News you can use from the Land of SIBA, December 31, 2020
From the Land of SIBA A message from SIBA to its membership

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First Things First...


1/6: The Southern Bookseller Review: An Orientation (register)
1/7: Registration opens for Winter Institute (more info)
1/7: Reader Meet Writer - The Wife Upstairs with Rachel Hawkins
1/12: Reader Meet Writer - The Uncollected Stories of Allan Gurganus with Allan Gurganus
1/14: Reader Meet Writer - Wilmington's Lie with David Zucchino
1/25 - 1/29: New Voices New Rooms Winter Retreat
2/1: Southern Book Prize Ballot Deadline (here)
2/9: Reader Meet Writer - Code Name Hélène with Ariel Lawhon
2/11: Reader Meet Writer - Race Against Time with Jerry Mitchell
2/18 - 2/20: ABA Winter Institute
3/4: Reader Meet Writer - Love at First with Kate Clayborn


COVID-19 & Mental Health: A Resource List from the ABA
PW's List of Book Publication Date Changes
Ongoing publisher promotions


SIBA Office Hours on Zoom:

Wednesdays from 1:00 - 2:00 PM EST
803-994-9530 | siba@sibaweb.com

In the Land of SIBA Blog


Prepping for Publisher Speed Dating

Maximize your [12-minute] Speed Dating Meetings with the Publishers! 

SIBA and NAIBA are co-hosting a Publisher Speed Dating event in March 2021 as part of our Spring New Voices New Rooms joint programming. This will be a fantastic opportunity to get your store in front of key publisher folks who make decisions on author tours and more.

Registration will be open for the event in early January, but since "publisher speed dating" is a new program for SIBA bookstores, we want to help you be your best.

If this your first time attending a speed dating session and you aren't sure what to expect, don't wing it. Maribeth Pelly, the  Event Planner of BookTowne is a seasoned speed dater and big believer that this is the most important event of the year.  She’s offering private sessions that are perfect for new stores or stores new to Publisher Speed Dating (and even for veterans who want to vet their current pitch and press kit) who want to grow their event programs in 2021. 

What You will Need:

  • · Press Kit
  • · Confirm a meeting with Maribeth BEFORE Friday Feb 26, 2021. 

What You will Receive:

  • · 90 minute Private Zoom meeting with Maribeth.
  • · Customized tips to help nail your store’s pitch.
  • · Review of your event program goals and fine tuning of your messaging to the publishers.
  • · Final review of your press kit before it goes to “print”
  • · Post Event Recap. Access to Maribeth by phone, text, email, FaceTime, or zoom to review your experience & ask any follow up questions.

COST: $90

GET STARTED: Email Maribeth Pelly ASAP at maribeth@maribethpelly.com to schedule your appointment.


2020 Nancy Olson Award Recipients

Lisa Yee Swope of Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Bonnie Shank of The Storybook Shoppe in Bluffton, South Carolina are the 2020 recipients of the Nancy Olson Bookseller Award.  The Nancy Olson Bookseller Award was launched in 2019 with an anonymous donation from an author who is also an admirer of the late Nancy Olson, founder of Quail Ridge Books. The award, which comes with a $2000 cash prize, honors booksellers who embody the spirit of Olson’s bookselling legacy of supporting writers–especially new writers– other booksellers, and community outreach. (read more)

Bonnie ShankLisa Yee Swope

Meet SIBA's New Social Media Coordinator

Hello Everyone!

Lucy Perkins-WagelMy name is Lucy, and I recently joined the SIBA team to help with the social media side of things. I’m also a bookseller at Copperfish Books in Punta Gorda, Florida, and a member of the SIBA Influencer’s program. I’m so excited to have this opportunity to promote SIBA programs and SIBA stores to both SIBA members and consumers, as I believe SIBA as a whole is doing some phenomenal things, and I want as many people as possible to learn about and hopefully engage with those things! To that end, if you take a fun picture, have a cool display, or something amazing happens at your store and you want to share it, please tag SIBA in your social media post, and/or send content to me directly at lucy@sibaweb.com. Please also follow SIBA across all of our social media channels so that you can see what we’re up to! You can find us on Facebook at Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance and Authors Round the South (soon to be The Southern Bookseller Review), on Instagram at @siba_books, and on Twitter at @SIndies.

I wish all of you a happy and bright new year, and I look forward to seeing what we can all do together in 2021!

- Lucy


The Southern Bookseller Review: An Update

The response to the launch of The Southern Bookseller Review has enthusiastic. The subscriber list increased by 5% within the first couple days of the announcement.

An important component of SBR is a strong social media strategy, designed specifically to raise the profiles of SIBA member stores by sharing their reviews of books. SIBA has welcomed Lucy Perkins-Wagel onto the team as its Social Media Coordinator to manage SIBA's and SBR's social media.

As we move into the New Year, SIBA booksellers and members witll see some further changes as we complete the launch:

Okra Picks is now Read This Next! A selection of seasonal forthcoming books with exceptional bookseller excitement and buzz. See the 2021 Winter Read This Next list in this newsletter.

Lady Banks Bookshelf is now the SBR Shelf: Six books per month, promoted to readers, and click through links to purchase at a SIBA member store.

AuthorsRoundtheSouth.com will redirect to The Southern Bookseller Review website, the new home of SIBA's reader-targeted programming, including the Southern Bestseller List, The Southern Book Prize, and the SBR Newsletter.

The STARS Bookstore Directory will now live on the The Southern Bookseller Review website. All requests for the old site will automatically redirect to the new location.

Don't forget! On January 6 at 2 pm, EST SIBA will be hosting an orientation of The Southern Bookseller Review website and newsletter. We'll take people through the site and discuss how booksellers and publishers can make the most of the new program. REGISTER


Read This Next! Winter 2021

Annoucing Read This Next! 2021 Winter Edition

The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance is pleased to announce the 2021 Winter Read This Next! list: a selection of winter new releases generating extra excitement from Southern independent booksellers. Each of its fifteen titles will publish between January and March of 2021, and has received multiple high ratings and enthusiastic reviews from southern booksellers, marking them as hand-sell favorites for the forthcoming season. 

Winter 2021 Read This Next titles are chosen from books publishing between January and March and reflect the wide range of reading tastes of booksellers from across the entire Southeast.  Put one of these at the top of your TBR stack, because you will want to read these next!

See the Edelweiss Collection here

Winter 2021 Read This Next

The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins
St. Martin’s Press, January

“This is one of those books that you can't wait to get back to so you can figure out what is happening.” –Amy McNabb, Reading Rock Books in Dickson, TN

The Push by Ashley Audrain
Pamela Dorman Books, January

“This book will suck you in about the beauty and ugly of being a mother. It shook me to my core!” – Deanna Bailey, Story on the Square in McDonough, GA

The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, January

“An incredible debut novel filled with love, light, suffering, pain, and deep beauty - sure to be one of the year's best.” –Caleb Masters, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, NC

The Fortunate Ones by Ed Tarkington
Algonquin Books, January

“A compelling tale of relationships, money, facade, and good old Southern grandeur.” – Talia Smart, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC

Outlawed by Anna North
Bloomsbury Publishing, January

“Anna North has taken the traditional Western and flipped it on its head with a feminist twist for a very refreshing and timely novel about self-worth.” – Carl Kranz, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, VA

Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant
Balzer + Bray, January

“One of those wonderful reads that leaves its readers nose-wrinkling happy.” –Brittany Bunzey, Read With Me in Raleigh, NC

The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O’Donnell
Tin House, January

“A sooty and shadow-filled Victorian London acts as a sentient backdrop to the sinister, dark, clever (and somehow even hilarious at times), detective mystery.” – Cat Chapman, Oxford Exchange in Tampa, FL

Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor
Tordotcom, January

“A slow-paced meditation - think The Hobbit meets The Prey of Gods - about a young girl who calls down the supernatural and must come to terms with those consequences.” – Lizy Coale, Copperfish Books in Punta Gorda, FL

The Merciful by Jon Sealy
Haywire Books, January

“Every book club needs to put Merciful at the top of their "next to read" list… a thoughtful and compelling story of just how an accident affects not only the victim and the perpetrator, but also those close to them.” -- Brent Bunnell, Fiction Addiction in Greenville, SC

The Project by Courtney Summers
Wednesday Books, February

“Perfectly encapsulates the dueling states of fragility and ferocity that exist within young women when they find themselves alone in a world that isn't designed to protect them from harm. I dare you to pick up this brilliant novel.” -- Cristina Russell, Books and Books in Coral Gables, FL

The Girl from the Channel Islands by Jenny Lecoat
Graydon House, February

“The journey of Lecoat’s two main characters from subjugated and master to equal lovers is one that keeps you on the edge of your seat. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale. -- Annie Childress, E. Shaver, bookseller in Savannah, GA

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner
Park Row, March

“I inhaled this book. The plot sucked me in and checked so many boxes for me--mudlarking (on my bucket list), forgotten women-centric history, botanical poisons, revenge against men behaving badly, and of course, secret apothecaries.” -- Candice Conner, The Haunted Bookshop in Mobile, AL

Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert
Avon, March

“Talia Hibbert is the queen of cozy, sexy, hate-to-love romance and I want to soak in the Brown sisters' stories forever.” -- Sami Thomason, Square Books in Oxford, MS

Red Island House by Andrea Lee
Scribner, March

“A novel of betrayal and class and colonialism, of race and culture, this is a story of finding your own foundational dignity in life’s wreckage.”– Miranda Sanchez, Epilogue Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, NC

Raft of Stars by Andrew J. Graff
Ecco, March

“This book was just what I needed right now and the most satisfying version of ‘kids in peril’ that I can remember. I will be an evangelist for this book.” -- Angela Schroeder, Sunrise Books in High Point, NC

Read more about Read This Next! at The Southern Bookseller Review:

https://thesouthernbooksellerreview.org


The SBR Bookshelf for January, 2021

SIBA promotes six new books every month to readers, the customers of our member stores, in our Southern Bookseller Review (SBR) Bookshelf promotion. These titles appear at the top of our weekly SBR newsletter, which has a circulation of over 60k. We also feature them on our SBR facebook page, with buy links promoted to our 15,000 Facebook friends, and on our Instagram and Twitter accounts. A different member store is featured with the titles every week. We give SIBA member stores a heads up on each month’s featured titles, to encourage in-store and online displays.

For publishers looking to promote their new titles out to readers across the South, the SBR Bookshelf is our greatest value because of high visibility and engagement across multiple platforms. Contact us for more information or to get your titles on “The Shelf” in coming months.

Coming up for January:

Edelweiss Collection



Reader Meet Writer: January

Reader Meet WriterAre you interested in joining the circle of bookstores sending invites to their customers? Please email Linda-Marie and we'll discuss what's involved.

Booksellers Resource page

The Wife Upstairs with Rachel Hawkins
Thu Jan 7th 7:00pm - 8:00pm 2021

The Wife UpstairsRachel Hawkins

Read the Reviews

RACHEL HAWKINS is the New York Times bestselling author of multiple books for young readers, and her work has been translated in over a dozen countries. She studied gender and sexuality in Victorian literature at Auburn University and currently lives in Alabama. The Wife Upstairs is her first adult novel.

The Uncollected Stories of Allan GurganusThe Uncollected Stories of Allan Gurganus with Allan Gurganus
Tue Jan 12th 5:00pm - 6:00pm

Allan Gurganus is widely translated, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Adaptations of his fiction have earned four Emmys, and his stories have been appearing in The New Yorker since 1974. He lives in a small town in North Carolina.

Wilmington's LieWilmington's Lie with David Zucchino
Thu Jan 14th 7:00pm - 8:00pm

David Zucchino is a contributing writer for The New York Times. He has covered wars and civil conflicts in more than three dozen countries. Zucchino was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his dispatches from apartheid South Africa and is a four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist for his reporting from Iraq, Lebanon, Africa, and inner-city Philadelphia. He is the author of Thunder Run and Myth of the Welfare Queen.

This week on Circle of Sites

Read more about SIBA's Circle of Sites Program (aka the "banner for dues" program) and find out whether your store is eligible to participate and receive free membership dues.


Read This! Recently Posted on The Southern Bookseller Review

The Southern Bookseller Review

SUBSCRIBE | CURRENT ISSUE

The Children's TrainThe Children’s Train by Viola Ardone
On Edelweiss | Buy

Amerigo is a child in southern Italy sent north with other children to escape the deprived conditions after WWII. Choosing to stay with his adoptive family he lives a good life. Going home fifty years later for his mother’s funeral causes him to rethink his life and what a family really means. A great book that will provoke good book club discussions.


The Children’s Train by Viola Ardone, Clarissa Botsford (Trans.) (List Price: $16.99, HarperVia, 9780062940513, January 2021)
Reviewed by Beth Carpenter, The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, North Carolina


First Comes LikeFirst Comes Like by Alisha Rai
On Edelweiss | Buy

It turns out a there is nothing better in a romance novel than a fake relationship trope! I’ve been waiting for Jia’s story since we first met her and First Comes Like did not disappoint. Jia, the youngest of five Pakistani American sisters, often feels like she is “too much.” She’s incredibly dedicated to her career as a make-up vlogger, which took her to the other side of the country from her family, and is often regarded as impulsive. But really she’s smart and savvy, so when she realizes she’s been catfished, a fake relationship is her answer to making sure her family does not find out. I especially loved the romance in this book; Dev and Jia are so perfectly matched even if they came together in an unconventional way. Every decision Jia made felt true to her personality, her loyalty to her family and friends, and her religion. I loved this book!

First Comes Like by Alisha Rai (List Price: $15.99, Avon, 9780062878151, February, 2021)
Reviewed by Kate Storhoff, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina


Do Not DisburbLove and Other Lies by Ben McPherson
On Edelweiss | Buy

At the beginning, Love and Other Lies was a fast paced typical thriller to read. One which centered on a horrific event–the mass killing at a summer camp for teens, and the disappearance of one of the young campers. It was about the relationship between husband and wife, the love they still have for each other after 15 years of marriage and the lies they might be telling, and about their relationships with their teen daughters. Then you begin to realize what might have really happened and it suddenly becomes an extremely thought-provoking and unnerving story that could have easily been taken from true events. It shows the horrors that can occur with the rise of white supremacy, and how normal people with the best values can be infected by political ideology.

Love and Other Lies is not a feel good story by any means, but it is an important story with lots and lots of topics to discuss and a story that is definitely pertinent to the times in which we live. This is a book that you will think about for a long time after you put it down.

Love and Other Lies by Ben McPherson (List Price: $16.99, William Morrow Paperbacks, 9780062406149, 2/9/2021)
Reviewed by Nancy McFarlane, Fiction Addiction in Greenville, South Carolina.

More bookseller reviews


This month on the SBR Shelf

The Southern Independent Bestseller List

southern bestseller list

FULL BESTSELLER LIST
Online/Printable

For the week ending 12/27/2020.

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. A Time for Mercy John Grisham, Doubleday, $29.95, 9780385545969
2. The Vanishing Half Brit Bennett, Riverhead Books, $27, 9780525536291
3. Ready Player Two Ernest Cline, Ballantine, $28.99, 9781524761332
4. The Searcher Tana French, Viking, $27, 9780735224650
5. The Midnight Library Matt Haig, Viking, $26, 9780525559474

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. A Promised Land Barack Obama, Crown, $45, 9781524763169
2. The Best of Me David Sedaris, Little, Brown, $30, 9780316628242
3. Untamed Glennon Doyle, The Dial Press, $28, 9781984801258
4. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Charlie Mackesy, HarperOne, $22.99, 9780062976581
5. Modern Comfort Food Ina Garten, Clarkson Potter, $35, 9780804187060


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SIBA | 51 Pleasant Ridge Drive | Asheville, NC 28805


Useful Links
SIBA Office Hours on Zoom:
Wednesdays 1:00-2:00 PM EST
Available during regular business hours at 803-994-9530, or anytime at siba@sibaweb.com

In the Land of SIBA Blog
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The Booksellers' WaterCooler | Ongoing publisher promotions

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nicki@sibaweb.com


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