I’m pasting in this article from today’s Shelf Awareness partly because one of my favorite booksellers, Shelly Plumb of Harleysville Books, Harleysville PA is mentioned, but also because there are so man good ideas for bringing business into your bookstore here. Becoming a center of learning and discovery for your community is a great way to build your business. Read on:
Kristen McLean, executive director of the American Booksellers for Children, moderated the panel called Give It Away to Get It Back: Using “Thought Leadership” Marketing to Build Your Children’s Business as a follow-up to last year’s “Thought Leadership” discussion (Shelf Awareness, June 16, 2008), again building on Joel Kurtzman’s idea that “thought leaders” are people “widely recognized for innovative ideas that they share broadly with their organization or community.”
This year, the focus was on building relationships with teachers and the larger community through book fairs, book clubs and other indie businesses.
McLean suggested that bookstores:
- Give professional book talks
- Offer teacher in-service
- Form creative partnerships with local schools
- Teach a class in the community’s continuing education program about children’s books
- Create an in-store education information center
- Spearhead buy-local programs
Shelly Plumb, owner of Harleysville Books, a general bookstore in Harleysville, Pa., noted that children’s books are her bestselling category for which she has developed several programs:
- Participation in the Pennsylvania State Certification Program and offering PSCP courses to teachers. (Most attendees are private or parochial schoolteachers.)
- Establishing eight types of book fairs for schools, from preschool through middle school.
- A contest with schools where they earn “book bucks” and a prize goes to the school that’s read the most books.
Diane Capriola, owner of Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Ga., started a book fair program with local schools when parents complained about the mass market titles and “gimmicky things” offered through Scholastic Book Fairs. Capriola said she “handpicked quality books” for the school book fairs, and that while it’s labor-intensive and doesn’t generate a lot of revenue, it does create a lot of good will.
“Teaching today is very different from teaching 10 years ago,” Capriola said, noting that teachers have to focus more on testing and the core curriculum. She said because of such demands on teachers, “bookstores have the opportunity to approach them with summer reading lists, book fair ideas and how to use graphic novels in the classroom,” with an educators’ discount. Little Shop of Stories has also partnered with other kid-friendly businesses such as toy stores, a candy store, and a music school that’s opening soon in their area.
Another way Capriola generated good will was by promoting at her store an event at the Carter Center where a sister indie, A Capella Books, was handling the book sales. A Capella did a shout-out to Little Shop of Stories, thanking the store for spreading the word, which resulted in attendees buying books from Capriola.
When Capriola heard that Daren Wang (formerly of Spoken Word), author Thomas Bell and others were thinking of starting a book festival in Decatur in February 2005, she offered to provide children’s book authors for a “Children’s Stage” event. The Decatur Book Festival launched Labor Day weekend in 2006 and has grown to draw more than 70,000 attendees; and the Children’s Stage generates the most revenue, Wang told Capriola and Little Shop co-owner Dave Shallenberger. A YA stage made its debut at last year’s festival.
Speaking of teens, Shannon Mathis, the children’s book buyer for Books Inc., with headquarters in San Francisco, Calif., is perhaps best known for founding the “Not Your Mother’s Book Club,” which is now four years old. Mathis called it a “literary salon for teens.” Among its “rules”: participants don’t have to read the book before meetings, every event is a party and Books Inc. gives away prizes such as iPods. Through the book club, Books Inc. has made a name for itself with teen readers in the Bay area as well as with the San Francisco public library system.
Some San Francisco residents used to pay to have people facilitate book clubs in private homes, Mathis noted. Books Inc. saw this as an opportunity and offers a speaker at a book club as a prize at school auctions. The stores also sponsor book talks called “Lattes and Literature” and give out book lists with the bookstores’ addresses. Mathis also urged booksellers, “Don’t underestimate teen reading lists.” She distributes summer reading list order forms and receives orders from schools as far as 30 miles away.
McLean reminded booksellers of the “posse” that last year’s thought leadership panelist Emily D’Amour Pardo started at Books & Books, Coral Gables, Fla.: teens who interned in the store created a teen blog on the store’s Web site about both titles and events. Teens reach teens most effectively, she said.
McLean also urged booksellers to incorporate the articles she includes in the ABC Toolbox e-newsletter on their own Web sites where appropriate. After all, it’s all about “innovative ideas that [we] share broadly with [our] community.”–Jennifer M. Brown
-From Shelf Awareness (subscribe)