The weekend of September 14—16 meant business at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association's annual meeting and trade show in Portland, Ore., but given the terrorist attacks in New York City just days before, business was not exactly conducted as usual. Nonetheless, attendance was just slightly down from last year and people did what they could to fill in for those missing. The Northwest Book Travelers Association donated its raffle proceeds to the Red Cross this year, and attendees worked together to find a way to help out.
PNBA executive director Thom Chambliss told PW that the organization carefully deliberated the option of canceling the event in light of the national tragedy but decided to go ahead with its plans in an attempt to restore some normalcy and give its members a sense of community. It was a decision for which most attendees seemed grateful.
"With all of the events happening this week, I wanted to be with people I know to get a dose of real life," DeDe Teeters, manager of Armchair Books in Port Orchard, Wash., told PW. "We don't know the ramifications of what happened. But I was pleased to see the number of people here." George Carroll, president of Redsides, an independent publishers rep group based in the region, observed, "It is a nice opportunity for a bunch of people to get together on a weekend when it's important for people to get together." Besides, without the show, Redsides columnist Terry Goodman would have no fodder for his next comic epistle, a staple in this community even after the loss of his former venue, Koen Pacific. It seemed a fitting time to reach out to the community, and that was at the fore of most attendees' minds.
Of course, people are worried about what the attacks will mean for the economy in general and for the book business in particular. "We were heading into a recession before Tuesday," observed Michael Powell, owner of Powell's Books in Portland, Ore. Then again, as Powell and others pointed out, bookstores often become a place to turn to in uncertain times.
Barbara Nadeau, manager of Auntie's Books in Spokane, Wash., said she and her colleagues were surprised by how many people came into the store in the days after September 11 looking for a safe haven. During one of the more sobering meetings at the show, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) lunch, it became clear that as the country enters a new kind of war mentality booksellers might once again be called to provide customers' book-buying information. "There are going to be issues to face," said Chuck Robinson, co-owner of Village Books in Bellingham, Wash., and former ABA president. "If solicited," he added, "call ABFFE. They have the resources."
For the most part, regional trade shows serve as both a shot in the arm to boost bookseller moral and as a final new title cram session before the all-important holiday season, and this year was no exception. Except, perhaps, for the fact that some featured authors had no way of getting to the show. This is where American ingenuity stepped in.
Chambliss did somersaults to try to fill out the program when authors could not attend. Still, there were hardly any attendee cancellations for events and no one objected to the substitution of local authors, including Chuck Palahniuk, who stepped up to appear on the program with practically no notice. At Sunday's author breakfast, Palahniuk said he wanted to thank the PNBA, since it gave him his first award for The Fight Club, and credited the regional booksellers with launching his career. In turn, he shared some hilarious tales of just where that success has taken him between Fight Club and his latest book, Choke (Doubleday).
Several first-time authors opted to drive hundreds of miles when planes were grounded. "I just thought it was important to meet these booksellers," said Allen Morris Jones, the former editor of Big Sky Journal whose first novel, Last Year's River, is just out from Houghton Mifflin. (Incidentally, those at the event learned just how a Montana guy like Jones could write so convincingly about a New York debutante who heads west to escape shame and finds, well, you have to read it to find out.)
Such stories behind the stories, or insider information about books and authors, are why booksellers love the regional shows. Simone Andrus, owner of World Wide Books & Maps in Seattle, a travel bookstore, was concerned about the effect of recent events on her business, but nonetheless concentrated on the task at hand. "This really helps in building relationships with publishers," she said. It is also a great opportunity to spot those quirky titles she thinks will do well in her store. On her watch list this season: Last Breath by Pete Stark (Walker), an account of what happens to the body as you challenge it, "for the testosterone-driven adventurers," and Himalayan Dhaba by Craig Joseph Danner (Crispen Hammer), a self-published title that started with the author's seemingly ill-fated mission as part of a husband-and-wife physician team in the remotest India. Dhaba, a work of fiction, was getting lots of buzz at the show. "That's the kind of thing we look for," Andrus told PW.
The marketing people from New York that the larger publishers usually send to events like PNBA were missed, as were some authors, but by and large the show went on and booksellers went away primed to do the handselling that they do so well.
