ABA debuted the new Why Indies Matter campaign at BEA, and now they need stores to champion the message and "to grow the campaign organically and exponentially."

Find out what you can do and exactly how to do it from Bookselling This Week.

On June 21, King County will launch its first ever book club for bus riders. A project of the nonprofit Transportation Choices Coalition and partners King County Library System, King County Metro and Richard Hugo House, Books on the Bus gets rolling with two main goals:

1)  Create a sense of community on public buses.
2)  Promote reading and discussion in King County.

The project is ongoing, featuring a new book selection every quarter of the year. Participants will read the selection on their bus commutes, then attend an event to celebrate and discuss that book at the end of its quarter. The program's first selection is Hotel Angeline, the collaborative Seattle 7 Writers novel spearheaded by Garth Stein. 

For more information about how Books on the Bus works, visit the Books on the Bus web page.

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, The Bookstore Training Group Paz & Associates will award one deserving recipient a bookstore makeover. The chosen bookstore will receive free store design and merchandising services, up to $2,000 in materials and services for improvements, a copy of the staff training video "Bookstore Merchandising Made Easy" and on-site project assistance.

To qualify, a bookseller must: belong to ABA and have been in business for at least ten years within the United States; have an area up to 2,000 square feet of an existing space that could benefit from a design make-over; be willing to provide labor needed for painting, fixture placement, or other tasks; and see the project through from implementation to completion prior to October 15, 2012.

The "before" and "after" story will be spotlighted in an upcoming issue of Indie Bookstore Entrepreneur, Paz & Associates' e-newsletter, and will be shared with book industry publications.

To enter, download the design questionnaire from the Paz & Associates website. Submit the completed questionnaire with photos and a diagram of the store's current layout by July 4, 2012. The winner will be chosen by July 31, 2012.

Many Moons Gone By
Langley, Washington's Moonraker Books celebrated 40 years in business June 15, a day declared "Moonraker Day" by the town's mayor.

BookPeople Goes BookPlush
BookPeople of Moscow has a 40-year history but looks and feels like a completely new store. The store was purchased last December, reopened in February and was officially christened on May 17. Bookselling This Week gave the rundown on the big day.

Agency Model Support Letters Deadline

June 25 is the last day to turn in your letters to the Department of Justice in opposition to the lawsuit against publishers for their use of the "Agency Model" for selling eBooks. Read Executive Director Thom Chambliss' letter from the May edition of Footnotes for submission details.

We Need Your Store Blurbs!
Visits to NWBookLovers.org are up since the June 1 re-launch. If you have not provided a descriptive blurb and/or photo of your store for the Find a Store page, this would be a good time to work something up and take advantage of the exposure. Have fun with it. It's your store--you know what there is to love!

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