While feedback is still arriving, it's safe to say that California Bookstore Day was a big success for participating bookstores up and down the state. The word was out, spirits were high, and bookstores were mobbed.

Dozens of stores reported surpassing sales from the first Saturday last year, many within the first 2-3 hours of the day, and overall increases of 50% and more were not uncommon!

Here is a sampling of comments that began arriving in NCIBA's email by 12:00.

It's noon..... we're past last year now... 10 hours to go!

We blew past last year's number by 12:15 today.

Surpassed Saturday, May 4 sales between 2 -3 p.m. Fun surpassed at 10:15 am!

Many stores also reported visits from first-time customers as well lines in front of the store at opening. One bookseller noted that average first-hour Saturday sales at her store were in the $200-$300 range; on California Bookstore Day, the first hour produced $3200 in sales.
One thing we do know for sure is that social media works.

Thanks to all of you who filled out our tech survey last month. for those of you who haven't yet, please take a couple of minutes to do so now. The feedback we get  will better inform us moving forward and help us offer services and education of value to the membership.

One new feature we'd like to introduce in the newsletter a monthly "Tech Tips" column that will offer suggestions and advice. We'll try to answer questions you send in and solicit tips from the membership. And to start things off, here are not one but two inaugural Tech Tips dealing with Edelweiss:

From Christin Evans, Booksmith:
Benefits to Training your whole staff on Edelweiss

The electronic catalog Edelweiss is nearly all grown up and is ready to be used by everyone.  Bookstores who train all staff on Edelweiss report real benefits. First, anyone can sign and register for a free account to discover information about soon to release titles.  Pro tip: if you would like all staff to have access to sales rep notes sent to the buyers, you can also create a login associated with your bookstore to share will all of your booksellers.  This latter approach facilitates communications about titles staff members are interested in & would like to feature, tag sharing (used to create lists for displays and send messages to buyers about interest). 

But perhaps the largest benefit of all, it gives your staff an opportunity to peruse digital ARCs which have in recent past included Eggers' The Circle, Strayed's Wild, and currently feature's Nesbo's Son among many other soon-to-be popular titles. 

For more information on how to set up an Edelweiss login go here: Or, contact former bookseller/buyer Joe Foster at Above the Treeline: jfoster@abovethetreeline.com.


From Nici McCown, Bookshop Santa Cruz
Here at Bookshop Santa Cruz we've been slowly increasing the number of store roles that use Edelweiss regularly, but starting this January we made a large push to give access to encourage everyone on staff to become familiar with the system. Our primary goal was to increase the number of IndieNext submission from our store and we achieved this by encourage floor staff to use Edelweiss to browse digital review copies and to browse for forthcoming titles they would like to read.

We have store eReaders staff can check out and we set up a system to try to make sure physical advanced copies got to interested staff readers as quickly as possible. We also offered rewards and recognition for submission and selected reviews. The majority of staff post their reviews on Edelweiss and our marketing team uses Edelweiss' Community features to access this wealth of book love and feed it into the website, social media, and other publications.

As the coordinator of this initiative (and a member of the marketing team) I've noticed that beyond exponentially increasing our IndieNext submission, this push has resulted in a rise in the general level of enthusiasm for new releases. We have more people enthusiastically talking about books as they land on the shelves; more staff recommendation shelf-talkers ready on release day; and more ahead-of-publication reviews to post to social media (which makes authors and publishers ecstatic).

Maggie Castanon, our beloved friend and former Bay Area Random House sales rep, passed away two weeks ago after a brief illness. She had just celebrated her seventieth birthday last December.
 
Maggie was more than a colleague to many of us in sales, publishing and bookselling. She was a lover of books, people, family, and her community. Her unique brand of vibrant optimism was a source of warmth and joy for all of us -- in tough and uncertain times, Maggie was the loving force that brought us together, and lifted us up. Her unfailing passion and generosity was the beating heart of the sales team.
 
Maggie laughed, Maggie danced, Maggie listened, and most of all, Maggie always made everything better. She was entirely unconventional - the first woman sales rep at a company that was, until she arrived in the early 70s, perhaps a bit buttoned-down. Maggie had a way of making people feel they could change, and become their best, fullest, happiest selves. We will always be grateful for her friendship and support. We will all miss her amazing magic.
 
Maggie was diagnosed recently with liver cancer; she passed quickly and without pain. Her ashes will be scattered in the Pacific Ocean, and a memorial service will be held at 1 pm on Sunday, May 11th at Putah Creek Park on UC Davis campus. Here are directions:

Condolences can be sent to her daughter:
 In lieu of flowers, contributions in Maggie's memory can be made to the Charlotte Maxwell Complementary Clinic, a women's health organization, where Maggie volunteered and served on the Board. www.charlottemaxwell.org 

We will be funding a scholarship to send a NCIBA bookseller to Winter Institute.
 
Maggie was fiercely proud of her children, and fiercely proud of her Random House family. We who were privileged to know her will always remain fiercely proud of her.

Books Inc. recently threw a party for one of their booksellers, Bill Ditto, who works at the company's Marina store in San Francisco. The celebration was held to honor Ditto for setting the company record for most books handsold by a single bookseller out of a single location - 5,000 copies of David Benioff's City of Thieves. The accomplishment also earned Bill a letter of thanks from the author himself, who wrote:

"How did you do that, Bill? What drug did you slip these poor, innocent book buyers? What the hell did you tell them? Is is true you threw the novel at someone and he ended up buying it?

"WHAT? How did that happen? Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying thank you. I'm stunned and grateful and gratefully stunned. The realization that someone out there is so passionate about my book that he convinced 5,000 strangers to give it a try - well, you've given me a wonderful gift. I only hope the novel is worthy of such a brilliant proponent, or else 5,000 angry strangers will hunt you down."

Nice going,  Bill!

We opened a new store a few months ago and just remodeled. We now know why everyone says "you can't be in two places at the same time". We have tried and failed! We would like to sell our 2nd store which is about 45 minutes from the first and get the 2nd part of our life back. It is located in an "up and coming" mall(the mall is spending millions on refurbishment) in the Fremont - Newark area of California (East Bay). It has 2800 sq ft of selling space, Pos system, inventory, new carpet and a fireplace! The back room is huge and could be used for a web business. If you have bookstore experience and are ready for your own store, this might be just the opportunity. We will work terms with anyone who has good financials. Please contact Brad or Cinda at 408-778-6467.

Variety of sizes needed.  Seven foot height max.  Lower half, or third, sloped out.  High quality construction.  Need photos and dimensions.

Matthew Sundt, Proprietor

OLD CAPITOL BOOKS

559 Tyler Street  

Monterey,  CA  93940

831-333-0383

Publishers can submit their promotions on Wednesdays via a Google Docs form.