Despite the pandemic, the mood of the New England Independent Booksellers Association virtual annual meeting yesterday was buoyant and optimistic and congratulatory.
|
|
| Beth Wagner | |
As president Beth Wagner of Phoenix Books, Essex Junction, Vt., said, "The past 18 months have strengthened our already acute pivoting skills. By definition, indie bookstores have always been masters of reinvention. It's what we do, and we're darn good at it. We make careful plans and when those plans no longer serve us, we adapt. We improvise. We do that as individuals, as stores, and in our NEIBA community."
She called meeting via Zoom rather than in person "not the same, but it is something. And that something is important. That something is community."
|
|
| Beth Ineson | |
NEIBA executive director Beth Ineson said, "I sit before you all today in awe of what you've pulled off," which included dealing with lockdowns, reopenings, operating online and in person at once, and "navigating the personal stress of it all, and one final gift for 2021: flying totally blind into Q4 because of the state of the supply chain.
"In the words of Glennon Doyle, you're all goddamned warriors, and I have to say that in more than 30 years in the industry, I have never been more proud to have been associated with a group of people."
|
|
| Allison Hill | |
And Allison Hill, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, echoed Ineson, saying, "You are all warriors." She applauded "all of you and everything you've been doing these past 18 months. It truly has been awesome and inspiring. We feel very honored to get to support you in all that."
In other good news, after forecasting a major budget shortfall, NEIBA ended the fiscal year "operating cash positive," Ineson said, in large part because of not having to put on in-person events (and thus paying for meeting space and food, etc.) and "extraordinary support" from publishers for its programs.
NEIBA had a range of online programming that has included regular Zoom meetings and Thursday happy hours. Unfortunately, the Masked Ball, scheduled to be in person October 21 in Providence, R.I., will be a virtual event, after a survey of members found most didn't want to meet IRL just yet.
Treasurer Emily Crowe of An Unlikely Story, Plainville, Mass., added that two new members of the NEIBA board were elected in electronic voting: Meghan Hayden of the River Bend Bookshop, Glastonbury, Conn., and Ben White of Macmillan.
One of two major NEIBA projects on the agenda in the coming year is creating a new strategic plan. As Ineson noted, the last strategic plan was formulated seven years ago, and "to say things have changed in the interim is an understatement."
The other big project is the launch of the NEIBA Foundation, a 503(c)(3) nonprofit, which Ineson said has several advantages. Donations to the Foundation will be tax deductible, and it will allow the association to use some of its "sizable nest egg" to do such things as make grants to bookstores to help them improve business. The Foundation will "not cross over into anything Binc does," she added.
In the ABA section, Hill talked about some association priorities, including antitrust work, where there is currently "momentum and opportunity," because of both political interest as well as a raised consciousness in the public. The ABA is engaged, for example, in working with members of Congress, encouraging them to move forward. She noted that antitrust efforts have sometimes been framed as "anti-Amazon" but should be reframed as "leveling the playing field."
 |
|
| Joy Dallanegra-Sanger | |
She cautioned that supply chain problems will likely be "worse than last year and probably the worst ever." COO Joy Dallanegra-Sanger urged booksellers to "stock up on the books you're behind and make sure you get them now." She added that in conversations with publishers, publishers' tones have become "progressively more dire" as they deal with myriad printing, paper supply, shipping and staffing problems.
Hill said that the association is continually improving the IndieCommerce platform and has also made an investment in "a significant, longer-term" upgrade that will roll out next year and "speak to the importance of e-commerce in the future. We all know we're not going back to the pre-pandemic days.... We now have hybrid customers who shop with you all the time in every way possible," and an improved IndieCommerce will be able to serve them better. --John Mutter