David Gregor of Book Seminars International has dates for his 2008 workshops – Book Collecting for Fun and Profit, and the Strategic Bookselling Workshop. He’ll be presenting in Langley, WA in March, San Francisco, CA in April, Hadley, MA in May, and again in Langley in Nov.
I attended his Strategic Bookselling Workshop last year, and learned a tremendous amount from it. I’ve talked with other booksellers – both new to the business and not – who’ve attended and haven’t heard anything other than the highest praise for David’s program. I still consider myself a novice after only 2 1/2 years with my online shop (plus some bookselling at another shop before starting Withywindle) and am working hard to learn as much as I can as quickly as possible. David’s bookselling workshop went a long way to helping me re-think many of my business plans, and refine others. Some of the broad topics covered include: Business Direction, the Business of Bookselling, Branding (your bookstore), Selling (and looking at your customer base), and Inventory.
Regardless of what point you are in your bookselling career (or even just thinking about having your own shop), and have the means to attend one of these workshops, you’ll be glad you did. In fact I’m thinking that a repeat attendance would be a good idea for me a few years down the road…
