Friday, June 27, 2014

Clinton Events Put Spotlight on Indie Booksellers

        By Sydney Jarrard on Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - ABA Bookselling this week


lHillary Rodham Clinton is touring the country this month to promote her new book, Hard Choices (Simon & Schuster), which details her time as America’s 67th secretary of state. Since the book’s publication on June 10, independent booksellers from coast to coast have welcomed Clinton — and hundreds of excited customers — through their doors for signings. On Monday, June 16, Clinton appeared at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where 1,000 people lined up to shake her hand and have their books signed. 

Details of the event were carefully planned out, said general manager Carole Horne, including marketing, staffing, closing the store for the signing, and blocking off the street to handle the line of ticket holders. Store staff also had to coordinate with the publisher, with Clinton’s staff, with the Secret Service, and with local police and fire department officials. Harvard Book Store has hosted other events that have been just as large in terms of sales (Stephen King) and just as complicated to coordinate (former President Jimmy Carter and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair), but “putting all factors together, we have certainly never done an event of greater magnitude,” said Horne.
 “Aside from the honor and pure pleasure in hosting such an amazing author, we’re very happy that Secretary Clinton and Simon & Schuster have chosen independent bookstores for so many of her events,” 
Horne added. “Putting a spotlight on indies, with the kind of media attention such an event generates, certainly shows the world that indies are alive and well.” 

For Clinton’s appearance on Wednesday, June 18, at University Book Store in Seattle, Washington, more than 1,100 people lined up on two levels of the 89,000-square-foot store. Having purchased wristbands that ensured admission and a signed book, eager fans lined up outside the store hours before the doors opened. - 

See more at: http://www.bookweb.org/node/29372#sthash.D09NvxFR.dpuf

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