovering the bookshop for the first time, or making an annual pilgrimage.

We sold a lot of the staff picks, big books (Obama, Sparks, Jeff Kinney), and saw a real drive for autographed books. We also sold A LOT of The Broken Ornament. The Invisible Ink little books by Lee Publications are at very low price point and have sold very well for us.”

Jamie Rogers Southern, Bookmarks, Winston-Salem, NC:

“We had a great weekend! Because of our nonprofit status, we cannot flat out do "shop small" promotions so ours is more of a quiet attack. We had board members in to provide free gift wrapping throughout the weekend and our board president offered to match all purchases as a donation to our Book Build initiative during her shift. She ended up donating $1,400!

We were up 33% on the weekend and top selling items were: Becoming, We Should All Be Feminists, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, Wimpy Kid Meltdown, and Shade. Some of these titles were because we have our staff picks of 2018 reading up and people heavily shop off of them at the holidays. We did not do much programming this year, just our regular storytime and book art by a local artist on Saturday afternoon.

I loved seeing so many of our regular customers and volunteers bring in family and friends who were visiting from out of town and overhearing them talk about the bookstore as theirs!”

Stephanie Crowe, Page & Palette, Fairhope, Alabama: “Page & Palette had a busy day on Saturday, which included author visits by Karyn Tunks, author of Mardi Gras in Mobile and Michael and Sarah Hewes, authors of The Tempestuous Trial of Maybelline Meriweather.”

Pictured below from left to right are the authors visiting Page & Palette, a scene from Bookmarks, and the front and back sides of Avid's commemorative TABB bookmarks.

Are you a reporting store?

Tis' the season to report your sales.  Are you sure your store sales are getting the attention they should?  Check in that sales are getting reported every week. And if you don't report sales, here's how to do it:

Reporting to the Indie Bestseller List and SIBA Indie Bestseller List

Gathered every week by the ABA, the Indie Bestseller list aggregates sales figures for ABA’s member bookstores throughout the country. A print-ready version of this list is available on ABA’s IndieBound page to download and post in your store. Those figures are further divided into regional lists, and we email that list to SIBA members weekly and also post it on our website.

Reporting is both easy and confidential. Just follow the steps below:

1. Choose one of the three ways to report:
   • ABA manual entry
   • ABA file upload
   • To BookScan via your POS.
   You can review the reporting options here. The vast majority of stores choose the BookScan reporting method because:
   • It’s nearly automatic and drawn directly from your POS
   • You also contribute to BookScan’s important sales data, which drives publishing decisions.
   The BookScan compatible POS systems include Anthology, Basil, Book Manager, Books-In-Store, BookLog, Computac, IBID/IBIDie, Square One/iMerchant, Word Stock, and UBIC. However, as long as the system is capable of creating the report in the necessary format, BookScan can also use indepedent and other point of sale systems. Contact Ajantha Jesuraj at ajantha.jesuraj.ap@nielsen.com directly for instructions and to receive the appropriate software bridge. 
   
   
2. If reporting via the ABA manual entry or file upload methods, create a login and password for the ABA reporting area on BookWeb.org. If your store doesn’t have a BookWeb.org account, you can create one here. (You will need an ABA ID number to create the account, so if you’re not yet an ABA member, please join ABA.) 
   
   
3. Your report should include sales that week beginning 12:01 am Sunday through midnight Saturday. 
   
   
4. If reporting via BookScan, transmit the weekly report no later than 10 pm each Monday. 
   
   
5. If reporting via one of the ABA methods, transmit the weekly report no later than 3 am EST each Tuesday via the ABA reporting site. The reporting site opens each week at midnight Saturday.

For questions, visit the ABA Indie Bestseller FAQ page. For technical support, contact Peter Reynolds at peter@bookweb.org.

Reporting to The New York Times Bestseller List

The New York Times Bestseller List, released every Sunday in the paper’s Book Review, reflects sales reported by vendors offering a wide range of general interest titles. The sales venues for print books include independent book retailers; national, regional and local chains; online and multimedia entertainment retailers; supermarkets, university, gift and discount department stores; and newsstands.

It’s increasingly important for independent booksellers to make their voices heard on a national level. Please, demonstrate the importance of the indie sales channel by reporting your sales to this important national outlet for book news.

To report your sales to The New York Times, please fill out this online request form. 

• Every Tuesday, you’ll receive an email letting you know what titles are in the Book Review that weekend, giving you advance notice to order these titles for your loyal readers.
• You’ll also receive the Times Digest with the pdf containing the Best Sellers Lists a week and a half before it hits the printed edition.
• You’ll also receive a complimentary copy of the printed Book Review sent directly to your store.

For more detailed information, visit the Best Sellers List reporting site.

THE BOOKS YOUR COLLEAGUES ARE TALKING ABOUT

Submitted this week on Edelweiss+ using the "send to SIBA" option. Thanks to Avid Bookshop, Bookmarks, Fiction Addiction, Flyleaf Books, Fountain Bookstore, Inkwood Books, Malaprop's, Quail Ridge Books, Sunrise Books, The Country Bookshop, and Underground Books

9780385543897 Southern Lady Code 4/16/2019
"It's sharper than a shattered Christmas ornament.You might cut yourself, but you'll laugh about it."

9781524766689 Button and Bundle 2/19/2019
"the perfect book to share with friends who might be separated due to a move, going to a different school, or even summer vacation"

9780525535539 The Good Detective 3/19/2019
"one of the best stories with a southern setting that I have read since I read the last Greg Isles"

9781616206215 Sugar Run 1/8/2019
"an Orange is the New Black meets modern-day Faulkner and David Joy."

9781501146060 Hark 1/15/2019
"Sam Lipsyte's satirical take on modern society, the human condition and how to "deal with it all" is miserably hilarious and charming, emotional and beautiful"

9780670012107 SHOUT 3/12/2019
"If you want to be told like it is...let her tell it."

9780811219099 Birthday 2/26/2019
"Since entering adulthood, no author has challenged my idea of what literature can be (or maybe should be) like Cesar Aira."

More bookseller reviews

If your store does not have an Edelweiss+ account and need help setting one up, contact Linda-Marie

Q&A from #SIBA18 Discovery Show

Q - I would like to know the number of stores that constitute a chain.

A - SIBA does not identify store by chain, but by standing.  Our definition for a core member bookstore is: Independent, privately held, brick & mortar, commercially zoned bookstores with a retail storefront and physical headquarters, in our region will constitute the core members.  Our main differentiation between and "indie" and a "corporate" store is whether or not they are a public or private company, as in sold on the stock market or not.  As long as a store/stores are privately held, they qualify for SIBA core membership.

Watch for your SOUTHERN BOOK PRIZE BALLOTS!

All SIBA member stores have been shipped a set of postage-paid postcard ballots for the 2019 Southern Book Prize. They should be arriving for the start of the Love Your Bookstore Challenge week. Hand them out to your customers and get them involved in the excitement of choosing the best Southern books of the year.

• Downloadable posters promoting all the Southern Book Prize finalists are available here for you to post with your store displays.
  
  
• Ballots can also be submitted online at www.southernbookprize.com.
  
  
• Baker & Taylor is offering a special 45% discount offer on all the Southern Book Prize finalists, through December 1st. No promo code is required. Click here for a sell sheet
  

We've had a few questions about the new format, so here are some of the more common ones:

Can books still be nominated for the Southern Book Prize?
Nominations for this year's SBP (books published in 2018) have closed, but nominations for the next year's (books publishing in 2019) are open.

Can customers vote?
Voting on the finalists is open to the general public. We want stores to involve their customers. The ballots have a place for the person to write in their local bookstore and the ballot is invalid without this information. There is also an online ballot that will be active on 11/10. Submitted ballots are entered into a drawing to win a complete set of the Southern Book Prize Finalists.

What happened to the "long list" and the "short list"?
SIBA has eliminated the step of voting on the "long list" of nominated titles to come up with the "short list" of finalists. Instead, the finalists were selected from the books that received the most nominations.

Will you have booksellers judging the finalists this year?
No. Judging by booksellers has been replaced by the current ballot, which is open to all SIBA members and their customers.