The Upper Midwest Booksellers Association certainly is not resting on its laurels since putting together yet another successful regional booksellers trade show in October. For the past two months, the organization has been busy launching new projects, both large and small, to better serve its members and to raise UMBA's own profile.
The book awards program is UMBA's most ambitious recent undertaking. The first UMBA Book Awards will be given out at the 2005 UMBA trade show next fall. Books eligible for the first UMBA Book Awards must be published in either hardcover or paper between June 1, 2004, and May 31, 2005.
UMBA booksellers may nominate their favorite frontlist titles in five categories: adult fiction, adult nonfiction, poetry, children's picture book and children's literature (both fiction and nonfiction). All books nominated must pertain to the Midwest or Upper Midwest region in content. The author's place of residence is not a consideration.
"Some of the other regionals have had book award programs for several years," Susan Walker, UMBA's executive director, told PW. "We've been remiss, but for a while we thought there were too many awards given out in this part of the country.
"But this is important," she added. "The UMBA Awards will be completely bookseller-driven. Books to be considered will be chosen by UMBA booksellers. They will be the judges, every step of the way. These are the books the regional booksellers are standing behind, not simply the bestsellers that publishers are telling us to nominate. It'll be like Book Sense."
Besides launching a new book awards program, the organization has also increased the regularity of its newsletter; formerly a quarterly print newsletter, it is now a bimonthly e-mailed version. There will also be more frequent newsflashes e-mailed to members when necessary.
The online newsletter is much more condensed than the print newsletter and is sent out in text format. Even the ads included in the body of the newsletter are text-only. UMBA intends to send attached PDF files with the newsletter for longer news items and for full-page ads.
"It's cheaper, it takes less time to produce and most of our members are capable of receiving e-mail," said Walker. "For those handful of stores that can't receive e-mail, we're going to fax or snail mail printouts of the newsletter."
"Giving people information and giving it to them as soon as possible is so important," Walker noted. "We're following in ABA's steps; they decided some years ago to go online with Bookselling This Week."
Amid all the changes, UMBA also decided it was time its logo got a makeover.
"We've had the old logo forever," Walker told PW. "We decided it was looking old and tired, so we got a new one. We wanted something that suggested a book, but we also wanted something stylized." The association rolled out the new logo at October's trade show in St. Paul.
Walker emphasized that UMBA's new book awards program, online newsletter and hip new logo are all part of UMBA's unswerving commitment to its members.
"There are challenges for all of us in the book industry," she said. "As a trade association, we are committed to constantly look at how we can remain as viable and useful to our members as possible. We are always asking ourselves two questions: 'How can we move forward?' and 'How can we help our bookstores be as successful as can be?' "
