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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.