Cherie Arnott

Booksellers New Zealand Conference

The Langham Hotel, Auckland - 29 & 30 August 2010

Rises in taxes such as the 2.5% rise in GST on October 1 present problems for all retailers. But for books, where we work on a discount from Recommended Retail Price - as opposed to a mark up on the purchase price of goods - the problems are a bit gnarlier.

Add in the paperback and other sale-or-return of stock side of the book industry and the difficulties multiply.

The 86th annual Australian Booksellers Association conference was held over three days in Brisbane, starting last Sunday.

These training sessions have been written by booksellers for booksellers and are competency-based, with content designed and included with the aim of improving performance and increasing sales.

Registration forms can be downloaded below. Booksellers NZ’s aim is to offer training as broadly as possible for the convenience of our members. If you would like to book an in house session for your staff, or for a group, in Auckland or Christchurch or other areas please call Cherie Arnott 04-815-8361 or email her on cherie.arnott@booksellers.co.nz.

Tough times are believed to be behind recent multi-thousand dollar orders for Booksellers NZ tokens from organisations wanting to reward loyal staff and customers, according to Booksellers New Zealand.

“In May we saw a surprising number of single orders each worth many thousands of dollars, being bought by organisations and institutions” said Cherie Arnott from Booksellers New Zealand.

Voting has now closed for the 2010 Children’s Choice Award. Considered by children’s authors to be one of the highest accolades they can receive for their writing, this Award attracts tens of thousands of school-aged voters each year, and is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards.

Voting cards have been flooding into the Booksellers NZ office since the finalists were announced on 4 March.

Karen and Steve Pettigrew have owned Take Note Tawa for 18 years and three name changes; initially it was Local Value, then Books & More and from 2006, Take Note.

When the Pettigrew’s bought the store, it had a good range of books and that is something they have kept up over time.

Getting a New Zealand Post franchise in 1994 has helped grow the business, as has the subsequent addition of Kiwibank to their services.

Food for thought: Charging the Self-Published to display their books in your store…

From Publishers Lunch: Wed, 17 March 2010

We noted short items in the past regarding how the Boulder Bookstore charges all the self-published authors who want to connect with the store rather than sending them away empty-handed, and now a Nieman Journalism Lab piece offers more details.

The fee structure ranges from USD$25 to stock five copies and USD$75 to fea