Just three years old, the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association has weathered recent growth pains well: with only two months' notice, interim executive director Diana Wells and interim show manager Eileen Dengler were able to put on a well-run event in Philadelphia.
The pair were called on to replace Larry Robin, who left his position as executive director of NAIBA early this past summer. At the show, Robin was enthusiastic about the change's effect on his store, Robin's Bookstore, which is a few blocks from the show's site downtown at the Philadelphia Marriott. "Since I've been spending more time in the store, business is up 20%," he told PW.
Wells, who earlier this year closed her New York City store, The Traveller's Bookstore, was previously head of the New York/New Jersey Booksellers Association. Dengler, who managed the trade show, was longtime trade show manager of the ABA and is a principal of Reading Enterprises. NAIBA president Fern Jaffe of Paperbacks Plus, Bronx, N.Y., said that the NAIBA board planned to make permanent appointments for the two positions at a late October meeting.
Among the highlights from the show: the presentation of the William Helmuth Award for Outstanding Sales Rep, which, in an unusual change, went to rep group Chesapeake & Hudson in its entirety. Reps Bill Hoar, Ted Wedel, Michael Gourley, Steve Straw and John Vogt accepted the award jointly.
The association also presented its 1999 NAIBA Book Award Winners: for fiction, River, Cross My Heart by Breena Clarke (Little, Brown); for nonfiction, Values of the Game by Bill Bradley (Artisan); for children's, Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck (Dial).
Typical of many booksellers at NAIBA, Rozanne Seelen of the Drama Book Shop, New York City, said she had placed a lot of orders before the show but was still finding some great deals and books there. She also liked the social aspects of the show, saying it reminded her "of the old ABA. There are so many people I know."
Funny she should mention the old ABA... next year NAIBA's show will be held at the longtime site of the ABA show: the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. Moving shows has been difficult for some regionals. A few, like MPBA and NCIBA, stay in one place every year (in their cases, Denver and Oakland, respectively). And the shows that rotate, such as the GLBA and PNBA, tend to go to a different city each year, hitting four or five altogether. NAIBA's approach is most unusual: after three years in Philadelphia, it spends three years in Washington, then moves to New York City for three years.
NAIBA intends, as Jaffe put it, to make the most of the Shoreham connection. "It's a place we all got our beginnings," Jaffe said. "It's good to look back and see where we were and where we're going.
