ABA's Lightning Talk series features booksellers presenting 5-10 minute talks on tech tools, organizational strategies, communication methods, or innovations they've made in their stores. On March 14, 2024, Bregette Poore (Child's Play Toys & Books) discussed buying and sourcing toys.

Session Video & Resources

Additional bookstore education resources can be found at www.bookweb.org.

Theme by Constant Companion

Join Ron Smithson and Marsha Wood as they discuss how Ingram is investing in indie bookstores through new warehouse improvements, and how the recent ipage enhancements can help increase productivity while decreasing downtime.

Session Resources

Recorded June 12, 2024 at Children's Institute 2024 in New Orleans, LA

Additional bookstore education resources can be found at www.bookweb.org.

Theme song by Constant Companion

ABA's Indies Introduce interview series spotlights debut authors handpicked by booksellers from around the country. In each episode, a bookseller from the Indies Introduce panel interviews an author featured in the program to celebrate the release of their book.

In this episode, Sally Sue Lavigne of Story Book Shoppe (Bluffton, SC) interviews Steven Banbury, author of The Pumpkin Princess and the Forever Night, available September 3, 2024, at your local independent bookstore.

Theme by Constant Companion

Reading is on the decline. We've all heard it and we're all worried. It will take a bookstore organizing and community effort to relight the spark of literacy in not just kids, but also their parents. Bookstores with active reading programs will share models that work for them that booksellers can implement in their bookstores. This session will include time for a discussion on how the collective can work together to keep kids in bookstores.

Session Resources

Recorded June 12, 2024 at Children's Institute 2024 in New Orleans, LA

Additional bookstore education resources can be found at www.bookweb.org.

Theme song by Constant Companion

Free Expression Friday is an interview series from ABA's American Booksellers for Free Expression celebrating the amazing work of booksellers, organizers, and book people in general fighting for the right to read.

Willie Carver Jr. was once Kentucky's educator of the year. But when state education guidelines were put in place targeting LGBTQ+ students and forcing teachers to participate in censorship, he had to make an impossible choice: refuse to comply or do harm to his students. Carver is one of the contributors to Trouble in Censorville, a new book from Disobedience Press, and is joined by one of the editors, Rebekah Modrak, in discussion with ABFE's Philomena Polefrone.

Content warning for systemic LGBTQ+-phobia and racism.

Follow the American Booksellers for Free Expression on Instagram at @ABFEFreeExpression to keep up with ABFE's advocacy efforts and tune into their Free Expression Friday series. Additional bookstore education resources can be found at www.bookweb.org.

Theme by Constant Companion

ABA's Lightning Talk series features booksellers presenting 5-10 minute talks on tech tools, organizational strategies, communication methods, or innovations they've made in their stores. On August 8, 2024, Courtney Ulrich Smith of Underbrush Books (Rogers, AR) discussed Subscription Programs.

Session Video & Resources

Additional bookstore education resources can be found at www.bookweb.org.

Theme by Constant Companion

This session is exclusively designed for publishers and led by events managers from bookstores with longstanding histories of successful events. Booksellers will present how events (virtual, hybrid, and in-person) have evolved since the onset of COVID-19 in 2020 through today. They will investigate factors that impact the new needs of bookstores and customers as they pertain to events and school visits, and share solutions that cultivate cross-industry collaboration so that bookstores, event participants, authors, and publishers have their needs met now and into the future.

Session Resources

Recorded June 10, 2024 at Children's Institute 2024 in New Orleans, LA

Additional bookstore education resources can be found at www.bookweb.org.

Theme song by Constant Companion

The nature of authors' events continuously changes from one event to the next. However, COVID-19 has forced an evolution in events that can leave event coordinators wondering why they aren't meeting their event goals. This session will discuss updated strategies for forming mutually beneficial relationships with publishing partners, managing ticketing and turnout, and creating an ordering strategy that feels less like throwing spaghetti at the wall and more like a tactical approach to hitting your event numbers bullseye.

Session Resources

Recorded June 12, 2024 at Children's Institute 2024 in New Orleans, LA

Additional bookstore education resources can be found at www.bookweb.org.

Theme song by Constant Companion

Free Expression Friday is an interview series from ABA's American Booksellers for Free Expression celebrating the amazing work of booksellers, organizers, and book people in general fighting for the right to read.

Utah has banned 13 books statewide, the first batch of what threaten to be many statewide bans under a law passed this year, HB 29. The law institutes a three-strikes system that means books banned in three districts or two districts and five charter schools could be banned statewide. It's a stunning escalation in the book ban crisis. Peter Bromberg of EveryLibrary and Let Utah Read joined ABFE to discuss the law, its implications, and how organizers and Utah have been resisting.

Follow the American Booksellers for Free Expression on Instagram at @ABFEFreeExpression to keep up with ABFE's advocacy efforts and tune into their Free Expression Friday series. Additional bookstore education resources can be found at www.bookweb.org.

Theme by Constant Companion

ABA's Lightning Talk series features booksellers presenting 5-10 minute talks on tech tools, organizational strategies, communication methods, or innovations they've made in their stores. On August 8, 2024 Danielle King of Left Bank Books (St. Louis, MO) discussed Writing Compelling Shelf Talkers.

Session Video & Resources

Additional bookstore education resources can be found at www.bookweb.org.

Theme by Constant Companion