A Modest Proposal, or A Little Summer Fun

Noting that Book Publishers Northwest (BPNW)'s shared display with the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) and the Northwest Association of Book Publishers (NWABP) at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) Trade Show would be the BPNW/IBPA/NWABP display at PNBA, member David Ash of Basho Press made the following modest proposal:

I propose that we should all merge and change our name to the Society of Western Educational, Entertainment, and Trade Book Independent Progressive Publishing Yahoos, or SWEET BIPPY for short. It would make walking into an industry cocktail party much more interesting if that were on our name tags!

However, IBPA member Mary Shafer of Word Forge Books responded:

I agree that it would be interesting — but wouldn’t this be the cause for much unauthorized gambling? Because I can just see it now: everyone wanting to “bet their SWEET BIPPY” on something. And what kind of consternation might it cause if a member were to win one of the Independent Publishing awards? Can you just hear it? “We’re proud to present this year’s IPPY to someone from SWEET BIPPY!” And God help us if that winner just happened to be from Mississippi...