Welcome to New Voices New Rooms: a virtual bookselling show produced by SIBA and NAIBA. This guide will give you a tour of the show and its different elements. The SIBA/NAIBA team has worked hard to create a rewarding and useful experience for its attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors, and we hope you will come away with many new resources and skills to help your business and new products succeed.
The Program
The NVNR program uses Zoom to host and broadcast all of its events. You can find individual events posted on the schedule. In September registration links will be added to all the event listings. Because we know you will be dropping in on NVNR during your own regular work day, each event can be added to your own calendar, and shared with colleagues.
The schedule is easily searchable if you are looking for a specific author or book, or you can click on any of the tags (“#authorevents, #networking, #education, etc) to see the events related to those categories.
The Exhibits
The NVNR Exhibit Hall is less a “hall” and more of a gateway to awesomeness. The exhibitors you find there are the reason New Voices New Rooms exists — they believe strongly that independent bookstores are vital to the success of their books. They have invested in the show to get their books in front of booksellers and foster relationships with independent bookstores.
Return the favor by taking a stroll through their listings. Every “booth” is as unique as the exhibitor who created it. You can find featured titles, links to Edelweiss collections, information about show specials, and places to request review copies. Leave your virtual business card to be entered in a raffle for prizes.
Even more importantly, exhibitors have their own dedicated time in the schedule during “Publisher Office Hours” where they can schedule meetings or have “booth signings” with authors available to meet booksellers. Publisher Office Hours are held every day between 9:00 am and 12:30 pm. The times when exhibitors will be available will appear in the schedule and on their exhibit page as they are confirmed.
The Booksellers
One of the great benefits of a show is connecting with your fellow booksellers. It is often the things you learn from your colleagues chatting over dinner or in between sessions that turn out to be the most useful for your business. At NVNR, those potential connections are doubled — not only will you meet up (virtually) with old bookseller friends from your bookseller organization, you will also meet booksellers from the sister organization to the north or south. What can a New York bookseller learn from a Florida store? What can a bookseller in Alabama learn from a shop in Pennsylvania?
The Attendee Directory will give you an idea of who you can meet at the show. There are over 900 bookstores in SIBA and NAIBA’s combined territory, so the opportunity to meet someone new is almost unavoidable!
And note, especially, the events in the schedule tagged “Networking” — those are designed for booksellers to interact with each other.
Registration
Everyone who wants to attend any NVNR event must register for the show first. Think of registration as the equivalent of having a show badge. If you don’t register, you won’t be allowed into Zoom events, and you won’t receive important updates.
When you register be sure to fill out the form as completely as possible. Include your job title: the schedule has time booked for buyers to get together with other buyers, owners with owners, event coordinators with other event coordinators, etc. NVNR needs to know your role at your bookstore to assign you to the correct networking events.
Also let us know if you want to be included on the Attendee Directory. This is not mandatory, but publishers like to see who they will be meeting. The attendee directory does not include emails or phone numbers, but it will let publishers and other bookstores know who they might run into.
New Voices New Rooms is a five-day show packed with author events, round table discussions, editor and rep picks, and seminars and workshops. No one can attend every event, so get your whole staff involved to make the most of the show. This is a great opportunity for your front-line booksellers.