On Demand Education Sessions

Join Newbery Award-winning authors Kwame Alexander and Jerry Craft in conversation as they discuss the roles booksellers played in their own success, how booksellers can encourage a love of reading, the importance of highlighting Black authors and illustrators, and to learn more about their upcoming projects.

A bookstore's unique voice is as important as the books it sells. During the current public health crisis, without customers browsing the stacks, stores have had to amplify their voices to break through the noise and harness the buying power of online shoppers. In this session, bookstore owners and social media managers will share how they developed their voices, got loud, and captured new customers and drove online sales. The panelists will also explore ideas on maximizing profitablility during this time of increased shipping all the while retaining their new customers.

This session features Angela Trigg of Haunted Bookshop in Mobile, Alabama, who has created a chatbot through which customers can place orders on the store’s website. The chatbot can detect if someone wants to order a book and then asks questions (like title, author, etc.) and records the answers to create an order note for the store through a third-party service. Booksellers will hear about the online tools Trigg used and how she set it up, as well as see a demonstration of how it works from the customer side.

Edelweiss360 is a new service that allows booksellers to efficiently craft and send store-branded, personalized emails to customers based on individual purchase behavior and staff knowledge of customers. In addition to driving foot traffic to stores, this new service aims to expand a store’s online ordering and pre-ordering capabilities to better compete with large online retailers. In this session bookseller attendees will hear from John Rubin, CEO & New Product Development Director about how Edelweiss360 works and have the oppourtunity to ask any questions.

This session session focuses on how booksellers can leverage their furry and cuddly (or even the not-so-furry or cuddly) pets to drive attention to their store and bring in customers.

This session focuses on how booksellers can use the event management and ticketing website Eventbrite. In this session, a representative will teach attendees about the service, and then three booksellers from ABA member stores will discuss how they use it to promote and market their events. Guest speakers will include Jorge Portillo of Eventbrite; John Ganiard of Literati Bookstore; and Jill Hendrix of Fiction Addiction.

The meetup covers, selling Libro.fm audiobooks and audiobook gifts during the holidays, Libro.fm’s Real People Monday promotion (also known as Cyber Monday), and an audiobook Q&A with Libro.fm and participating booksellers. Guest speakers include Nick Johnson from Libro.fm, Suzanne Droppert of Liberty Bay Books, and Jennifer Wood of East City Bookshop.

This session will offer an introduction to the Love Your Bookstore challenge, an overview of how stores have participated in the past, and ideas for how to market the event and get customers involved and excited about it. 

During the session, we'll hear about alternatives to in-store visits with authors, from online book clubs to Facebook Live to Skype sessions.

Guest speakers will be Gee Gee Rosell of Buxton Village Books, Broche Fabian of River Dog Book Co., and Candice Huber of Tubby & Coo’s Mid-City Book Shop, with additional information provided by Vroman’s Bookstore.

Established in 2014, Hummingbird offers a free, turnkey e-book and audiobook retailing platform that allows bookstores, publishers, media, nonprofits, bloggers, and others to compete with Amazon, Apple, and Barnes & Noble in the digital arena. During this session, booksellers will hear about the service from Hummingbird staff and from booksellers who are successfully marketing the service to their customers. Guest speakers will be Josh Mettee of Hummingbird Digital Media and Dave Lucey of Page 158 Books

In this meetup, attendees will hear from fellow booksellers about when they start planning for the holiday shopping season, how they decide which books and gifts to promote, what platforms they take their marketing campaigns to, and more.

Guest speakers for this meetup will include Len Vlahos from Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver; Jessica Stockton Bagnulo of Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, New York; and Cassie Clemans of Roundabout Books in Bend, Oregon.

In the first of two meetups on how multi-store events are organized and marketed, bookseller speakers will focus on Independent Bookstore Day and how regional businesses put together bookstore crawls and passports. Guest speakers will be Clarissa Murphy of Silver Unicorn Bookstore; Katie Eelman of Papercuts J.P.; Eric Lorberer of the literary organization Rain Taxi; Tom Nissley of Phinney Books; and Jessica Stockton Bagnulo of Greenlight Bookstore.

“Co-op” is a word booksellers often hear from publishers, but it can be quite confusing to try to decipher what it is. In this session, bookstores that maximize their spending using co-op dollars will share with attendees:

• What co-op is
• Where co-op comes from
• How a store can save by using their accrued co-op dollars

You know you want to bring authors to your store and into area schools, but how do you begin to ask publishers? Two words: “Author Grids.” In this session, panelists who have mastered the author grid will share with attendees:

• Tips for a perfect pitch
• The power of your sales rep
• How to create a stellar general event profile
• How to anticipate attendance
• How to request access to grids

With hundreds of subscription boxes to choose from, how will a customer know that yours is the right one for them? Attendees will learn the following from bookstores that have successful subscription box programs:

• Best practices for marketing
• Inventory control
• Options for special services
• How to select categories
• Fulfillment management
• Order tracking

Attachment	Size
Subscription Boxes Presentation (PDF)	2.16 MB

Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales, The Little Prince, Pippi Longstocking, Asterix — what do they all have in common? They are all beloved classics that have been translated from the authors’ original languages and have enriched the U.S. children’s book landscape as well as readers of all ages. In this informational session, publishing personnel will share with attendees:

• An overview of the translation and rights process
• Why translated books are important
• How to promote and sell these books to U.S. audiences
• How books can be used in outreach to schools and community groups
• How translated books can foster diversity, cultural awareness, and cross-cultural understanding

Attachment	Size
Favorite Translated Titles (PDF)	477.15 KB
Books in Translation Presentation (PDF)	2.01 MB

Pre-registation required; $45 fee per person; space is limited and lunch is provided. Hosting events in-store and offsite is a great way to strengthen a customer base, build goodwill within your community, and make money. But tackling the ins and outs of events, no matter how large or small, is daunting, time-consuming, and, let’s face it, overwhelming. This full-day, two-part workshop led by aces in bookstore event management will teach attendees:

• Best practices for in-store author events
• Tips for navigating events in a small space
• Best practices for off-site author events, including partnering with schools and libraries, hosting large-scale events, and using alternate venues
• Best practices for ticketing events and anticipating turnout
• How to launch a book festival in your community

Events University is open to all booksellers, including those who are not registered for Children’s Institute.

Attachment	Size
Events University In Store and Off Site Events - slide presentation (PDF)	14.97 MB

Gain a better understanding of the valuable role Instagram can play in your bookstore’s marketing program with Two Cats Communication as they share a holistic overview of best business practices utilizing the social media platform. This session will set bookstores up for Instagram success by teaching attendees:

• Optimization tips
• The benefits of an Instagram Business Account
• How to develop a consistent brand
• Platform features that can increase your reach and bring value to your bookstore

Attachment	Size
Top Tips for Instagram Success Presentation (PDF)	5.78 MB

Amy Webb is a quantitative futurist. She is a professor of strategic foresight at the NYU Stern School of Business and the Founder of the Future Today Institute, a leading future forecasting and strategy firm that researches technology and answers “What’s the future of X?” for a global client base. She is the author of three books, including The Signals Are Talking: Why Today’s Fringe Is Tomorrow’s Mainstream (PublicAffairs, December 2016) which explains how to predict and manage technological change. It was selected as one of Fast Company’s Best Books of 2016 and was a Washington Post Bestseller. Her bestselling memoir Data, A Love Story (Dutton/ Penguin 2013) is about finding love via algorithms. Her TED talk about Data has been viewed more than 6 million times and has been translated into 32 languages.

Successful social media marketing requires more than just posting and sharing content. Retailers that understand the power of engagement and customer relationships can generate name recognition, sales, on-site visitors, and more. Learn how to develop a more informed, organized, goal-oriented approach to your social media that will help you achieve your digital marketing goals. Identify how social media marketing can target the right audiences and grow your bottom line. This class will benefit any bookseller that has clearly defined digital marketing goals, currently manages one or more social media accounts, and is actively marketing on social media on a daily or weekly basis.

A children’s book festival can be an ideal vehicle to promote reading and literacy in your community.  Booksellers with vast experience at literary festivals around the country will explain how to get started with your own children's or teen festival, working in partnership with other local businesses and organizations, attracting authors and publicists, and garnering media attention.  How narrow or broadly should your focus be, when are the best times of year, and what other considerations must go into such an undertaking?  Learn all this and more before adding a festival to your events calendar.

• Cathy Berner, Blue Willow Bookshop (Houston, TX), Coordinator for the Bookworm Festival for Emerging Readers, Tweens Read, and TeenBookCon
• Diane Capriola, Little Shop of Stories (Decatur, GA), Children and Teen Program Manager for the AJC Decatur Book Festival
• Meghan Goel, BookPeople (Austin, TX), Program Director for the Texas Teen Book Festival
• Liesl Freudenstein, Boulder Book Store (Boulder, CO) (moderator)
   

Attachment	Size
BookPeople and the Texas Teen Book Festival (PDF)	21.87 KB

Geno Church, Word of Mouth Pathfinder from Brains on Fire, will lead an interactive workshop created to help booksellers spark and sustain word of mouth marketing. Learn how to make people fall passionately and madly in love with your store, and how loving your customers can result in not just building a thriving community, but also drive meaningful conversations and, ultimately, the financial success of your business. This session will also be offered on Friday from 10:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. 

Attachment	Size
Word of Mouth Movement Diagram Linked by Passion (PDF)	68.39 KB

Putting your store in the media spotlight and keeping it there does not have to cost a lot of money. In fact, it doesn't have to cost you anything at all beyond usual staff hours. This session will focus on how to take advantage of free media outlets to market and promote your store.

Attachment	Size
Free for the Asking - Marketing with PR and Social Media In Mind (PDF)	110.94 KB

Have you ever wondered what your customers think about your store or how they view you compared to your competition? In this session, find out how to create and execute customer surveys that will help you learn more about your customers and develop more effective strategies to meet their needs. This session will outline the "nuts-and-bolts" of how to do customer surveys -- including how to frame questions, administer the survey in your store and online, and analyze the results.

Attachment	Size
How To Conduct A Customer Survey Introduction (PDF)	523.07 KB
How To Do a Customer Survey: Common Questions, Complaints & Responses (PDF)	188.52 KB
How to do a Customer Survey: Option Guide (PDF)	195.15 KB
How To Do a Customer Survey: Talking Script & Sample Letter (PDF)	200.96 KB