From the Land of SIBAA message from SIBA to its membership
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First Things First...
1/14: Reader Meet Writer - Wilmington's Lie with David Zucchino (here) 1/27: Press Kit Webinar with Maribeth Pelly (here) 1/27: Love & Pajamas! Romance before Bedtime with HarperCollins (here) 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 3/9-3/12: NVNR Presents: Publicity Speed Dating 3/23-3/25: NVNR March Madness: Social Media Retreat
New Voices New Rooms, New Season! NAIBA & SIBA comes together again to offer a series of spring events for booksellers. Mark your calendars now!
January:
1/27 at 10 AM EST: Press Kit Webinar with Marybeth Pelly, Event Planner at BookTowne Free to NAIBA/SIBA members, the webinar is an important preparatory step for the Publicity Speed Dating event in
March. (register here)
1/27 at 7 PM EST: Love & Pajamas: Romance before Bedtime with HarperCollins Authors will read a romantic passage from their books. Moderated by Laura Taylor, Bookstore and Programming Manager at Oxford Exchange
in Tampa, Fl. (register here)
Coming Soon:NVNR March
March 9-12: NVNR Presents: Publicity Speed Dating Pitch your bookstore to up to 25 publisher representatives. This popular annual NAIBA event will now open to booksellers from SIBA as well.
March 23-25: NVNR March Madness: Bookseller Social Media Retreat Take a deep dive into your social media strategies. This retreat is designed for both beginners and more advanced social media users, and will
cover design and posting best practices for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, with plenty of time for booksellers to trade information on what works best for their stores.
NVNR Presents: Love & Pajamas!
Put on your comfiest pajamas, brew up a cup of cocoa or something stronger, and listen to five romance authors read romantic passages from their new books. Booksellers are gathering “meeting style” so we can see each other
for the first time since the NVNR fall conference! Meet old and new friends in the chat, enjoy company, and be soothed and inspired by an hour of love and romance (and laughs).
We're doing this event "meeting style" so everyone can see each other and compare their jammies. There will also be a raffle for a $100 gift card.
This event is only open to members of regional bookseller associations. Register here
Synithia Williams has loved romance novels since reading her first one at the age of 13. It was only natural that she would one day write her own romance. When she isn’t writing, Synithia works on water quality
issues in the Midlands of South Carolina while taking care of her supportive husband and two sons. You can learn more about Synithia by visiting her website, www.synithiawilliams.com.
USA Today Bestselling author Naima Simone's love of romance was first stirred by Johanna Lindsey and Nora Roberts years ago. Well not that many. She is only eighteen...ish. Published since 2009, she spends
her days writing sizzling romances with heart, a touch of humor and snark. She is wife to Superman--or his non-Kryptonian equivalent--and mother to the most awesome kids ever. They live in perfect, sometimes domestically-challenged
bliss in the southern US.
Mona Shroff is obsessed with everything romantic, so she writes romantic stories by night, even though she's an optometrist by day. If she's not writing, she's making chocolate truffles, riding her bike, or reading, and
is just as likely to be drinking wine or gin & tonic with friends and family. She's blessed with an amazing daughter and loving son who have both gone to college. Mona lives in Maryland with her romance-loving husband.
Preslaysa Williams is an award-winning author who writes heartwarming romance and women's fiction with an Afro-Filipina twist. Proud of her heritage, she loves sharing her culture with her readers. A graduate of Columbia
University, Preslaysa is a professional actress, a planner nerd, an avid bookworm, and a homeschool mom who wears mismatched socks.
Cat Sebastian lives in a swampy part of the South with her husband, three kids, and two dogs. Before her kids were born, she practiced law and taught high school and college writing. When she isn’t reading or
writing, she’s doing crossword puzzles, bird watching, and wondering where she put her coffee cup.
NVNR Presents: Press Kit Webinar with Maribeth Pelly
SIBA and NAIBA, under their New Voices New Rooms (NVNR) partnership, are collaborating this year on Publicity Speed Dating, which will take place virtually March 9-12. Save the Date! More details and registration links will be available
in February. This is a new opportunity for SIBA booksellers, and will be open to the first 40 SIBA member stores that sign up, so please stay tuned. You will want to be part of it!
In preparation for this event, we’re offering a Press Kit Preparation webinar with Maribeth Pelly, Event Planner at Booktowne in Manasquan, NJ on Wednesday, January 27 at 10AM EST. The webinar is free and recommended for stores
who have not created or recently reviewed their press kits. SIBA stores that participated in previous press kit programming with Maribeth Pelly raved about the results.
*NOTE: stores who wish to attend publicity speed dating in March must upload a press kit to complete that registration. This webinar will help you update and analyze your current document before speed dating registration opens in February.
Tuesday's Reader Meet Writer with Allan Gurganus (our 50th recording!) was a really special event. One attendee wrote to thank their bookstore for making it possible:
"Thank you for sharing your many fine authors! Your series is a part of literary history in America, and the World....Big Applause to Wiley Cash for his serious, yet warm specific questions. I noted that Allan worked beyond
the question to the bigger questions of life, and that made the Q&A more like a Q&Beyond... wonderful conversation."
The event is now live to view:
Tonight's Reader Meet Writer at 7:00 PM EST features David Zucchino, author of Wilmington's Lie. There has been a surge of interest after the events of last week. A number of national news organizations, including CNN,
ran pieces on the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot as an example of an earlier insurrection against an elected government. So we expect this edition of Reader Meet Writer to be well-attended.
Wilmington'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
Picnic In the Ruins by Todd Robert Petersen On Edelweiss | Buy
What a great away to start the new year! Take a dollop of Hiaasen, add some Hillerman, grind it all up with a Craig Child pestle (my favorite naturalist writer and historian), and you end up with a great metaphysical mishmash of
cultures, places, of history and who does it belong too, all under the wide open Southwestern skies and the stoic remains of a people long since disappeared. I can’t wait to share this utterly entertaining novel with
people!
Picnic In the Ruins by Todd Robert Petersen (List Price: $16.95, Counterpoint, 9781640093225, 1/5/2021) Reviewed by Pete Mock, McIntyre’s Fine Books in
Pittsboro, North Carolina
Grace and Box by Kim Howard, Megan Lotter (Illus.) On Edelweiss | Buy
Friends come in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes they come in the mail! Grace and Box is the perfect read-aloud for every child who has enjoyed a long afternoon with a cardboard box, a pack of sharpies and some tape.
Grace and Box by Kim Howard, Megan Lotter (Illus.) (List Price: $18.99, Felwel & Friends, 9781250262943, 1/26/2021) Reviewed by Angie Tally, The Country Bookshop in
Southern Pines, North Carolina
Fans of The Hating Game, rejoice! Thorne’s third novel lives up to the promise of her first with dizzying dialogue, undeniable chemistry, and some legitimate tear-jerking moments. Second First Impressions has
characters you will love, from sheltered protagonist Ruthie to cackling biddies Renata and Aggie. Goofy hero Teddy is different from your average dreamboat, and his burgeoning relationship with Ruthie has all the bliss and
heartache of true love. This is a cozy, cuddle-up-on-the-couch comfort read that’s sure to become as popular as its predecessors.
Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne (List Price: $15.99, William Morrow Paperbacks, 9780062912855, 4/13/2021) Reviewed by Sami Thomason, Square Books in
Oxford, Mississippi
1. The Vanishing Half Brit Bennett, Riverhead Books, $27, 9780525536291 2. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue V.E. Schwab, Tor, $26.99, 9780765387561 3. The Prophets Robert Jones, Jr., Putnam, $27, 9780593085684 4. Mexican Gothic Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Del Rey, $27, 9780525620785 5. The Midnight Library Matt Haig, Viking,
$26, 9780525559474
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Charlie Mackesy, HarperOne, $22.99, 9780062976581 2. Caste Isabel Wilkerson, Random House, $32, 9780593230251 3. A Promised Land Barack Obama, Crown, $45, 9781524763169 4. Wintering Katherine May, Riverhead Books, $24, 9780593189481 5. Greenlights Matthew McConaughey, Crown, $30, 9780593139134
Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Supporting independent bookstores in the South SIBA | 51 Pleasant Ridge Drive | Asheville, NC 28805
Thank you for your interest in SIBA, Nicki Leone SysAdmin
nicki@sibaweb.com
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Wilmington's Lie with David Zucchino
