Join BPNW and Save $30 From IBPA!

A 2009 membership in Book Publishers Northwest costs $50. But upon receipt of your payment, we will send you a $30 coupon for the Independent Book Publishers Association. This coupon can be used for an IBPA membership or selected services.

BPNW members can attend regular meetings at the Good Shepherd Center in Seattle for free. They can also bring members of their company for free. They receive listings in directory. Special offers for publishers as available. And a network of like-minded people to ask about the business!

To join Book Publishers Northwest for 2009, mail $50 to:
Book Publishers Northwest
Attn: 2009 Membership
PO Box 9535
Seattle WA 98109

Please include the following information with payment:
Business Name
Type of business: Publisher or Service for Publishers
Contact Name
Mailing address
Website
Contact e-mail

Please indicate if this information can be published in the membership directory and include a one-paragraph description of the business.

Checks should be made out to Book Publishers Northwest.

Nonexistent Email or Why You Haven't Received A Newsletter

Book Publishers Northwest e-mails a newsletter at least once a month to anyone who subscribes (see right hand column for subscription information). We also send out reminders and offers to members at least once a month or more. If you have signed up for a subscription in the past and have not received anything from us in November or December, we may have a bad e-mail for you.

We recently removed the following e-mails from our lists as they had turned up as "nonexistent" for more than three tries. This only means that our ISP could not find these addresses and does not imply that a business is closed:

Deleted as of Dec 28 2008
gail at rastonpublishing.com
info at cirosbooks.com
info at raincitypublishing.com
lbinlow at kalama.com
sroberts at winetrails.com

ISP actively blocking our e-mail
Telcomplus.net
This ISP will not allow any of our e-mails to be delivered to its customers. If you are a Telcomplus client, you need to set up another account, such as Gmail, to receive our newsletters or contact Telcomplus customer service.

If you have any questions, please contact us at bpnwnews at aol.com.

A Report on Publishers' Props

Last spring, members of Book Publishers Northwest were asked if they could contribute letterhead and envelopes as props for the movie World's Greatest Dad. Here's a note from Lisa De Alva on this film.

It's been a while since I first contacted you for help with props on "World's Greatest Dad" and I wanted to send along some good news: "World's Greatest Dad" has been accepted to the Sundance Film Festival!

Unfortunately since the movie has been edited in Los Angeles, none of us here have seen a finished cut, so I'm not sure how many of the publishers who so kindly helped us will see their names, logos or stationery used, but I'm hoping for a good showing!

I wish all of you a very Happy New Year and thanks so much again for participating in our movie!

Cheers, Lisa De Alva
Property Mistress, "World's Greatest Dad"

PNBA Preparing Spring Catalog for Booksellers

The Pacific NW Booksellers Association is following their popular Holiday Catalog with a new "Leafing Out" Catalog for regional booksellers to distribute in the Spring.

PNBA Marketing Director Brian Juenemann suggests that publishers consider buying space in the catalgo for books with regional appeal, gifts for moms, grads, dads, inspiration for the garden, or activities to keep the kids busy when school lets out.

"Flip through your catalogs, confer with your rep and pick my brain--if I have your catalog on hand, I have surely flagged my odds-on favorites for success. It all has to be in place by February 11th, when production begins--and, space sold out last year--so don't push your decisions too far into the new year. I'm looking forward to talking a little spring with you," Juenemann wrote in a recent e-mail to publishers.

Junemann's contact information is:

Brian Juenemann
Marketing Director
Pacific NW Booksellers Assoc.
541-683-4363
brian@pnba.org

Borders and Publisher Experiment with "No Returns"

(Reuters) - Borders Group Inc , the second-largest U.S. bookseller, will accept books from publisher HarperStudio on a nonreturnable basis, departing from a decades-old publishing tradition, the Wall Street Journal reported.


Full Article

A Gift from Betsy in Florida

Betsy Wright-Lampe, Association Executive of the Florida Publishers Association, Inc, sent the following list of helpful websites. Enjoy!

Website Analytics and Search Engine Optimization Tools
Alexa: http://www.alexa.com
Google Analytics: http://www.google.com/analytics
Technorati: http://www.technorati.com
Del.icio.us: http://www.del.icio.us.com
IceRocket: http://www.IceRocket.com
Feedster: http://www.feedster.com
Feedburner: http://www.feedburner.com


Social Network Sites
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com
Bebo: http://www.bebo.com (Primarily in UK, Europe, growing in the US)


About Blogs
www.bloggingtips.com
www.bloglines.com
www.dailyblogtips.com
www.startingablog.com
www.blogit.com


Blog Hosting Services
TypePad: http://www.typepad.com
Blogger: http://www.blogger.com
WordPress: http://www.wordpress.com
Blogflux: http://www.blogflux.com
Movabletype: http://www.movabletype.com
LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com
Windows Live Space: http://home.services.spaces.live.com/

Email Services
Vertical Response: http://www.verticalresponse.com
Constant Contact: http://www.constantcontact.com
Topica: http://www.topica.com
GetResponse: http://www.getresponse.com
Aweber: http://aweber.com/?298144


Happy Holidays, cousins!

Best,
Betsy

Betsy Wright-Lampe
Association Executive
Florida Publishers Association, Inc.
P. O. Box 430
Highland City, FL 33846-0430
phone/fax (863) 647-5951
email: FPAbooks@aol.com
website: www.FLbookpub.org

FPA is an affiliate of the Association of American Publishers (www.publishers.org), the Independent Book Publishers Association (www.ibpa-online.org) and the Small Publishers Association of North America (www.SPANnet.org). FPA is a member of the Florida Library Association (www.FLAlib.org) and the Florida Association for Media in Education (www.FloridaMedia.org).

Ingram Publishing Services

The following discussion was posted recently on the affiliates' list of IBPA.

“I have heard great things about Ingram Publishing Services, the distributor arm of Ingram. Not only are they excellent performers, they are financially sound.“

I just spoke to Janet McDonald there yesterday (lucky coincidence, no?). They have had great success with non-fiction that targets a clearly identifiable audience, but they are also interested in fiction and more popular non-fiction. They work with larger publishers, but have some clients that do as little as $100k per year in sales.

They are also actively looking for new clients. Janet herself is the contact person: Janet.McDonald@ingrambook.com.

As far as I can see, the big pro is that it's Ingram. The con is that so few folks know that Ingram has a distribution arm, so you don't get the automatic street cred that you might from IPG, NBN or Consortium, for example.

As for financially sound—all the big companies have, for very sound reasons, been using modern cash management techniques, which require access to very short-term, low-risk loans on a frequent basis. Unfortunately, in the current economic situation, bank lending officers are over-reacting and those taps are sometimes cut off when there's no reason to do so.

That means that any large company can hit a brick wall with very little warning. Be warned, and get your UCC-1s filed on the inventory in other companies' warehouses, and make other similar preparations for unforeseen problems with your large trading partners.

Of course, that's just my opinion, and you should each assess your risks and exposures individually.

Marion Gropen
Gropen Associates, Inc.
By-The-Question Consulting, Tools for Publishers, & Classes
www.GropenAssoc.com
Her blog: www.GropenAssoc.com/blog

BPNW Members Party

The Book Publishers Northwest members party will take place on Dec. 6. Please e-mail host Sheryn Hara for directions: sherynhara at earthlink.net.


Members will have received a longer invitation via e-mail on Dec. 1. If you are a member of Book Publishers Northwest and did not receive your invitation, please e-mail bpnwnews at aol.com.

Oguneye Heard on KUOW

BPNW member Kunle Oguneye recently appeared on KUOW's "Sound Focus" to discuss his first children's book called "Sikulu and Harambe By the Zambezi River."

This first in a series of picture books was adapted from a tales that Oguneye heard growing up in Nigeria.

Listen to an archive edition of this interview at KUOW's website.

Use IBPA Services

BPNW members receive an affiliate discount for Independent Book Publishing Association's membership. The organization offers many services for small publishers including dispute resolution:

"IBPA does have a dispute resolution program. I wish it were better known. We might not be the publishing equivalent of Batman or the Avenger, but we do speak for 4,000 or so independent publishers, and that counts for something." - IBPA board member

Some websites recommended for promoting fiction

Janey Bennett, author of Pale Surface of Things, was BPNW's guest speaker on November 20. Following are some of Janey's suggestions from her talk on promoting fiction:

Awards – Pale Surface has seven of them. It’s one of the miracles of this book’s promotion. We found the competitions mostly through ads on www.shelfawareness.com, which I recommend reading daily. It’s a great source of ideas.

I also received one fellowship and two awards before publication, for the manuscript of Pale Surface, from sites I found in Poets and Writers Magazine. Those start the process of moving the air molecules around your title and name.
http://www.pw.org/content/grants_amp_awards_your_guide_writing_contests


Press Release – When Pale Surface got the seventh award, we sent out a press release on www.PRWeb.com and it’s still (5 months later) drawing hits to our website, www.palesurfaceofthings.com. I would only send a press release when I had news, like seven awards, because puff press releases annoy people. Use press releases wisely.

Websites – My website, www.palesurfaceofthings.com has grown into a collection of information, an interview, a press area, reviews, reader comments, a slide show of my research photos of Crete, a lot of things connected to the book. But for interviews, we found it a good idea to set up a second website at www.janeybennett.com which offers information on my other writing (including a sample), and some mention of my other endeavors and my background. The two sites are linked.

Other internet ideas keep coming to me, and will come to you. Some are great, and sometimes I just roll my eyes and go back to work on the next novel. It’s a balancing act, how much you want to do. This is what I have done. I’m sure I’m forgetting some things, but here we are. The book is alive and kicking, and life is lovely.

New section of articles by BPNW members

Recognizing that Book Publishers Northwest's members have wealth of knowledge to share, we've started a new section of informational articles by our members. Click on the link in the right-hand column to see the latest offering from our members.

HOW TO: Turn A Blog Post Into a Podcast for Free

Another useful article on Mashable about converting blog posts into audio files that can be downloaded through iTunes.


HOW TO: Convert Your Blog Into a Podcast on iTunes for Free

Posted using ShareThis

11 Sites to Make Money Selling Old Gadgets

Mashable is one of your editor's favorite sources of new and wonderful ideas available around the Internet.

If you're thinking of clearing out the office this month, consider how that old equipment might be reused or recycled or just earn you a little extra cash:


11 Sites to Make Money Selling Old Gadgets

Posted using ShareThis

Why You Should Apply for Pub U Scholarship

A Word about IBPA’s Publishing University (Pub-U)

Gail Sexton here, of Raston Publishing. I was the 2008 Book Publishers Northwest recipient of the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Pub-U scholarship. Each year IBPA accepts entries and chooses one winner from each affiliate. The scholarship includes the cost of attending the full conference ($775 for non-members, $675 for members) as well as a badge to attend BEA ($55.) You’d think that would be enough, but the scholarship includes a $500 stipend to be reimbursed after the conference! Niiiiiccce.

Do whatever you have to do to go – it is transformational. It’s the difference between reading about Italy and going to Italy. Reading about Italy is educational, going to Italy changes you. If you’re serious about being a member of the larger publishing community, this is the place to be. If you’ve previously submitted for the scholarship, submit again! This year there were over 100 industry professionals who donated their time to Pub-U to give practical industry advice as well as tons of inspiration. They enjoy getting to know the up and coming as much as we enjoy rubbing shoulders with them!

Remember, Book Expo America (BEA) begins right at the tail end of Pub-U, and in 2009 we’ll all be in New York City! I’ll be going on my own dime in 2009, because it’s that fabulous. Go, go, GO!! Go to Pub-U and BEA. Plan and budget now. Invest in your life, inspire your passion, connect with your publishing community, put your toe in the water – let yourself belong.

Be open. If you don’t go in, you can’t find out.

November 20 Meeting: Promoting Fiction

Janey Bennett shares what works and what doesn’t in promoting fiction. November 20, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside N., Room 221, Seattle, Washington.

Marketing mainstream fiction is not the same as marketing non-fiction. Your book will be tossed into the sharktank with ALL the other mainstream fiction books, and the fight for survival can be fierce.

When BPNW member Janey Bennett’s publisher announced that he was going back to graduate school and that all the marketing of her novel, The Pale Surface of Things, in both Canada and the US would be up to her, she began an education in fiction-marketing from point zero.

Fifteen months later, Bennett is a veteran of a fiction campaign including blogging, voice interviews on internet and cable (i.e., Sirius and Voice of America), book tours, trade shows, ad campaigns, bookclub discussions, and readings in churches and private homes. Pale Surface has received seven book-industry awards, is nearly through its first print run of 4,000, and will have a re-designed cover for its next print run.

Considering publishing fiction or already have novel or two on your list? Come to this meeting to learn more about how to promote your titles.



THE PALE SURFACE OF THINGS
by Janey Bennett
HOPEACE PRESS
ISBN 978-0-9734007-2-4
www.palesurfaceofthings.com

Grand Prize Second Place for All Fiction, Next Generation Indie Book Award
Gold Medal Winner, Multicultural Fiction Next Generation Indie Book Award
Gold Medal Winner, Multicultural Fiction USA BookNews BEST BOOK Award
Gold Medal Winner, Multicultural Fiction Indie Excellence Book Award
Gold Medal Winner, Best Use of Environmental Materials, PubWest Book Design Award
Silver Medal Winner, Multicultural Fiction & Non-Fiction, Nautilus Book Awards
Honorable Mention, General Fiction, Beach Book Festival Awards

Affiliate Scholarships Now Being Accepted

Current members of Book Publishers Northwest are encouraged to apply for the Independent Book Publishers Association scholarship. The application can be found at:
http://www.ibpa-online.org/files/pdf/AffiliateScholarship.pdf

The IBPA Scholarship Program was implemented in 1997 to afford opportunity for individuals from the Affiliates to participate in IBPA’s primary learning session, the Publishing University, and to share what they have learned with other members of their group.

The Affiliate Scholarship is awarded to one representative from each IBPA affiliate allowing free access to IBPA’s Publishing University, which normally occurs the three days prior to BookExpo America in the host city of BEA. IBPA will also provide a $500 stipend to cover partially the cost of travel and/or accommodations for this event.

It's All in the Display: Road Lessons from Basho

Greeting from Sandy, Utah!

I learned a valuable lesson on this tour at a very low "hard-knocks" cost. I spent the day Wednesday doing a string of courtesy calls at small independent NCIBA-member bookstores in northeast California and Reno, Nevada. A couple minutes after driving off from one of my stops, I heard a loud bang as though something heavy had fallen over in my trunk. I pulled over and checked my trunk: and all seemed well. It wasn't until I got to the next store 40 miles away and couldn't find my cardboard sample box that I realized what had happened. I had left it on the roof of the car at the last stop. It stayed there until I was out of town. Once I got up to highway speed, it flew off the car, hitting the trunk on its way to the ground.

Fortunately, there were only six copies total and some bookmarks and business cards left in the box: I was going to have to replenish it anyway. But how to carry books around for my remaining stops?

The only thing to do was dig out a wooden display case that was already set up for a future trade show. It holds five copies each of all eight of my titles and makes a very nice presentation. But I had never taken it in to a shop before. It's a bit weighty and there was no way to protect the books from the weather. At least it was a lovely day.

The response at my remaining four stops was fantastic. I sold ten copies outright at one store, and two others were checking ISBN numbers, saying they would put in an order with Partners West. One was the Barnes & Noble in Reno!

Presentation really is everything, and I will certainly keep doing this on my homeward stops. Who knows, I might start combing my hair too!

David Ash
Publisher, Basho Press

You can follow David's adventures at www.BookTour.com (search for "David Ash)

Book Video: Sikulu and Harambe

Sikulu and Harambe by the Zambezi River

More on Circle of Seven Productions

Sheila Clover English, CEO of Circle of Seven Productions, spoke to a packed meeting on November 11.

For those wanting to find out more about book video promotion, she provides a number of resources at her company's website: www.cosproductions.com.

Or watch this short video:

Book Video: Two Examples from Big River

Honor Due by D. H. Brown




Standing The Watch: The Greatest Gift by R. J. Brown

Members' Book Video: Crypt of the Moaning Diamond

The following book video was created for member Rosemary Jones with the help of a fellow author:




Book Publishers Northwest members are encouraged to share their book videos here.

Wanderlust Featured in Times of India

BPNW member Beth Whitman continues to see coverage of her latest Wanderlust and Lipstick title about traveling solo in India. Check her blog for links to a Times of India article and other recent interviews.

Two Meetings in November

November 11
Making Book Trailers for the Web

November 20
Marketing Small Press Fiction

Each meeting takes place from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside N., Room 221, Seattle, Washington.

Free for members

October 16: Print Production

Planning to produce a book in the next year? Short runs vs. long runs, new technology, and more.

Book Publishers Northwest's next meeting will be October 16 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside N., Room 221, Seattle, Washington.


Speakers include:

Victor Judd, Americas Press
www.americas-press.com
Americas Press is high-quality, short-run digital paperback book printer. The printing plant is located in Houston, Texas, and company began doing short-run printing for NASA in the 1960s.

More recently, Americas press has evolved into short run book printing. “We have been very successful in the Southwest and began expanding nationally last year. It is still a small family run company that focuses on quality printing and customer service,” said Judd.

“I have been a printer since I studied it in high school in the late 60's,” he added. “Over the years I have worked in every department in a print shop. I became the West Coast rep for Americas Press in early 2007.”

Craig Pearson
Global Fulfillment
www.gloful.com

On-demand digital printing, variable data and off-set printing are services offered to compliment both projects and long term fulfillment programs.

Two Pacific Northwest based companies, Karla’s Hand Bindery and Fulfillment Solutions, joined together in 1997 under the combined name of Global Fulfillment. The company currently operates in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle.

ASL Tales of Portland

New BPNW member ASL Tales of Portland, OR (www.ASLTales.net) publishes a line of children's picture books told in American Sign Language and English. The richly illustrated books are shipped with DVDs providing voice translation in 8 languages and interactive web tools. The books, performed by ASL storytellers, introduce ASL structure, vocabulary and Deaf Culture to hearing children, Deaf children, reluctant readers, children with language development challenges and children learning English as a second language.

The company, founded in 2008, has produced three titles so far. ASL Tales: The Princess and the Pea is available now. ASL Tales: Rapunzel and ASL Tales for Tots: Annie's Tails will be available for distribution December 2008.

Epicenter's Kent Sturgis on NPR

Local publisher Kent Sturgis started off this fall with the only biography in print of Sarah Palin. 500,000 copies sold later, he calls this unexpected windfall the publishing equivalent of a gold rush. Oh, and he's still voting for Obama.

Catch the latest on Epicenter's rollercoaster ride at NPR.

Layoffs Hit Lulu

Lulu.com, the website that allows anyone to publish easily, has been hit by the credit crunch. The company just announced layoffs based on the "frozen" credit market.

Recap of September Meeting on Pub U

Gail Sexton of Raston Publishing spoke to the members about her experience at Independent Book Publisher Association’s Publishing University. As the 2008 IBPA Scholarship winner from Book Publishers Northwest, Gail had her tuition waived and received a $500 stipend from IBPA.

Each year, IBPA provides one scholarship for a member of each affiliate association. Competition for the 2008 scholarship was fierce with numerous strong applications from BPNW members. Sexton's application was selected from the finalist by the IPBA Board.

At the Pub U, more than 100 industry professionals were instructors for the classes.

Some things Gail found particularly interesting and useful included:

1. Tips from the editors of Foreword magazine for getting your book reviewed in a major publication. (Gail distributed copies of the tip sheet; talk to her for more copies.)
2. When discussing your title, remember: It’s not about the boo – it’s about the benefits to the reader.
3. Offer yourself for free – e.g. teach a free seminar as a way to promote / sell your books.
4. Create cross buzz. That is, have multiple, self-reinforcing marketing efforts going on at the same time.
5. Speak! You are your book’s best advertisement.

Gail also had an opportunity to work the IBPA booth at BookExpo. When an Indian gentleman came by perusing the hundreds of books on the shelves there, Gail engaged him in a conversation and asked what he was interested in. He related that he was a buyer for one of the largest Indian book catalogs and showed her a sample catalog. She was able to talk to him about her title.

She also was able to talk to several experts about her book’s cover and got excellent and really focused feedback on how the cover could better convey what her book is about.

At the end of the meeting, Gail offered the following tips for attending Pub U or BookExpo:

·Go with a list of problems you want to solve and attend the classes, talks, etc. that will help you solve those specific problems.
·Tap the experts. Don’t be shy!
·Take comprehensive notes – especially for those “genius” ideas.
·Be really clear about who you want to talk to – both at BEA and Pub U.

This report submitted by Tom Masters

Constant Contact Local Seminars

Some people may have remembered anearlier free seminar about using Constant Contact for e-newsletters that BPNW hosted. This is the web-based program that Book Publishers Northwest uses for our e-newsletter and reminders.

If you're interested in learning more about Constant Contact, there are a number of free events in the area about this program. Check the Constant Contact web calendar for times and locations.

Checking E-mail, Pricing Books

A BPNW member recently e-mailed and asked about pricing books. We answered the question via e-mail -- only to keep getting the same query sent by the member. By the third time that we received this e-mail, we began to suspect that our original answers were going into a spam folder. Sad, as this is the member's business e-mail as well.

If you send a query and don't get an answer in two to three working days, search your spam folder. You might be surprised at what you find.

In hopes that this will help, here's the original query and answer.

How should I price my book for a bookstore?

The normal discount off the cover price to a bookstore is 40%.

You can set a lower discount, like 20%, if you want. It's not unusual for small press to do that.

A distributor like Ingram usually asks for a 50 to 60% discount, so they can in turn offer a 40% discount to bookstores.

This is why margins are very thin in publishing and getting your "per book" cost down is important -- if you plan to distribute through bookstores. If you are planning to have most of your distribution through direct sales, you can have a higher per unit cost because you're keeping more of the retail price for yourself.

BPNW Display at Fall Trade Show

On Sept 16, Book Publishers Northwest joined with Northwest Association of Book Publishers and IBPA to display members books at the PNBA Fall Trade Show for booksellers and librarians.

Celeste Bennett sent us the following photos of the display and trade show floor.



Members at the show reported that traffic appeared to be up from the 2007 show.



BPNW's display included books and sales literature demonstrating the wide range of material published in the Northwest.

Update from Bright Ring

Bright Ring Publishing, Inc. has been selected as one of the best art websites for teaching art by The Link Homeschooling Magazine, 2008.

The company recently published its first full color art education activity book, August 2008, Great American Artists for Kids: Hands-On Art Experiences in the Styles of Great American Masters, with a first print of of 7000 printed in Korea. More than half of the first print run was sold as of September 2008 according to publisher and author MaryAnn Kohl.

Publishing Round Table on Sept 18

Join Gail Sexton, our 2008 Pub U Scholar, for a publishers' roundtable for good advice on starting, growing, or just having fun with your publishing business. Start off the fall season with new ideas!

This meeting is free for members.

Meeting takes place at the Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside N., Room 221, Seattle, Washington, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sept. 18. See you there!

PNBA Display Books Donated to Rural Library

The Darby Community Library in Darby, Montana, were picked to benefit from the PNBA Rural Library Drive. At the end of the PNBA Fall Trade Show, exhibitors like Book Publishers Northwest left their display books with volunteers from the library.

The community recently acquired a new building that will now be stocked with a wide range of wonderful titles donated by BPNW members and others at the PNBA Fall Trade Show.

A plea from your editor at BPNW News

* Keep Your E-mail Up-to-Date
* Check Your Spam Folder
* Use the Blog!

Why is all of the above in bold type? Because your slightly stressed-out BPNW blog lady is moving, remodeling, and finishing up a novel for publication in 2009 (City of the Dead, coming next year from Wizards of the Coast).

This means that I probably won't have time to track down why certain newsletter subscriptions and other e-mails bounce. So if your server goes down and you switch to gmail, use the subscribe tool on this page to get your newsletter. Or e-mail me at bpnwnews at aol.com.

If you don't see the newsletter arriving in your in-box every month, check your spam folder. It might be lurking there.

Dates for meetings are always posted here first. Use this blog for quick information. Use the RSS and you won't miss anything!

Have a great Fall. I'm hoping to see you at the Sept 18 meeting. But bear with me as I make few transitions this season.



Sincerely,

Rosemary Jones
Book Publishers Northwest

Learn About Orphan Works Bill

Seattle Graphic Artists Guild is hosting a special free meeting on the "orphan works" bills currently in Congress. Join them at the Museum of History and Industry, Thursday, September 11, 2008, 6:30:-8:30 pm. MOHAI is located at 2700 24th Avenue E.

Lisa Shaftel, Graphic Artists Guild National Advocacy Committee Chairperson, will lead this informal meeting. Shaftel will share a brief insider background of the crucial orphan works issue and its proponents, and review the up-to-the-minute political status of the two bills now in Congress as well as what's likely to happen next. The Guild recommends this meeting for all visual creators or those likely to be impacted by the designation "orphan work."

Among the topics to be discussed are:

* Learn the many things you can do to prevent your works from becoming orphans.
* Get key instructions on how to protect your work, with easy steps to follow.
* Hear tips on key issues to watch out for.


More information about the orphan works legislation can be found at www.orphanworksnews.com

Pubwest In Portland: SPAN Members Get Discount

PubWest's (the Publishers Association of the West) 2008 National Publishing Conference will take place in Portland in November. The conference topics range from Publishing 101 to advanced viral marketing and digital content.

SPAN is an Industry Partner of PubWest's conference allows SPAN members to sign up at PubWest member's rates. Members of Book Publishers Northwest can join SPAN for a discounted rate.

More information can be found at http://www.spannet.org/pubwest-conf.htm.

Epicenter's Palin Biography A Bestseller

BPNW member Epicenter Press published the first and currently only biography of Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin.

The book turned into a runaway bestseller on Friday, with 40,000 orders pouring in, after Repulican presidential candidate John McCain announced Palin would be his pick for a running mate.

As reported in the Seattle Times, Epicenter has immediately geared up to produce a paperback version of Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down.

No Meeting in August, Preparing for PNBA

Book Publishers Northwest's next meeting will be September 18 at Good Shepherd Center, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Join Gail Sexton, our 2008 Pub U Scholar, for a publisher's roundtable for good advice on starting, growing, or just having fun with your publishing business.


PNBA Fall Trade Show: Free Display for BPNW Members

Book Publishers Northwest will have a joint display with NWABP and IBPA. Every 2008 BPNW member can display one title for free at this regional trade show.

Join Today To Display Your Book At PNBA
Free display of one book at the PNBA Fall Trade Show is restricted to 2008 members who joined before July 30 or 2008/09 members who join by Sept. 1.

Join BPNW today for this and other benefits!

Site seeking articles on publishing

Sellingbooks.com is looking for articles on any aspect of writing, publishing and marketing books, including publicity, speaking, internet marketing, copyright, or design.

Articles should be 300+ words, and informational not promotional. All articles may include a short (2 - 3 sentences) author bio with promotional copy and links.

Articles may be submitted at the site
Sellingbooks.com

Amazon buys Shelfari

Amazon is moving into the reading/social networking field with the acquisition of Shelfari:

Shelfari Joins Amazon.com Family

Struggling Independents in Seattle

The closure of Couth Buzzard and All for Kids Books this summer made headlines in Sunday's Seattle Times.

Tough times for some independent bookstores...

Rosemary Jones's Book Signing

Rosemary Jones will be signing Crypt of the Moaning Diamond, Dungeons Book IV, on Saturday, August 30 from 3 p.m to 4 p.m., at the Wizards of the Coast booth at Penny Arcade Expo 2008 (PAX 10, www.pennyarcadeexpo.com) in Seattle. This will be a combined signing two other Dungeons authors: Erik Scott de Bie, who wrote Depths of Madness and Bruce R. Cordell, who wrote Stardeep.

PAX 10 is one of the largest gaming conventions in the US and is expected to draw 50,000 gamers to Seattle.

Internet Review of Books

The book review website Internet Review of Books is looking for books in the fields of science, social science, history, art, music, biographies, and current affairs. The site also reviews literary fiction.

A query about non-fiction manuscripts, should be e-mailed to Carter Jefferson at editor@internetreviewofbooks.com. Julie McGuire at jmcguire@internetreviewofbooks.com reviews literary fiction.


Site editors suggest keeping e-mails brief and including the press release in the body of the message.

New Look, New Features

The BPNW News Blog decided to update its look -- it was something to do during NBC Olympic broadcast's commercials!

New features include RSS subscription button (see right) and a new Kaboodle list of members' books. Click on Kaboodle link to find a sampling of books published by BPNW members, including links to order forms on the publishers' websites or other online booksellers.

Enjoy the new features and let us know what we can do to make this an even better blog!

Inside the Distributor's Mind

Ever wonder what goes on at a distributor? Well, you can get the idea at Partners West's blog that they spend a lot of time reading the latest bestsellers and surfing the web: http://www.partners-west.com/blog/

Drop in if you want to read some amusing commentary.

Carlson Article Featured in Independent

Linda Carlson's article "How Well Do Downloadables Sell?" was featured on the cover of the Independent, the magazine of the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA).

According to Carlson, the challenges facing publishers entering into the downloadable market include finding proper technical support to supply the most customer-friendy downloadable files (e-books are but one type of downloadable), finding sales channels for downloadables, and pricing downloadables.

BPNW is an affiliate of IBPA (formerly known as PMA). BPNW members receive a discount for membership in IBPA.

Display Your Books at Florida Show

FAME (Florida Association for Media in Education, www.FloridaMedia.org) is set for September 24–26, at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando. Attendees are school librarians.

The Florida Publishers Association is once again offering to display the books of affiliate members, such as BPNW members, at their booth.


Display of each product in the Florida Publishers Association booth costs $60 for publishers that are not members of FPA. (A booth of your own costs $800.) To learn more about how to display with FPA at FAME, visit http://www.flbookpub.org/fame.html.

40 Topics for Corporate Bloggers

40+ Topics for Corporate Bloggers

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Author's Den Recommended

I'd like to inform my fellow members of another opportunity to get their names and titles known in the writers/publishers community. It's called AuthorsDen (www.authorsden.com) and, along with an extensive amount of information about you as an author and samples from your books, cover, and other pertinent info, the writing of articles to be published on the site is encouraged.

I urge BPNW members to check it out. With the help of my internet-savvy husband, I am now listed on the site, and you can check my listing out as an example of how you and your works will be displayed. More good news: there was no charge to do this.

Regards,

Chris Salditt
Mother Love Publishing

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...

Dogwise Expands List

Dogwise Publishing recently announced that the company will be the new wholesale distributor for Pat Hastings and Dogfolk Enterprises.

Oregon dog trainer and author Hasting is currently an AKC Judge of the Herding, Non-Sporting, and Working Groups, Junior Showmanship, and Best in Show. Her titles distributed by Dogwise include Puppy Puzzle: The Hastings Approach to Evaluating the Structural Quality of Puppies, Tricks of the Trade: From Best Intentions to Best In Show Revised Ed, and Another Piece of the Puzzle: Puppy Development.

Seattle Storm Promotes Reading at SAM

The Seattle Storm and the Seattle Art Museum are teaming up to promote reading at a special event August 13.

Seattle Storm star players Sheryl Swoopes and Katie Gearlds read works about the Impressionist art movement during this afternoon event for kids age 5 to 19.

Adults must accompany all groups of teens and children. Please call 206.654.3238 for more information.

Date: 8/13/2008
Time: 3:30-5 p.m.
Location: Seattle Art Museum, 1st Ave. and University St.

2008-09 Catalog Closed

Once again, Book Publishers Northwest and the Northwest Association of Book Publishers new catalog of members’ books will be distributed at the PNBA Fall Trade Show and Wordstock.

Registration for this catalog closed on July 30, 2008.

Those who registered for the catalog through BPNW will be sent receipts on August 2-4. Please DO NOT SEND new registrations after July 30.

Parenting Press Issues First POD

Twenty-nine-year-old Seattle publisher Parenting Press chose print-on-demand through Amazon.com’s BookSurge for its new “Internet Safety and Your Family” (ISBN 1884734944, $9.95) for two reasons:

The company wants to be able to update the 38-page guide often, as new risks and new safeguards need to be publicized; and it wanted to test the quality of Amazon.com’s POD program.

The book is also available as a PDF at www.ParentingPress.com.

Written by Linda Carlson, who creates Parenting Press’s monthly newsletter for parents and quarterly newsletter for parenting education professionals, and writes for the Independent Book Publishers Association’s newsletter, “Internet Safety and Your Family” points out that even if your own family isn’t online, the Internet has all sorts of information that cyber criminals can use to stalk kids or parents, or to spoof, phish or bully. Almost all of this personal data is free—and it doesn’t take a computer geek to find it. The guide emphasizes that parents may inadvertently be putting their families at risk by what is posted to personal blogs and web sites, and to user groups.

The concise overview also explains how to research what is online about you and your children, how to control spam, hackers, viruses and access to risky and offensive web sites, and how to report cyber harassment. It describes virtual worlds, social networking, and how kids can be abused online.

Rosemary has a new book out

BPNW member and blog editor Rosemary Jones has a new title out: Encyclopedia of Collectible Children's Books. This hardback from Collector Books was co-written with Diane McClure Jones.

Graphic Artists' Summer Party

It's summer and it's time to have some fun. The Seattle Graphic Artists Guild is hosting a FREE Bad Art Party on Weds., July 16, 6-8 p.m. for Guild members, not-yet members, and their friends. At beautiful, parklike South Sound location, 20 minutes from downtown Seattle, the Guild will supply tasty snacks, wine and soda, cool prizes and some art supplies: gluesticks, glitter, macaroni, and paper to mount what they hope will be messy bad art pieces.

Patry goers should bring paper, scissors (but no rocks!), and magazines to cut up, and as well as any other art supplies desired.

To attend, you must RSVP for directions to: kjbateman@q.com

No BPNW meetings in July or August

Although Book Publishers Northwest takes a break from regular meetings in July and August, check out these events for publishers and writers happening in the NW.

Editor's Guild on Self-Publishing
July 14, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Richard Hugo House, Seattle, WA. Free for BPNW members.

PNWA Summer Conference
Northwest's largest writer's conference, July 17 to 20, 2008, Seattle, WA

NWABP Seminar on Web Marketing
All Day session, July 19, Portland, OR

Our next regularly scheduled meeting will take place on Sept. 18 at Good Shepherd Center.

Miryam Gordon Moderates BPNW Group

Book Publishers Northwest has started a Yahoo Discussion group for members to post questions and make connections with other members. Special thanks to Miryam Gordon, Green Elms Press, for volunteering to moderate this group.

For directions on how to join this discussion group, e-mail bpnwnews@aol.com

B&H Title Selected by Novia Scotia Dept of Education

Bennett & Hastings Publishing recently announced that the Nova Scotia Department of Education has selected one of their recent publication Sam Langford: Boxing’s Greatest Uncrowned Champion as a standard text for distribution within the province.


At the time of Sam Langford’s induction into the Boxing Hall of Fame (October 1955) he was the only non-champion accorded the honor. This detailed biography tells Langford’s life story and helps explain the circumstances behind that unique entry into the Hall of Fame. In 1999 Sam Langford was voted Nova Scotia’s top male athlete of the twentieth century.

Sam Langford: Boxing’s Greatest Uncrowned Champion
Biography/Boxing/African American History
ISBN 978-1-934733-02-8, hardback, 438 pages, 98 photographs, $29.95 retail
Available in distribution or direct from publisher for colleges and libraries.

SPAN Supports Booklocker Lawsuit Against Amazon

The Small Publishers Association of North America (SPAN), a national trade association dedicated to advancing the interests of independent publishers, launched a campaign to generate support for the class action lawsuit Booklocker.com, Inc. vs. Amazon.com, Inc. The SPAN board recently voted to publicly support the lawsuit.

Booklocker.com, Inc., initiated the class action antitrust lawsuit to challenge the legality of Amazon’s new policy requiring print on demand (POD) publishers using the company’s distribution services to print their books using Amazon’s subsidiary BookSurge. The lawsuit states that Amazon is illegally tying the BookSurge printing to Amazon’s distribution services. According to antitrust law, companies generally cannot require a customer to buy one product in order to have access to another distinct product.

Through its campaign, SPAN aims to generate significant public pressure to compel Amazon to reverse its new policy. The campaign is built on two objectives: To collect 10,000 signatures on a petition that will be sent to Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, and to unite 100+ writer and publisher organizations in opposing the policy and supporting the lawsuit

“From the public outcry over the announcement of Amazon’s new POD policy, we have an army of enthusiastic writers and publishers ready for the next step in getting Amazon to change its policy,” said SPAN Executive Director Scott Flora. “This campaign is the next step.”

SPAN’s campaign is creating support in five primary ways: uniting voices through the petition; writing letters to Amazon; recruiting other organizations; generating press coverage; and passing the word along friends and colleagues.

Big River Announces New Release

Big River Press will publish a 2nd expanded edition of R. J. BROWN's memoir Standing the Watch: The Greatest Gift.

In Standing the Watch, 89-year-old Lincoln Brown is in a Seattle hospital when his doctor gives him three months left to live. He chooses to return to his cabin on the Olympic Peninsula rainforest where he can die at peace in his own bed, cared for by his son and daughter-in-law. Weaving excerpts from her medical log which she had to keep for the State with memories, e-mails, essays, and useful lists, R. J. Brown gently shares what it took to stand the watch of her beloved Poppa's final days.

STANDING THE WATCH: The Greatest Gift
Author: R. J. Brown
Publisher: Big River Press
Genre: Memoir, Health, Medicine, Aging
ISBN-13: 978-0-9798744-3-7
ISBN-10: 0-9798744-3-2
Binding: Perfect Bound Trade Paperback
Price: $13.95

Free Webinar Offered by Bowker

Maximizing Sales Through Quality Data

SPAN (Small Publishers Association) and Bowker present a Free Webinar
July 9, 7:00 pm, Eastern Time

Bookstores, libraries, and other book buyers are looking for
your books. Can they find them? Learn how to sell more books
by effectively using Bowker's Books in Print and other free
services.

To register, e-mail Denielle.Starr@Bowker.com.

Book Publishers Network Wins Alaska Award

The Alaska Pen: An Illustrated History of Unga received the Alaskana Award on March 1 at the Alaska Library Association Conference held in Fairbanks. The book was compiled and edited by Thor Lauritzen, Peggy Arness, and Edward Melseth, and published in 2007 by Book Publishers Network in Bothell, WA.

The award is presented annually by the Alaska Library Association to acknowledge an outstanding work of fiction.

PNBA Author Proposals Due June 27

Appoximately 400 booksellers from more than 130 Northwest stores and librarians from as many as fifty libraries to attend Pacific Northwest Bookseller Association's Fall Trade Show. Proposals for author signings are due at PNBA on June 27.


Send books or ARCs, along with your proposals, author bios and reviews to PNBA at the address below. Contact Thom Chambliss at 541-683-4363 or thom@pnba.org, and visit www.pnba.org for more info about the PNBA show.

SPEAKING OPPORTUNITIES
PNBA has spots for eight nationally-known authors to speak:
· four at the Book & Author Breakfast Tuesday, September 16.
· four at the Book & Author Breakfast Wednesday, September 17.
(Publishers donate 150 pre-signed books or ARCs for these events)

AUTHOR FEAST
PNBA has twenty spots for nationally and NW-known authors to meet with booksellers during dinner. Authors will rotate through tables of booksellers, spending 20 minutes with each group, at a banquet on Tuesday evening, September 16.
(Publishers donate 150 books or ARCs for this event)

AUTOGRAPHING SLOTS
PNBA has 50+ autographing spots of one half-hour each:
· Monday, Sept. 15 from 8-10 p.m. at a dessert party
· Tuesday, September 16 from 4:45 p.m. to 6:15 p.m., at the close of the exhibits
· Wednesday, September 17 from 9:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the exhibit show floor
(Publishers donate 50 copies of each book for these signings)


PNBA MUST RECEIVE YOUR PROPOSALS AND BOOKS BY THIS FRIDAY, JUNE 27.

If there is a day that your author is NOT available, include that information with your materials. A contact email address must be sent with each proposal.

The list of the proposed authors will be submitted to PNBA's Selection Committee, which will supply a priortized list to PNBA staff by July 7. PNBA staff will begin sending invitations for authors on Tuesday, July 8.

To help off-set the expense of promoting authors, PNBA charges $350 for breakfast authors, $250 for feast authors and $125 for each author at a signing.

Authors' expenses are their publisher's responsibility.

Send proposals to:

PNBA's Fall Show Author Proposals
Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association
214 East 12th Avenue
Eugene, OR 97401-3245

Self-Promotion for the Chronically Humble Writer

Wendy Call is organizing an one-week marketing blitz to the boost a writer's literary life needs. Call recently spoke to BPNW as part of our Editor's panel.

"We’ll start on Monday with time management and goal setting," said instructor Wendy Call. "On Tuesday we’ll tackle queries to editors and publishers, also touching on book proposals. Wednesday, we’ll grapple with grant writing. We’ll finish up on Thursday by writing our way to a writers’ conference or residency. (The dizzying pace will keep us from remembering we’re shy, introverted writers!)"

Each class session includes hands-on practice, examples and resource lists.

Wendy Call is co-editor of the craft anthology TELLING TRUE STORIES: A NONFICTION WRITERS' GUIDE (Plume/Penguin, 2007). In the last two years her writing has been supported by 4Culture, Artist Trust, Hedgebrook, Jack Straw Writers Program, the Mayor's Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, and the Washington State Arts Commission, and she has served on peer review/selection panels for three of those six organizations. She recently completed two years as Writer in Residence at Richard Hugo House.

Meets: Monday, July 07, 2008 - Thursday, July 10, 2008
4:00 PM to 6:00 PM each day
maximum of 15 students
$145.00 for non-members
$130.50 for Hugo House members

Scholarships are available! contact Brian McGuigan (registrar@hugohouse.org) for more information.

Register here: http://www.hugohouseservices.org/home/SubPages/Classes/Classes.aspx
If you have questions, contact: wlc@wendycall.com

Seattle Graphic Artists: Web Design with CSS

Seattle Graphic Artists Guild June 2008 Workshop:
WEB DESIGN II WITH ERIK FADIMAN

Rock Salt Steaks and Seafood on Lake Union
1232 Westlake Ave. North , Seattle , WA 98109 206-284-1047
Wednesday, June 25, 2008 . Arrive 11:30 a.m. , meeting noon to 1:30 p.m.

Learn How to:
Build web pages with Cascading Style Sheets
Use CSS to change how a web page looks without changing content
Lay out web pages with CSS in Adobe Dreamweaver
Use list for navigation

Understand:
The CSS Box Model
The importance of DIV tags and structural mark-up
The separation of presentation and content

Tour: The CSS Zen Garden site

Erik Fadiman is a freelance graphic designer working in Seattle , Washington . His business services include branding, corporate identity, marketing collateral, web standards, interactive media, packaging and advertising. In his web design classes at Seattle Central Community College , Erik teaches the importance of creating clear, compelling content with current web design techniques and considerations.

Walk-in members and students : $35. Students must show current, full-time student ID. Walk-in non-members : $40.

One Bookstore Opens, Another Closes

From our friends at Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, some Oregon bookstore news:

PNBA member JoAnne Kohler plans to open a general interest bookstore, Tea Party Bookshop, in downtown Salem by the end of July. The store will be located opposite the Phoenix Inn and the city's convention center at 420 Ferry St SE, Salem, OR 97301.

Kohler says the name for the store came to her while reading Stacy Mitchell's Big-Box Swindle. Kohler was inspired by Mitchell's reference to the Boston Tea Party being the first instance of Americans rebelling against a corporation controlling their buying options.

At the end of May, Bend’s downtown bookstore, The Book Barn, closed after 35 years of business. Linda Torres, the store's seventh owner (and who'd owned the store for the last seven years), was quoted in the Bend Bulletin as saying "competition from online retailer Amazon.com and big-box stores, coupled with a slow spring, spelled the end" of the Book Barn.

FPA Accepting Books for Display

The Florida Publishers Association, Inc., is offering cooperative display of publishers'/authors' titles in its booth at the FAME (Florida Association for Media in Education) Annual Conference, September 24-26 in Orlando. Over 1,100 school librarians (now called "media specialists") will be in attendance, and they represent schools K through college.

The FPA booth at FAME always features a great selection of books (always displayed face out) and other products (digital media, videos, audio tapes, and sidelines such as plush toys, apparel and other logo or character items), drawings for door prizes, and free giveaways (as recommended by FAME organizers).

FPA will prepare a packet of flyers on displayed titles to hand out to show attendees.

Details on participation in FPA's booth can be found at www.flbookpub.org/fame.html. Details on FAME and its members can be found at www.floridamedia.org.

Selling Books by the Ton

During today's meeting, member Mike Mihalik (October Mist) discussed the large bookfair groups Imagine Nation and Books Are Fun. Both organizations stage large corporate book sales and can buy literally thousands of books from publisher -- although they ask very high discounts of 80% to 90%. Still, given the volume sold, this can become a lucrative outlet for publishers able to gear up for large runs.

Mihalik sent this follow-up:

Here's a link to the article I mentioned today regarding Books Are Fun:
http://www.publishingcentral.com/articles/20030323-1-6d76.html

The article is kind of old, but I was successful contacting Tim using the information in the last paragraph of the article.

Also, here's Imagine Nation's website:
http://www.imaginenationbooks.com/

And Books Are Fun (now owned by Reader's Digest):
http://www.booksarefun.com/

June 19 Meeting: Working with a Sales Rep

How does a sales rep actually represent a publisher? If you're trying to expand the distribution of your books, come to the June 19 meeting of Book Publishers Northwest. Our speaker will be Kathleen Tuura.

A sales representative for 30 years and, for the past 15 years, concentrating on the gift and card market, Tuura mostly sells to independent gift and book stores. "The product lines are in the Northwest theme," she said, "but I do stray and take on things that speak out to me. I tend to go to the arty things, as my college degree was Music and Art for Elementary Education."

The June 19 meeting takes place 4 pm to 6 pm at the Good Shepherd Center, 649 Sunnyside N., Room 221, in Seattle. This meeting is free for members of Book Publishers Northwest.

BPNW Directory Live on Issuu

Book Publishers Northwest's newest Members Directory can be seen as a flash document on Issuu.

SCCC Students Display Publishing Arts

Graduates of Seattle Central Creative Academy's Publishing Arts program will be displaying their work at the grand opening of the new 38,000 square-foot, $8.1 million facility, located on the fifth floor of the main campus.

Portfolio Show and Open House will be open to the public from June 10 through 12 at Seattle Central, 1701 Broadway, Seattle.

More information about the Seattle Central Creative Academy show is available at the student-created Web site: www.scccshowcase.com.

SCCC's Publishing Arts program is offers training in latest publishing software with advanced color computer labs (PC and Macintosh), a full range of digital imaging technology, and creative courses. More information about the program can be found at SCCC's website.

Debt Up for Award

Debt is Slavery: and 9 Other Things I Wish My Dad Had Taught Me About Money has been chosen as a finalist in the Business category of the 2008 National Indie Excellence Awards (NIEA).

“It’s an honor the NIEA has picked Debt is Slavery as one of the top business books produced by independent publishers,” remarked BPNW member Michael Mihalik. “A lot of effort was put into the production of this book by a strong team of industry professionals. Debt is Slavery wouldn’t have become a reality without the excellent book cover and interior design by Peri Poloni-Gabriel and Monica Thomas of Knockout Design, the insightful editing of Heidi Thomas from SunCatcher Publications, and the quality printing of Color House Graphics.”

The popular personal finance website TheSimpleDollar.com recently selected Debt is Slavery as one of only eight books (out of 200 reviewed) to be included in its "Essential Bookshelf."

Mihalik authored the book, which he published under the imprint October Mist.

Blog Tour Highlights Book Reviewers

To promote the release of The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing, co-author Mayra Calvani will be interviewing 15+ reviewers and review editors during the month of June. Learn all about the business of book reviewing and what's in the mind of some of the most popular reviewers on the internet today. Some of the guests will include: Alex Moore from ForeWord Magazine, James Cox from Midwest Book Review, Irene Watson from Reader Views, Andrea Sisco from Armchair Interviews, Magdalena Ball from The Compulsive Reader, Sharyn McGinty from In The Library Reviews, Lea Schizas from Muse Book Reviews, Linda Baldwin from Road to Romance, Hilary Williamson from Book Loons, Judy Clark from Mostly Fiction, and many others!

To see the complete lineup, visit: The Slippery Book Review Blog.

Between June 1st and June 30th, stop by Blogcritics and leave a comment under the reviewer interviews for a chance to win a Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tour (coordinated by book marketing guru Dorothy Thompson), OR, as an alternative to a non-author winner, a $50 B&N gift certificate!

PNBA Trade Show Registration Forms

Here is the link to PNBA's web page with information about the fall show and the vendor registration forms. Please note, too, that if you choose to exhibit for two days, you must register by FRIDAY, JUNE 27. The link to the two-day registration forms will be removed on Friday, June 27.

To find out more about PNBA's changes to the Fall Tradeshow, check link above or read the interview with Thom Chambliss.

FAQs Answered for PNBA Fall Show

Thom Chambliss, director of Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, recently answered vendor’s most frequently asked questions about PNBA’s Fall Show 2008.

The 2008 show will be held Monday through Wednesday, September 15 to 17, at the Portland Airport Holiday Inn Hotel and Convention Center. For more information, see www.pnba.org.

Q: Are author signing, workshop speaking, and other promotional and educational event opportunities on Wednesday only open to two-day exhibitors?

A: NO, anyone with a fall 08 PNBA badge, including those who exhibit one day, will have access to the entire show, including Wednesday. If you exhibit for only one day, you are welcome to attend the events on Wednesday, you just won't have your own exhibit space that day.

--------------
Q: I am a little confused as to how that extra day (Wednesday, the second day ofexhibits) will work.

A: The second "day of exhibits" will have many fewer exhibitors, and those exhibitors will be situated (both days) near the front of the exhibit hall (generally speaking), so that all attendees entering the hall on the second day will need to walk past the exhibitors tables or booths before reaching the Author Promotions area.

There will be authors signing their new books, authors talking about what they will do when they visit a store for an appearance, an author/bookseller/librarian panel discussion about working together, a series of authors talking about their experiences with libraries, etc. etc. I don't know the exact details yet, because I don't know how much space we will have nor what kind of authors will be made available to us, but we have some ideas and I expect that we (PNBA staff) will plan some interesting stuff. The idea is to arrange it so that the attendees will have to walk passed the exhibitors still there on the second day to get to the author presentations.

--------------
Q: Who will still be around (on the second day of exhibits), and when are author events planned besides day two?

A: Again, we don't know exactly how many booksellers will stay, but with added author events (and NO signing on the show the first day), we hope it will be a good crowd. Besides the author events on except for the autographing on the floor on Tuesday, which we will not do. There will be a new Autographing Party on Monday night; on Tuesday morning, we'll have the Book & Author Breakfast (with four authors, all books pre-signed). Then Tuesday afternoon, after the show floor has closed, we'll have some autographing, and THEN the Author Feast, featuring twenty authors visiting six different tables of booksellers to talk about their new books.

--------------
Q: I don’t really know why booksellers go (to the show). Is it education, free stuff, socializing, or ordering?

A: The booksellers with whom I talk tell me that they LOVE connecting with the reps, most of whom they no longer see in their stores. They also connect with books that they may have missed for whatever reason; find new sidelines that they could use in their stores; attend the education sessions to get new ideas for their stores; gather good info about books that they may have not thought worth their time; and meet authors whom they may want to invite to visit their stores. The author connections are huge for some of our booksellers. Yes, they like the free ARCs, too!

--------------
Q: Can you serve good free coffee all day and make the lunch buffet so good nobody would leave for the typical 2-hour lunch?

A: If we can afford better coffee, we will have it! We heard a lot of complaints about the coffee at this facility last year, so I'm looking into hiring a high quality coffee vendor. They're not cheap. Making the lunch buffet "good" is actually a lot more challenging. We're talking hotel food here, but we will try. We are encouraging librarians to visit the exhibits between their educational sessions, so we hope that the lunch time will be crowded with librarians. Again, we'll see.

--------------
Q: Why not extend the Tuesday trade show an extra hour, from 8:30 am to whatever?

A: This is difficult, but I appreciate the concept. We have found that we cannot start our Book & Author Breakfast before 8:00 am, or the attendance numbers decline. We want to encourage attendance at the Breakfast, so we don't open the show floor until AFTER the Breakfast ends, about 9:30. It may be easier for us to keep the show floor open later, say until 5:00 pm, but that would cause problems with the dinner event that follows, the Feast of Authors. We rely a lot on bookseller help to produce that Feast, and they need to be there early to work with the authors. I will study the options.

--------------
Q: One question regarding authors on the floor for Tuesday: Can we have our authors there for informal signings?

A: SURE!! You can continue to do whatever you want to do in your own booth, or table, or whatever. Just so it doesn't drown out (loud) or crowd out (people in the way) the others around you.

--------------
Q: Will you continue Buzz Books as that has proved quite successful for us?

A: Oh, YES, very definitely. And, we hope to add several more events like it. The second day really will be more of an Author/Book Promo Day.

--------------
Q: I do think that with smaller exhibit space we will especially need an area for tables and chairs for people to sit and talk, and booksellers to look through catalogues, etc. I can't see protracted discussion at exhibit areas without complicating the area for other exhibitors.

A: Yes, we're aware of that issue, too. It's going to be difficult on Tuesday, the first (and main) exhibit day. The space is very limited. We are hoping to have some areas for sitting and relaxing, eating lunch or whatever, but they may be OFF the show floor, in the lobby or back hallway. It will certainlynot be ideal.

--------------
Q: I'd love to get my authors into better contact with booksellers and hope that there will be plenty of opportunities.

A: Exactly: it's author/bookseller and author/librarian connections that we plan to facilitate.

--------------
Q: Why have the dates been changed from an end of the week show to a beginning of the week show?

A: We prefer end of the week, that is, Thursday through Saturday, but the Holiday Inn at the Portland Airport was already booked for those days when we inquired. The only days close to our preferred were the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday earlier in the week, so we took them for 2008. Our 2009 contract, in the same facility, is for Thursday - Saturday, September 10-12.

About seven years ago, PNBA conducted a survey of both sales reps and booksellers, asking whether they preferred weekend or weekday shows. Surprisingly, the results were overwhelmingly "We don't care!" We received about 60 responses from booksellers and only three had a preference, two for the weekend and one for weekdays, each saying it was harder to find replacements to "mind the store" on their non-preferred days. We received about 40 replies from reps, and they ALL preferred week DAYS, not the weekend. Those who commented, said they did not want to have to work the weekend, if they didn't have to!

We have held a few shows on weekdays during the last few years, and the turn-outs indicated no lower attendance because of the fact that those shows were held during the week. If we can get a better deal, or if our preferred dates are not available, we feel OK signing for week days, but we still try to get dates late in the week, if we can.

Zogby Surveys Readers

An online survy of American book buyers by Zogby International showed that readers were more influenced to buy a book by public radio (15%) than Jon Stewart (8%) or Oprah Winfrey (5%).

The same survey also showed that readers still prefer curling up with a printed book rather than an electronic reading device.

Educational Seminars Needed for PNBA

PNBA is planning to emphasize "Booksellers Working with Librarians" at the organization's fall show this year, which will be held at the Portland Airport Holiday Inn and Conference Center, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, September 15 -17.

PNBA booked the entire hotel, including all of the break-out rooms for all three days.

BPNW has been invited to create educational sessions for authors and/or small press publishers at the show that focus on working with libraries.

If you are a member of BPNW and would be interested in creating such an educational session, please e-mail bpnwnews at aol.com.

"I am interested in hearing from BPNW whether you find this program interesting and potentially attractive to your members, and whether you and your colleagues would like to propose any specific educational sessions that you will produce," wrote PNBA director Thom Chambliss in a recent e-mail.

"PNBA is non-profit and cannot pay you for your sessions, and we will not charge attendees any additional fees to attend your sessions. As usual, anyone with a show badge will be free to attend any sessions of their choice," he added.

Bookstore News: Moving, Opening, Closing

From our friends at PNBA comes the following news about three Northwest bookstores:

Santoro’s Books is on the move and needs help. The Seattle store, currently at 7216 Greenwood Ave. N., shifts one block north to a new location next to the 74th Street Ale House. Owner Carol Santoro would love to hear from anyone interested in moving a box of books, packing or helping to reshelve in the new store. Call her at 206-784-2113. The store plans to close the old location on May 29 and reopen in the new space by June 4.

A new bookstore opened in Ocean Park, WA: Adelaide's Books & Coffee. "Not only has the coffee house portion of the store already settled into a routine spot for the retired neighbors to linger," owner Cyndy Hayward said in the May PNBA newsletter, "but more exciting has been the brisk sales of books. I honestly had presumed that the coffee house would subsidize the bookstore, but quite the contrary has happened so far."

Eugene’s Books without Borders closes in May. Billed as the city’s littlest independent bookstore, Books without Borders will hold a Last Hurrah Party on May 24 at 6 p.m., with local author signings and live music by local band The Ineffectuals.

To Contest or Not to Contest?

Recently a Book Publishers Northwest member asked about the value of participating in contests. We sent the question out to the PMA Affiliates mailing list.

We got so many thoughtful answers back that we created a new blog just on contests. Check it out and let us know what you think!

Showcase Tacoma Looking for Poets

The 3rd annual Showcase Tacoma will be held in downtown Tacoma on Friday and Saturday, August 8-9, 2008.

Anyone interested in hosting an organized group reading, a writers workshop, a poetry open mike, a spoken word performance or poets wishing to read live should check the application at www.showcasetacoma.org. Deadline is
June 16, 2008.

BEA Teleclass

Bob Goodman (PMA Board member and founder of Publishers and Writers of San Diego) recently gave a 45-minute teleclass called "How to Make the Most of your Book Expo America Experience."

A free recording of this session can be downloaded from the bottom of the following page of PWSD's site.

"An important correction in the recording Bob Goodman did is the location of BEA. The correct info is that it's at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Otherwise everything below is accurate, and we still appreciate Bob's generosity in doing this!" wrote Paulette Ensign, PWSD Board Member.

More Awards for Pale Surface of Things

We just got news that Pale Surface of Things won the Indie Excellence Award for Multicultural Fiction.

And last week Hopeace Press and Friesens Printing won the PubWest Award for Best Use of Environmental Materials for the 100% post-consumer recycled paper and vegetable inks used in producing Pale Surface.

And we got an Honorable Mention from Beach Book Festival Awards, too.

That's five (including USA BookNews Best Book Award for Multicultural Fiction and the Nautilus Award Finalist medal.)

Stay tuned. Book Expo America is when they are all announced, two weeks from now.

best,
Janey

The Pale Surface of Things
by Janey Bennett
ISBN 978-0-9734007-2-4
www.palesurfaceofthings.com

Local Poet’s Haiku Is Quick & Simple

Mukilteo poet and publisher David Ash thinks that writing books of haiku (three-line, seventeen-syllable poems) is fairly fast and easy. He has already produced his first six books of humorous haiku through Basho Press in less than a year. But next week, one of the world’s largest media conglomerates will proclaim them quick and simple.

Quick & Simple magazine, a weekly magazine published by Hearst Magazines, will feature excerpts from Ash’s Haiku for Chocolate Lovers as the back page of the May 27 issue.

“I keep chuckling at the karma,” muses Ash. “Of all the national publications that could be the first to write about my haiku books, could you ask for a more appropriate magazine title? Now that is funny!”

The Smile page of the magazine will feature ten chocolate-related haiku by Ash, including:

because cacao grows
around the planet’s waistline,
it ends up on mine

“When editor Laura Manske first called me in January, I said I was surprised because it was past the deadlines for Valentine’s Day,” Ash recalled. “She replied, ‘Are you kidding? We’re always looking for chocolate around here!’”

Quick & Simple is available at newsstands everywhere, including many Barnes & Noble stores. The Haiku for Life® book series is available online through Barnes & Noble and Amazon, and can be ordered at local bookstores through wholesaler Partners/West in Renton, Washington. For more info, log on to www.BashoPress.com or call (206) 200-9525.

May 15 Meeting: Marketing and PR for Publishers

Book Publishers Northwest's May 15 meeting focuses on "Increasing Book Sales Through Effective Author Marketing and Public Relations Strategies." Our speaker will be Susan Burnash of Purple Duck Marketing.

The May 15 meeting takes place 4 pm to 6 pm at the Good Shepherd Center, 649 Sunnyside N., Room 221, in Seattle. This meeting is free for members of Book Publishers Northwest.

If you're interested in learning more about Purple Duck Marketing, email: susan@purpleduckmarketing.com or phone 425.896.8959.

HaperCollins’ e-Catalogs

HarperCollins recently announced that they will preview an e-catalog at BookExpo America this month.

The new e-catalog is designed to help HarperCollins reduce the number of printed catalogs currently distributed to booksellers and other buyers.

Among the features listed for the HarperCollins’ e-catalogs was covers, prices, on-sale dates, reviews, and quotes as well as links to a selection of galleys and complete Advance Reader Editions for certain titles.

Postage Goes Up One Cent

Postage goes up a penny today for first class stamps. If you have a basket full of old stamps with no printed values from other rate hikes, you can find out how much they are worth at the USPS website.

Other changes to postage rages are also listed at www.usps.com.

PNBA Outlines Changes to Fall Show

We received the following letter on May 5 from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. Please feel free to leave your comments about these changes.

Dear PNBA rep, publisher and author members,

We are making some very big changes to the fall show this year, and some of it may be confusing to you; so I am writing now to explain the changes, and to ask for your input on ways to help smooth the transition.

As background, last year's show in Bellevue was not well attended. We decided to move the show back to the Portland area, where we historically have had our best attendance.

We also have heard from many of you, and from some of our bookseller members as well, that the exhibits have been too spread out, with aisles much wider than we need and exhibitors too far away from each other. At the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, we used the entire exhibit hall, which was 35,000 square feet, down from 60,000 square feet that we were renting in the Oregon Convention Center. Many of you told me that that 35,000 sq ft space was still too large for our needs.

A large group of you have also suggested (some rather firmly) that we should cut the exhibit part of the show back to one-day, because the traffic in the last several years cannot justify two days. At the same time, many of you have asked that we not produce author events on the show floor during the exhibits, because of the sense that it drew customers away from your exhibits. Finally, in recent years many publishers have shown more interest in sending authors to the shows than they have in exhibiting.

To meld all of these interests into one new show is complicated, and will require adjustments for all of us. This 2008 show will be a trial effort for all of us; I hope that you will all be excited about the changes, and hopeful that they will re-invigorate the shows and our members. Here are the basic changes:

1) The next two fall shows (2008 and 2009) will be held at the Holiday Inn at the Portland Airport, whose Columbia Conference Center has only 15,500 square feet of exhibit space. Not only does this size require that we shrink the aisle space, it also means that our basic tables will be six feet long, not eight feet, and a basic booth size will be 8' x 8', not 8' x 10', as they have traditionally been each fall. (We did use six foot tables at most of our spring shows.)

2) PNBA will save some money using this independent exhibit hall, compared to the amount we spent at the OCC and the Meydenbauer. Therefore, we are reducing the cost of the table and booth space.

3) We are encouraging most vendors to exhibit for just one day, Tuesday, September 16. Those of you who tell us that you really need that second day (mostly independent reps, whose customers often pick up a catalog one day and come back the next to place orders) may sign up for two days, but will pay an additional fee for the second day, and will need to reserve your exhibit space much earlier than the vendors who will exhibit for only one day. After the two-day exhibitor deadline, I will have a short time to lay out the exhibit floor, to determine exactly how much space, in what locations, will be available for other uses on the second day, Wednesday, September 17. Only after those determinations are made will I be able to plan, promote, and schedule the other uses for those spaces.

4) There will be no author autographing on the show floor on the first day of exhibits, Tuesday, September 16. After the Book & Author Breakfast in the morning, there will be no author events and no educational events for booksellers until after the show floor closes Tuesday afternoon at 4:30. The emphasis on the show floor on Tuesday will be completely on the exhibitors. (I would love to hear any of your ideas about what PNBA might do to enliven and promote the exhibits.)

5) The second day of exhibits will now become Author Promotion Day, with those few exhibitors who paid extra for the second day sharing the hall with a diversity of author activities. In addition to the traditional author autographings, we will have authors meeting booksellers to discuss what types of presentation the authors might make when they visit stores, panels with authors discussing how booksellers can help promote their books, and seminars with authors and booksellers discussing how we can all work together to promote book sales. We will scatter the author events throughout the hall, to encourage booksellers to walk passed your exhibits on their way to the author events. And we will plan the author events so that they will not overwhelm the exhibitors who will be writing orders and talking with your customers.

6) We will be inviting a larger but limited number of librarians to attend the show (maximum 100), offering them free education on the first day of exhibits (Tuesday, the 16th) and complete access to the exhibit hall on Wednesday, the 17th. A main "theme" of this year's show will be "Booksellers and Librarians Working Together." I expect that the librarians will share our booksellers' interest in an Author Promotion Day.

As I mentioned earlier, I am anxious to hear from any of you with suggestions about how to make this new venue and schedule work best for you, the exhibitors, and for our booksellers. I will seriously consider any ideas and, if there are no problems with timing, space or expense, we will incorporate them into this year's event. If they are good ideas with problems that cannot be solved before this year's show, staff will discuss them after this show, in hopes of incorporating them into future events. If you have any questions or concerns about the new schedule, please contact me within the next two weeks, that is, before May 16. After the 16th, I will compile all of the concerns and post them, with our responses, on PNBA's web site, so that you may all share them.

To help you understand more completely what we envision for this year's show, we have posted several documents on our web site as pdfs. The links to those documents are at the end of this letter, after my signature.

Thank you for your consideration, patience and participation. We've got our fingers crossed, and hope that these changes will be well-received and will provide you with a re-invigorated show, well worth your time and effort. The PNBA Board has made it very clear to me that the most important consideration for the show is that it remain a valuable opportunity for booksellers to learn as much as they can about the industry and how to sell more books. With your help and enthusiasm, I believe that these changes will keep us working toward that end, and will provide us all with the best regional industry tradeshow possible.

Sincerely,

Thom

Thom Chambliss, Executive Director
Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association
214 East 12th Avenue
Eugene, OR 97401-3245
T: 541-683-4363
F: 541-683-3910
E: thom@pnba.org
W: www.pnba.org
2008 Show: Monday - Wednesday, September 15 -17.

Jackson Street Books Closes

Jackson Street Books will close at the end of the month. The mixed new-and-used bookstore's owners are relocating outside Seattle. According to their blog, they will continue to sell books online, but the walk-in bookstore never had "the sales we need to sustain ourselves and make a living."

Nautilus Nomination for Pale Surface

The Pale Surface of Things was named a finalist in the 2008 Nautilus Awards in the multicultural category.

The Nautilus Book Awards were conceived to recognize and reward a group of world-changing books, and to celebrate how they contribute to positive social change, spiritual growth, conscious living, high-level wellness, and responsible leadership. Nautilus winners will be announced at BEA.

Submitted by BPNW member Janey Bennett