Booksellers Sample Board Games at Winter Institute

Bookseller attendees at the American Booksellers Association’s 2020 Winter Institute in Baltimore had the chance to sample a variety of board games with colleagues or game reps, review discounts, and place orders in the Board Game Playroom on Friday, January 24.

The room was filled with a variety of publisher and distributor participants, including Atlas Games, GIGAMIC, Hush Hush Projects/Fog of Love, Iello Games, Looney Labs, Peachstate Hobby Distributors, R&R Games, Smirk and Dagger Games, Storymatic, USAopoly, Van Ryder Games, WizKids.

Bryan Kinsella from WizKids told Bookselling This Week that he was very excited to attend this year’s Winter Institute, saying, “We’re excited to be here because there’s a lot of bookstores that are looking at ways to increase their revenue streams with some affordable, easy-to-learn games.”

The Board Game Playroom was very popular with booksellers looking to expand their non-book inventory. Ryn Baginski and Lauren Ritta from Indigo Bridge Books in Lincoln, Nebraska, said they left the game room with tons of ideas about selling board games in-store.

“We decided to attend because our store already sells games,” said Ritta. “Our shelves seem a little bare and we wanted to find some new and exciting things. We found a lot centered on the same theme — we’re thinking about setting up a section of games for kids who want to be writers.”

“There’s a lot of storytelling games,” Baginski added. “Some of which were just fun, and some of which actually teach you how to write a story.”