What do you do if one of your staff tests positive for COVID?
As we all know, independent bookstores have been pushed to new limits in 2020, changing policies and sales models—often by the minute—as COVID numbers continue to rise. My own company, Matchbook Marketing, has evolved and changed with booksellers’ ever-shifting needs, working with bookstores throughout the crisis to help them meet the challenges of operating in a largely online environment. We’ve been busy freshening websites to be more shoppable, adding gift items, promoting book carousels, enabling elements like donation buttons, wish lists, gift cards and codes, and adding messaging that changes with COVID policies, including curbside pickups, changing store hours, local deliveries, and more. Most importantly, we have kept our offering of personalized staff training so that booksellers know how to maintain their new site and adapt to the “new normal.”
If one of your staff receives a COVID-positive test result, your already continual pivoting accelerates rapidly. The storefront closes, all staff get tested, new accommodations for order processing need to be enacted. And somehow, in the midst of all this activity, the store also needs to communicate to the public what is happening.
What are some of the things you should do if this happens to your store?
Create a public message for your website and to share on social media. Create a long and short version of this message to accommodate multiple needs.
Update your store hours on your website and social media account, and add COVID messaging to the top of your page.
Create a standard and reassuring response for queries and well-wishers.
Check your order processing set up. The odds are, your normal operations are going to be interrupted. You may need an alternative option like Bookshop.org to meet processing demands.
Most of all, don’t panic! A calm and consistent approach to your messaging will reassure your customers and your community. In working with stores, Matchbook Marketing has developed a quick-response series of steps for handling a COVID-positive test situation. We coordinate store PR, providing a fast response to queries, and thus allowing you to focus your support where it is most needed, on your staff and your business.
-Gwyn Ridenhour
Founder, Matchbook Marketing
For more information about Matchbook Marketing, please visit www.WeLoveBooksellers.com. You can reach Gwyn at matchbookgwyn@welovebooksellers.com.
From John Cavalier, co-owner of Cavalier House Books in Denham Springs, LA and SIBA Board Member
With Small Business Saturday a little more than a week away, most of us are already in the thick of holiday sales and focusing on making the most out of Q4. Of course there need be no reminder that this holiday season will be different from any other,
but our good friends at NAIBA put together a very comprehensive list of action items to prepare their stores for the worst case scenario of another shutdown. We've all grown accustomed to operating our businesses in a state of precarity and by now
we're all old pro's at the pivot, but I encourage everyone to take a moment to print this list out and give it a read through. The old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure keeps ringing louder and I know that in our current
circumstance we can all appreciate that old saying in the most literal ways possible!
First Event at 7pm:
May 28th - Kristy Woodson Harvey interviews Lisa Wingate & Diane Plauche
Diane Plauche is a volunteer with the Historic New Orleans Collection museum. In 2015, she began assisting the museum in creating a database of historical Lost Friends advertisements, through which formerly enslaved people desperately tried to find their lost families in the decades following emancipation. After reading Lisa Wingate's 2017 novel, Before We Were Yours, Diane wrote to Lisa about the Lost Friends ads, saying, "There is a story in each one of the ads." To date, Diane has entered over 2500 unique ads, and tens of thousands of names in the museum's database, preserving the histories of thousands of families. Diane's work, and the stories of the real-life Lost Friends inspired Lisa's newest novel, The Book Of Lost Friends.
Lisa Wingate is a former journalist, an inspirational speaker, and the author of numerous novels, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Before We Were Yours, which has sold more than 2.2 million copies. The co-author, with Judy Christie, of the nonfiction book, Before and After, Wingate is a two-time ACFW Carol Award winner, a Christy Award nominee, an Oklahoma Book Award finalist, and a Southern Book Prize winner. She lives with her husband in North Texas.
Kristy Woodson Harvey is the bestselling author of Dear Carolina, Lies and Other Acts of Love, Slightly South of Simple, The Secret to Southern Charm and The Southern Side of Paradise. Kristy is the winner of the Lucy Bramlette Patterson Award for Excellence in Creative Writing, and a finalist for the Southern Book Prize
First Interactive Event:
June 4th @ 5pm: Which Fork Do I Use With My Bourbon? by Peggy Noe Stevens & Susan Reigler
Join Peggy and Susan for a tasting and demonstration. Learn how to make an Old Fashioned and a Mint Julep. Ingredients: Old Forester 86 Proof, dried cherries or cranraisins, roasted pecans, caramel candy, squares of dark chocolate Watch the trailer!
Peggy Noe Stevens is founder of the Bourbon Women Association and a master bourbon taster. A lifestyle expert, she is also a professional speaker. As a Bourbon Hall of Fame inductee, she has planned hundreds of events globally over the last thirty years, often working with distilleries and master distillers.
Susan Reigler is a former restaurant critic for the Louisville Courier-Journal and a current correspondent for Bourbon+ and American Whiskey magazines. She has also authored or coauthored six books on bourbon, including Kentucky Bourbon Country: The Essential Travel Guide and The Kentucky Bourbon Cocktail Book.
First Tour Event:
June 9th @ 3pm: How Not to Get Away with Murder in the 1940s
Join Beverly Bell, author of The Murder of Marion Miley, as she traces the path the killers took: how they got in, how they got out and made their escape.
Beverly Bell is an award-winning magazine and crime writer whose work has appeared in Arizona Highways, Indianapolis Monthly, Keeneland Magazine, and Kentucky Monthly. Bell is also a featured consultant in Kentucky Education Television's recent documentary Forgotten Fame: The Marion Miley Story.
Posted By Douglas Calhoun, Social Media and Marketing Intern at SIBA,
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
SIBA is hoping to test and share the kind of aspirational content we think might serve our communities virtually. It's a a good time to uniformly share a message we can all agree on. It's a challenge, but we're going the distance while we socially distance.
We are really excited that a few bookstores were able to contribute to this short video we put together to share throughout social media. Snail On The Wall, Bookmarks, E. Shaver, Story on the Square, Copperfish Books and Hub City Bookshop all shared some short video of the new "day-in-the-life" of bookstore operations.
Our plan is to share the video on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at 2:00 PM EDT on Friday, May 15, and we're planning to amplify this positive message by providing all member bookstores with the file to share at the same time. We want to highlight just how resourceful and flexible indie bookstores are. The more everyone posts this, the more this will be seen by publishers, authors, and loyal customers; put smiles on their faces; and remind them that indie bookstores are here for them.
Here is the ask:
FOR INSTAGRAM: Post the video to your Instagram stories and grid on Friday at 2:00 PM EDT.
Find a suggested caption for underneath your Instagram post here (copy and paste, it's easy!):
Southern Indie Bookstores go the distance. Follow @siba_books to hear about ways to support, collaborate, and partner with the bookstore community and check out what @storyonthesquare @hubcitywriters @copperfishbooks @e.shaver_bookseller and @snailbooks are doing to ensure customers safely receive books. #gothedistance #SIBA20 #indiebookstores
FOR FACEBOOK:
We'll post the video at 2:00 PM EDT on Friday and you can simply share it from there. When you share we encourage you to write:
Southern Indie Bookstores go the distance. #gothedistance #SIBA20 #indiebookstores
FOR TWITTER:
Post video to your Twitter account on Friday at 2:00 PM EDT.
When you share we encourage you to write:
Southern Indie Bookstores go the distance. #gothedistance #SIBA20 #indiebookstores
It is SIBA's goal to continue Reader Meet Writer after a two week break from June 15-July 1. Half of the books that have been featured on Reader Meet Writer have made the Southern Indie Bestseller List the week following their appearance. That bodes well for the program if that keeps up, and we need to hear from stores who are participating. These virtual events have been well received by booksellers, publishers, and authors alike.
Beginning in July, SIBA is going to offer two virtual events a week, one in the afternoon on Tuesdays and in the evenings on Thursdays. We have confirmed Kristen Harmel on July 21st, and Odie Lindsey on August 6th. We will fill in the remaining dates over the next few weeks and keep the calendar updated at the Reader Meet Writer site for booksellers.
Bookseller Chill with Bryan Robinson, Ph.D. is a six-week series that began on March 26 at 2 PM EST and continues each Thursday, same time, same zoom link, till April 30. Each session lasts approximately 30 minutes and include concepts from Bryan's book: #Chill: Turn Off Your Job and Turn On Your Life (HarperCollins, 2019), followed by what Bryan calls simple, short "MicroChiller" meditations that will help us relax and restore during this time of great uncertainty. You can read Bryan's recent post at Forbes.com: The Psychology of Uncertainty: How to Cope with COVID-19 Anxiety.
Bookseller Chill with Bryan Robinson, Ph.D. is a six-week series that began on March 26 at 2 PM EST and continues each Thursday, same time, same zoom link, till April 30. Each session lasts approximately 30 minutes and include concepts from Bryan's book: #Chill: Turn Off Your Job and Turn On Your Life (HarperCollins, 2019), followed by what Bryan calls simple, short "MicroChiller" meditations that will help us relax and restore during this time of great uncertainty. You can read Bryan's recent post at Forbes.com: The Psychology of Uncertainty: How to Cope with COVID-19 Anxiety.
If you haven't signed up to participate in Reader Meet Writer Virtual Author Events, you can do so by simply emailing wanda@sibaweb.com.
Join this list of bookstores and choose from this list of events to present to your customers. Stores are handling the events as they would handle their own virtual events. Some are selling the book as the ticket to attend. Some are selling tickets for a flat rate that can then be used as a credit towards the book or any purchase from the store. Each store determines how they want to use the events to assist in selling more books. It is our hope that we are offering stores an easy way to sell books without the headache of managing a new tool.
When asked "Are you pleased with the outcome?", a resounding YES from participating booksellers:
"Yes! It came together very quickly for us and we're delighted that people joined in and bought some books. Thank you for putting this together."
"Yes - this was an opportunity to have an author event at a time when we otherwise could not at all."
"Yes-- I was super late in getting the word out so this was more than I'd hoped. I'd ordered 2 in for the store and they might not have sold without this. I sold those 2 locally, did one Direct-to-Home shipment and 1 on Bookshop."
"Yes, it attracted some readers that haven't attended our events in the past."
"Very pleased. Excited to participate again soon."
"Yes. We had I believe 86 RSVPs, but it looks like only 2/3 or so actually attended the event. 17 books in less than 24 hours for an online event is nothing to turn up our noses at! Some of these customers also purchased other books in their orders."
"Yes. My customers loved the chance to hear from such a beloved author!"
"Yes! Normally I sell ZERO hardcover debuts."
Last, and most important, only 18 of the current 60 participating bookstore have completed the events survey. This is a really important final step. We need the data to carry this program forward. Please complete this form for each event. Thanks!
THursday Inspiration with SIBA (aka THIS!) is an hour of sharing best practices and tips for surviving, maybe even thriving, during Covid-19. Each week a featured bookseller will discuss what's working at their store, and take your questions. More casual than a webinar, more fun than figuring it all out by yourself. Let's be there for each other so we can all rise together. Pour a cup of coffee, grab a snack, and join us on THIS!, every Thursday at 1 PM EDT.
This week (4/23) Kelly Justice, owner of Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia, will share her experience with Crowdcast, a platform for hosting online events. She's been hosting her new weekly program, Fountain Fix: Cocktails with Kelly! on Crowdcast and has much to share with you about her experience.
Next week (4/30) Shari Stauch, owner of Main Street Reads in Summerville, SC, will discuss MetriCool, a tool for organizing and simplifying your tasks on social media.
SIBA has created the Reader Meet Writer Author Series as an alternative for bookstores that—now that most of the country in under some version of a shelter-in-place order—are seeking to create ways to engage with their customers online. Participating stores will be able to invite their customers to exclusive video events with authors which are only available to SIBA stores. Events will be hosted by SIBA and can be attended by up to 1000 people. Bookstores handle all ticket and book sales from their customers.
We are adding authors to the schedule. First, if you haven't signed up to promote the Reader Meet Writer (RMW) events and sell the books to your customers and want to, email wanda@sibaweb.com. We have two events coming up next week. Lee Smith is on Tuesday, and Ruthie Lindsay is on Wednesday. Their books, Blue Marlin, and There I Am: The Journey from Hopelessness to Healing - A Novel, are both perfect books for the times. And we will soon be offering three or more events a week. Lee Smith has signed a limited number of bookplates in preparation for her SIBA Reader Meet Writer event (April 21 at 4 p-m). Booksellers who are interested in having some bookplates for their readers and/or those who are interested in hosting virtual events should email Lynn York at lynn@blairpub.com.
Let us know how the events are working for you by participating in our survey, and by sending us quotes we can use for promotion with publishers or naysayers. Is this helpful? Is it working? Let us know. We are happy to do this heavy lifting but not if we are getting in the way.
There is an Edelweiss collection of RMW titles and new titles will be added and, of course, we are keeping the website as up to date as possible. Finally, some of you have asked for all of the zoom links and passwords in advance and I'm happy to provide these if you want to get everything created in advance. These passwords simply cannot end up on any public-facing websites or social media. Let us know if you'd like to have all of that in advance.
What booksellers are saying about Reader Meet Writer:
Doing Great today!
"Our web traffic had fallen off then I sent out the notice for Lee Smith in (our version of) Shelf Awareness and we now have more than 35 participants and more than 20 books sales.
I am working hard to get the promos going on the rest of them. I don’t know if the others will be as popular - Lee Smith is a favorite in the mountains as you know - but its a great profit to effort ratio - thanks your and Wanda’s efforts.
Our sales were only averaging about $200 a day - but we’ve hit $550 plus today.
Hope you’re finding some fun time out there. I enjoy your flowers and outdoor pics on Facebook. I hope it won’t be too long till I can post grandkid pictures again."
Stay safe
Doloris Vest
Book No Further
112 Market St SE | Roanoke, VA 24011
dolorisvest@booknofurther.com | www.booknofurther.com
540-206-2505
Bookstore Day has been tentatively rescheduled for Saturday, August 29
Some important news...
• You will be able to amend or cancel your order of IBD exclusives before May 1. Please only do this if you feel you absolutely need to as all exclusives have already been printed and produced according to your original orders. This applies only to the exclusive items coming from Ingram, and does NOT include totes, t-shirts, or bookmarks.
• You can check your IBD order on your iPage (it will show as backordered). Then simply email me with any changes. Please include your Ingram number, store name, the ISBN for each changed item, and the NEW TOTAL. If you originally ordered 10 of something and you want to change it to 5, just put 5 next to the title and ISBN.
• If you missed the original order deadline and still want to place an order of the exclusives for the August 29th date, please use the ORDER FORM (visible on indiebookstoreday.com) and we will see what we can accommodate as the new numbers shake out. You can see the 2020 catalog here.
• A reminder that none of IBD orders will ship from Ingram until the beginning of August (if all goes well) and you will not be billed until it ships. Shea Serrano's Basketball book has been postponed and we are rolling out online sales of Renee Watson's WAYS TO MAKE SUNSHINE this month (see below). Bookmarks and tote bags are no longer available.
Posted By Linda-Marie Barrett,
Thursday, April 9, 2020
Simon & Schuster is partnering with Bookshop.org and Libro.fm to support independent bookstores. For the rest of 2020, Simon & Schuster will donate any affiliate fees earned through sales at Bookshop.org to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation.
In addition to this financial support, they’ve created beautiful assets for booksellers to use on Instagram and Facebook, in which authors like Stephen King, Jason Reynolds, Cassandra Clare, and Lisa See express why independent booksellers need support now more than ever.
Booksellers are unique people who possess equally the rugged individualism of the entrepreneur and a citizen-steward mindset when it comes to our towns, organizations, and communities. Our perspectives can provide insight into the transformation necessary to reemerge from the COVID-19 crisis stronger people that are part of stronger groups.
Ahead of our regularly scheduled May meeting, the SIBA Board would like to invite all members to share the concerns, thoughts, and challenges facing you as members. We would also ask you to bring, if you have them, any contributions of insight or solutions you have found to problems related to this new reality, things that are providing you comfort and inspiration right now, and any ideas you have to share with our organization and our industry for the future. The format will be open. We encourage you to bring your perspectives.
The constantly-changing information regarding this ongoing pandemic and our various states' policy changes surrounding it are causes of fear and insecurity and we are all facing daily, even hourly, personal and community uncertainties. The sudden onset of an increased amount of difficult, important decisions to make and conversations to have is overwhelming for many of us.
The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance is an amazing community of booksellers and entrepreneurs that share together in the best of times and uplift each other during the worst. The SIBA Board of Directors invites all members (owners and managers, we encourage you to also invite your staff members) to participate in a town hall forum on Friday, April 17th from 1-3 PM EDT to begin a discussion designed to determine what we can all do for each another right now, in this incredibly difficult time, and going forward.
Reader Meet Writer, Okra Pick with Steven Wright Coming Up April 16th @ 5 pm – Are you in?
It was so wonderful to hear Steven Wright at #SIBA19 and I’m excited for him to share his book with readers across the south. If you haven’t signed up to participate in SIBA’s Virtual Author Series Reader Meet Writer, you can do so by emailing wanda@sibaweb.com.
And if you have, Steven’s The Coyotes of Carthage is “a blistering and thrilling debut—a biting exploration of American politics, set in a small South Carolina town, about a political operative running a dark money campaign for his corporate clients.” (Edelweiss)
Steven Wright is a clinical associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, where he co-directs the Wisconsin Innocence Project. From 2007-2012 he served as a trial attorney in the Voting Section of the United States Department of Justice. He has written numerous essays about race, criminal justice, and election law for the New York Review of Books.
Bookseller Chill with Bryan Robinson, Ph.D. is a six-week series beginning March 26 at 2 PM EST and continuing each Thursday, same time, same zoom link, till April 30. Each session will last approximately 30 minutes and include concepts from Bryan's book: #Chill: Turn Off Your Job and Turn On Your Life (HarperCollins, 2019), followed by what Bryan calls simple, short "MicroChiller" meditations that will help us relax and restore during this time of great uncertainty. You can read Bryan's recent post at Forbes.com: The Psychology of Uncertainty: How to Cope with COVID-19 Anxiety.
Edelweiss has created a hub page of special offers from publishers, including offers specifically for bookstores facing the challenge of closures and interrupted sales. There are dozens of offers listed, from Arcadia to Wiley Press.
Macmillan has posted their first-ever virtual event grids to Edelweiss, as well as an offer to share some digital marketing tips for successful virtual/live streaming events. Email Melissa.Campion@macmillan.com for more info or start requesting authors now--they're sharing requests with publicists daily, as they come in. Here are the links to them: Macmillan Virtual Event Grid - Adult / Macmillan Virtual Event Grid - Kids/YA
Sign up fo the Workman Chalkboard Digital Resources: Authorless event kits, educational/homeschool materials, author videos, and downloadable visuals for social media to help promote titles and bookseller contests and giveaways for stores and staff plus extra swag for customers! Here is the March chalkboard if you would like to take a look through and get an idea of what it's like. Booksellers that are subscribed are really enjoying it so far.
Simon & Schusterindies.
And so do our authors! Please feel free to download the assets and share the love.
Holiday House has added a new resource page to meet the needs of those booksellers who would like to connect authors/illustrators and their books with community members in a virtual environment. Please feel free to download and print all materials and link to this page on your website, enewsletters, or any other platform. This page compiles all their materials, which includes activities, lesson plans, event kits, read-aloud guidelines, and more. They are adding additional resources daily!
Cavalier House Books co-owner and SIBA Board member John Cavalier presents "Tips for Managing an Unexpected Crisis," focusing on business strategies during COVID-19. During a time of crisis, it's vital to put a plan in place, as a thoughtful response can mean the difference between persevering and closing up shop. John talks generally and specifically about how you can work with your staff and community to craft a plan that will help you achieve your goals. He also provides a list of concrete steps you can take to build resiliency for your store's future and daily operations.
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What do you do if one of your staff tests positive for COVID?
Most of all, don’t panic! A calm and consistent approach to your messaging will reassure your customers and your community. In working with stores, Matchbook Marketing has developed a quick-response series of steps for handling a COVID-positive test situation. We coordinate store PR, providing a fast response to queries, and thus allowing you to focus your support where it is most needed, on your staff and your business. 
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