In Atlanta this past weekend, L.B. May & Associates put on its 16th Spring Book Show, featuring some 70 vendors and more than 85,000 bargain titles—including remainders, returns, promotionals, “white sales,” and used books. In addition, Larry May, who owns L.B. May with his wife, Valerie, announced the creation of the GABBS (Great American Bargain Book Show) network, which will encompass the annual Atlanta event, L.B. May’s Boston convention (held every August), and newly implemented news services like an e-newsletter, a print buyers guide, and a Web site (www.gabbs.net), that will soon offer training modules and short videos.
May told PW that the plans for the GABBS network had been brewing for the past six months, and will put all of the Knoxville, Tenn., company’s bargain book expertise and events under a single umbrella, with a unified Web presence.
In news from the show floor at SBS, to be known as GABBS Atlanta from here on out, attendance rose 2% over 2010, and there was a marked increase in international participants, both as buyers and vendors (like Caxton from the U.K. and Book Depot from Canada). Those trends are in line with the convention’s growth over the past 15 years as well as U.S. economic factors: “Because the [domestic book] market has declined somewhat,” May told PW, “exhibitors have reached out to the internationals” who can take advantage of the relatively weak dollar. Asian countries in particular, including Korea, Japan, India, and China, have shown a greater interest in the bargain book market: “There’s demand in their countries for English-language books, but to buy them new and import them can be extremely expensive. So remainders are a good option.”
Another recession-borne trend May picked up on is a diminishing pool of high-caliber remainders: “I heard from the exhibitors, though not from the buyers, that they’re struggling more than normal in trying to find quality products. A lot of the publishers were printing smaller press runs, so that affects what’s left over for remainders and returns.” Unsurprisingly, nonbook crossover product like educational toys, stationery and journals, CDs and DVDs are on the rise. May insists that these “peripheral” products are vital to the success of today’s booksellers.
Also new was the participation of several university presses looking to sell their remainders directly, including the University of South Carolina Press and the University of Tennessee Press; one publishing rep, who wished to remain nameless, told PW that he likes to check out the titles at SBS for examples of what didn’t sell.
As in the past, the American Booksellers Association and the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance were on hand to hold educational seminars for booksellers large and small. May’s number one idea for helping your bookstore, naturally, is to increase the volume of bargain books for sale, especially for independents struggling to keep the business of discount-hungry consumers who are turning to Amazon, Wal-Mart, and other reduced-priced purveyors for their books.
