Just weeks into her new job as executive director of the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association (and in the midst of buying and moving into a new home, as well as working on the final project for a master's degree in women's studies), Deb Leonard took a few minutes to chat with Shelf Awareness about the association, bookselling issues, publishing--and what she's reading right now. 
Recruited many years ago by Michael Zibart to work at the late Zibart's Book Store in Nashville, Tenn., Leonard has a couple of decades of jobs in the book business on her résumé since then. She even "went to the dark side" for a while, she joked--working for publishers. She added quickly that her years at Simon & Schuster and Scholastic were very happy ones and said her background will help GLiBA to "go forward" in these challenging times.
With her bookseller/publisher background, Leonard intends to bring the issues that face all the regional associations and their member stores into focus for publishers. "It's time for all the regionals as a group to go to New York and lay our cards on the table" so that both sides can see "what we need to survive and what we can do for [publishers]," she said. "We are all on the same side, and we are all championing the same things."
At GLiBA, one of Leonard's priorities is jumping on the social media "thing" big time. "It's not the wave of the future," she exclaimed. "It's now."
Leonard said she believes that independent bookstores can and will have a piece of the e-market. "I think we can play in that," she said. "But you have to get the stores to think that way and you have to get the consumer to think of going to the stores for an e-book." The average customer does not realize what goes into publishing a book, she noted. But now that not every e-book is priced at $9.99, booksellers have a chance to get into the game.
So far, the new GLiBA executive director does not have an e-reader, but said she can foresee one in her future. She reads many printed books, which she said are here to stay. Recently she read The White Queen by Phillippa Gregory and The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent and is currently reading Lee Child's The Killing Floor. Next on the list: Hell Gate by Linda Fairstein. Leonard prefers mysteries, but also finds time for historical fiction and nonfiction that leans toward women's interests such as No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship by Linda Kerber. This relates somewhat to her final women's studies project: compiling a database of organizations that help raise women out of poverty in America.
Meanwhile, Leonard is wired and working remotely from Ann Arbor (although soon in a new home office) while GLiBA's associate director Joan Jandernoa remains in the Grand Haven GLiBA office. Leonard said that although it sounds like such a cliché, but she admires the GLiBA board for its ability to think outside the box. "When I had the interview [for the job], I thought, 'Can I just stay friends with you guys?' "--Bridget Kinsella