Fall Regionals
head TV. “When it comes to politics, where I live in South Carolina, we liberals—and
there are more than just a few—have learned to just keep our heads down and keep
quiet,” says Wanda Jewell, executive director of Southern Independent Booksellers
Alliance (SIBA). That said, she hasn’t shied away from programming a panel discus-
sion between authors Sharon Robinson and Peggy Wallace Kennedy—the daughters
of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball, and
George Wallace, the notoriously segregationist politician, respectively.Voting on Change
For the past several years, Jewell herself courted controversy, first with her announcement
that she planned to move to the West Coast, while still running SIBA, and then with
her idea to move the regional trade show to spring—though both plans were ultimately
aborted. “I’m just happy that we don’t have anything like that happening this year,”
Jewell jokes. She might give some advice to NCIBA’s Crosby—as well as to Andrea
Vuleta, executive director of the Southern California Independent Booksellers
Association (SCIBA)—about dealing with change. Both organizations will be voting
on whether or not to merge. SCIBA’s members will vote in person at its trade show in
September, and NCIBA’s will vote via email. Whatever the result, “We already know
we will definitely be doing our spring and fall discovery shows together next year,”
Crosby says, noting that the spring show will remain in Southern California and the
fall show in the northern part of the state at least until 2020.Baker & Taylor Blowback
One of the biggest issues under discussion at this year’s regionals will be how book-
sellers, particularly those out West, are trying to fill in the void left by Baker & Taylor
after its announcement earlier this year that it is exiting the trade wholesale business.
Numerous regionals are holding sessions on the topic. “Like all regionals, our book-
sellers are relearning much of their book buying after the closing of B&T retail,” says
Carrie Obry, executive director of the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association
(MIBA). “It’s a whole new game with a bit of a learning curve to establish your procedures
for managing multiple lines of direct ordering from publishers all at once. This of
course brings up the concurrent issues of inventory, turn, and so on, and using tools
like Edelweiss to manage all of these aspects.”
Booksellers remember last year’s shortages of hot holiday titles, and the big question
for many is whether Ingram and publishers, whose initial wave of post-B&T specials
and incentives are starting to run out, will be able to meet demand when the pressure
is on. In August, Ingram hosted a pair of what it called listening sessions in Boston
and San Francisco, to answer bookseller’s concerns. “We think that this year will be a
different holiday,” says Shawn Everson, Ingram’s chief commercial officer. “There is
no Becoming coming, for example, and there’s no crunch on printing capacity.
Nevertheless, we want indies to be confident that we fully support them. For a start,
we are putting more inventory into our ‘indie vault,’ which shields the inventory from
other retailers, and we’re improving iPage functionality.”
That said, bookstores on the West Coast are especially concerned about delivery
times, as many were serviced out of B&T’s Reno warehouse; Ingram’s main West Coast
warehouse is located in Roseburg, Ore., and is generally seen as reliable, but it can be
slowed by inclement winter weather. “West Coast retailers will be pleased to learn
that we are adding additional inventory to Roseburg, and introducing a new carrier,
GLS, for deliveries starting in September,” Everson says.
The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) will address the B&T
fallout at its regional in a session titled “Cash Flow Post-B&T.” Likewise, the
Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association (MPIBA) show will hold
a session called “Life After B&T.”NEW
Fall 2019 Books
fromblue manatee press
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Illustrated by
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ISBN: 978-1-936669-76-9
Board Book * $7.99“
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A gem of a book that
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A Fall 2019
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