Two regional bookseller associations have each taken a popular component of the wildly successful Book Sense marketing program and tweaked it to more effectively promote titles with a regional angle to their members.

Great Lakes Booksellers

For the past year, the Great Lakes Booksellers Association has sent monthly e-mails to approximately 300 Midwestern booksellers, promoting between four and eight titles of regional interest. Just like the national Book Sense Advance Access program, in the "Book Sense/Great Lakes Region Regional Access Program," the bookseller responds directly to the publisher in requesting a particular galley, reading copy or finished copy of the book.

"Regional interest titles don't get that much attention in the national Book Sense program," GLBA executive director Jim Dana told PW. "We're glad to be able to do something benefiting regional titles without undermining Book Sense."

According to the GLBA booksellers that PW contacted, the GLBA's Regional Access Program has become very useful in discovering titles appropriate to their stores and highlighting titles that they otherwise might have overlooked.

"I find it really interesting," Sue Boucher, owner of Lake Forest Books in Lake Forest, Ill., said. "Not everything works for my bookstore, but the books that are appropriate are really great. For instance, The Living Great Lakes [Thomas Dunne Books] by Jerry Dennis was fabulous and really explained what the Great Lakes are all about. The GLBA program is a nice addition to Book Sense."

There is one important prerequisite for inclusion in the Great Lakes Regional Access Program. Although the title submitted can be of any genre, it must be set in or about any of the eight states adjoining the Great Lakes, down to the Ohio River and into the Great Plains.

For more information on GLBA's Regional Access Program and its cost, e-mail Dana at jimd@books-glba.org or phone the GLBA office at (616) 847-2460.

Mountains and Plains Booksellers

"Kyle's Box," sponsored by the Mountain & Plains Booksellers Association, is even more ambitious than the GLBA's Regional Access Program. Quarterly, the MPBA intends to ship a box of promotional materials, catalogues, galleys and finished copies of books to its 240 member bookstores. Each box also includes the MPBA newsletter and CD-ROM recordings of the MPBA annual March meeting in Denver.

According to MPBA executive director Lisa Knudsen, Kyle's Box came about because MPBA wanted to strengthen the relationship between the association, based in Fort Collins, Colo., and its membership, which is spread out over a large geographic area: from Idaho to New Mexico, Arizona to Iowa.

"They pay dues, and may go to the trade show every three or four years, but they don't really take advantage of all the programs that MPBA has to offer," Knudsen told PW. "Our territory is the largest in terms of square miles of any of the regional associations. It's a 10-hour drive to Denver for some booksellers. We want to keep them connected."

"Plus, we also wanted to reach out to the 50% of our members who don't belong to ABA and don't get a white box," she added.

Kyle's Box was named for MPBA administrative assistant Kyle Larson. "I left the meeting when the Board was discussing what to name the program," said Larson. "I thought we were going to call it the 'Green Box.' While I was gone, board member Derek Lawrence from Speck Press said, 'We ought to name it after Kyle, since he'll be doing all the work!' "

The first mailing in the Kyle's Box program went out in May, with the second one scheduled for August. According to Knudsen, the May mailing included promotional materials from 13 publishers, with one galley in each box. The August mailing is already full; it has material from 25 publishers and includes five galleys in each box.

Barbara Theroux, owner of Fact & Fiction in Missoula, Mont., is happy that MPBA is providing this service for its members. "It's a good way for publishers to include a regional author or someone they want to grow in a region," she told PW. "It's a great way to make sure booksellers in this region see and get a book."

"I'm a strong supporter of Book Sense," Theroux added. "But it can be a bit top-heavy, with materials we don't use. But Kyle's Box really had great stuff that was appropriate to my store and what we sell. Lisa and Kyle have a great handle on what stores in this area need and want."

For more information on MPBA's Kyle's Box program, including cost and space reservations, e-mail Kyle Larson at kyle@mountainsplains.org or call MPBA's office at (970) 484-5856.