Anyone who has doubts about "the resiliency and viability of independent bookselling" should have seen the opening reception for the Winter Institute on Tuesday night, said ABA CEO Oren Teicher. "It was exhilarating. We are still here. You are still here, and I can tell you we're not going away."
Speaking to the 500 booksellers at the opening panel yesterday, Teicher put the past year in perspective by noting that booksellers left the Winter Institute in Crystal City, Va., last January "with some optimism and a sense of energy" although many people, including "some of us," thought "we were all just a bit crazy." After all, the economy was in the worst shape since the Great Depression, Borders was on the ropes and e-book sales were increasing at triple-digit rates "and many thought e-books were a market indies simply wouldn't crack."
But 2011 turned out to be "the best year many of you had," Teicher said. After a difficult first quarter, sales began to pick up, especially after Borders finally closed, so that by the week of Thanksgiving, sales at indies, as measured by BookScan, rose 15% and were up every week following that, and Google e-book sales constituted 5.2% of total e-commerce sales at IndieCommerce bookstores.
Booksellers did a variety of things to make the season happen: "You handsold, you reached out to current and new customers, you developed relationships with customers on Twitter and Facebook," Teicher said. "You worked, you worked and then you worked some more. When the final shoppers left on December 24 and you totaled up sales, you realized that all that energy and enthusiasm in Crystal City paid off."
Another measure of what Teicher called the bookstore renaissance is that ABA membership continued to rise and should increase again this year.
Still, despite the year, "we're not out of the woods yet," Teicher said. "The powerful currents of technological and social change are strong," and competition for people's time and money grow. Booksellers need to make the case for bricks-and mortar stores and show how indies are "fueling sales across all channels." The development of strong business models for stores is ever more urgent, he stressed, and stores will be "places where consumers discover great new reads--wherever they ultimately buy that product and in what form."
Teicher thanked publishers that have begun to work with the association to experiment with approaches that will help booksellers, publishers and readers and "reverse the status quo."
Teicher concluded by saying he hopes that at next year's Winter Institute, "we will be able to say our innovation and creativity and willingness to look at new solutions" will have helped booksellers and the industry "meet the challenges of today." --John Mutter