The atmosphere was both more frantic and more focused this year, as more than 1,200 booksellers, publishers and authors converged on St. Paul's RiverCentre September 27—29 for the annual Upper Midwest Booksellers Association trade show. In a departure from previous events, this year's show pared the trade exhibit down to one long session on Saturday and sandwiched the educational programs and author events around it on Friday and Sunday.
By most accounts, the new format made for a livelier show on Saturday, as booksellers packed the floor all day and tried to accomplish all of their objectives in the condensed time frame. This, of course, caused some challenges for exhibitors and attendees.
"When you have to set up and tear down the same day, it makes for a long afternoon," said Iowa State University Press publicity manager Megan Scott. "But the upside is that people are getting right down to business."
"Most of the reports we received indicated that people were pleased," UMBA executive director Susan Walker told PW. "Obviously, everyone had to adjust to the new schedule and figure out a way to make effective use of their time. With the educational programs and autographing schedule concentrated on Friday and Sunday, we were able to really focus the attention of the booksellers on the exhibits, which we think is a positive." Attendance was up from last year. The estimated total attendance was more than 1,250, with 150 bookstores represented (an increase from last year's 109). There were 626 booksellers at the show, up from 545 the previous year.
Heinecken and Associates representative Wes Caliger was enthusiastic about Saturday's traffic. "Earlier today, people were just sort of looking around and gauging," he said. "But at the 11th hour, they all seemed to come back and we were writing orders like mad.
Like many of Saturday's participants, Amy Baum from St. Paul's Red Balloon bookstore was busy on the show floor. "My objective is to see anything that I haven't seen," Baum told PW. "My goal is to get catalogues. I want to find out what's coming that I haven't heard about yet. I'm really excited about Scholastic's list." She was also enthusiastic about Roaring Brook Press, the new fiction and picture book division of Millbrook Press: "I think it is probably the best thing to happen in kid's publishing for a long time." The small imprint's editorial staff features some big names in publishing, including executive director Deborah Brodie, who left Viking Children's Books after 22 years.
Saturday's Book and Author breakfast featured titles a number of booksellers said they were eager to sell. Jerry Bilek, a buyer for both the St. Olaf University bookstore and River City Books in Northfield, Minn., introduced the authors at the breakfast and called Michael Perry's Population 485 (HarperCollins) "a great, really amazing story about a volunteer firefighter in New Auburn, Wisconsin,... it's a unique and humorous look at finding your place in a community."
Susan Power, author of Roofwalker (Milkweed Editions), the long-awaited follow-up to the author's 1994 PEN Hemingway Award—winning The Grass Dancer, was a hit at the breakfast, too, boosting traffic at the Milkweed booth. "Roofwalker is really picking up speed," Milkweed's marketing director Hilary Reeves told PW. "We did a really big first printing—for us—much bigger than we usually start out with. And the back orders are already right up there with the total print run."
Erik Larson's true tale of a serial killer on the loose at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, The Devil in the White City (Crown, Feb.) also generated a lot of interest on the floor. Larson's Isaac's Storm (Vintage) was a favorite with booksellers two years ago.
As always, the show allowed independent regional publishers to make a direct connection with the largest audience for their books. "It's so nice to connect with booksellers," said Patricia Condon Johnston, publisher of Afton Historical Society Press, Afton, Minn. "We see the names on the orders, but it's great to put faces with the names. It's wonderful for us to be able to showcase our books like this. We've been busy writing orders all day."
Oren Teicher, COO of the American Booksellers Association, said he was encouraged by the turnout. "I've already talked to four or five people who have opened new stores," Teicher reported early Saturday afternoon. "There seems to be a bunch of new people, and that's exciting. The other remarkably good bit of news for us is that despite the fact that there are fewer stores, market share is holding, which means that the people who are surviving are obviously doing a little bit better."
