From early September through mid-October, approximately 1,300 indie booksellers across the country are expected to attend their respective regional bookselling associations’ annual fall conferences. The New England Independent Booksellers Association will convene in Manchester, N.H., September 9–11, followed by the California Independent Booksellers Alliance in South San Francisco September 17–18; the Pacific Northwest Independent Booksellers Association in Spokane, Wash., September 28–30; and the Mountains and the Plains Independent Booksellers Association in Denver October 5–8. Finishing up the season, the Midwest Independent Booksellers and Great Lakes Independent Booksellers associations’ joint show, Heartland Fall Forum, will take place in Indianapolis October 14–16. Not only is it Heartland’s first-ever foray into Indy, but this will be Grace Hagen’s first conference as MIBA’s executive director.
The fall trade show season actually has already kicked off, weeks before the Labor Day holiday weekend that for most Americans marks the official end of summer and for some in the industry, the final summer Friday. The third New Voices New Rooms, the in-person collaboration between the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association and Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, was held August 3–6 in Atlanta, drawing a record-setting 335 booksellers. Attendees fraternized with colleagues across both regions throughout educational sessions, in the exhibit area, at the Marriott Marquis hotel bar, and at numerous receptions and publisher dinners, as well as during the docent-led tour of the showrooms at AmericasMart, the huge wholesaler marketplace. Indeed, NVNR, several of its 580 total attendees told PW, set a high bar for the five remaining conferences and was an appropriately grand finale to Eileen Dengler’s 26-year tenure as NAIBA’s first—and, to date, only—executive director.
For the next seven weeks, booksellers will meet face-to-face with each other, authors, and publishers’ reps, as well as with editors, who are increasingly included in programming at the regionals, introducing their lists and pitching favorite acquisitions. Attendees will learn about best practices, the latest industry trends, and pick up advance reading copies, including one by a debut author already well-known to the industry: Dan Simon, the publisher of Seven Stories Press, who will be at NEIBA promoting his novel Ashland (Europa Editions, Feb. 2026).
While the focus at the fall regionals is on fall and early winter frontlist titles, a growing number of publishers are handing out ARCs for spring 2026 releases as well. Publishers see many of these booksellers in person only once a year since the demise of BookExpo five years ago, several reps have noted in conversations with PW. As such, reps are now bringing early copies of their most anticipated forthcoming spring releases to the fall gatherings. Picking up on the trend, PNBA has dedicated its show-closing “Books Around the Bend” lunch to showcasing 10 authors with books releasing in 2026.
Entrepreneurs have been opening bookstores with various business models at a dizzying pace, and the regional bookseller associations continue to see a double-digit growth that started trending in 2020, during the pandemic. As such, the focus of the fall gatherings, the executive directors all say, is increasingly on education, with attention paid to welcoming new bookstores into the fold and priming them for success in a rapidly changing industry.
Hannah Walcher, executive director of CALIBA, says the organization “expects lively discussions on the various topics, including preparing for the big holiday handselling season, creating and living your store’s mission, and, of course, battling in-store curation attacks.” As PNBA executive director Brian Juenemann puts it, “The infusion of energy is fantastic. These new booksellers are hungry to learn, to take in the industry, to be a part of it.”
At NVNR, where 40% of the booksellers were first-time attendees, the education sessions created more of a buzz than the 90 authors in attendance—except for, perhaps, two: Jason Reynolds, who received two NAIBA awards, including the Legacy Award; and Silas House, whose presentation during the opening keynote, numerous attendees told PW, was an especially powerful and moving denunciation of homophobia, bigotry, and censorship.
Programming at all of the regionals is packed with educational opportunities designed to forge bonds between booksellers. NEIBA will present two sessions for early-bird arrivals: an intensive on the annual ABACUS financial survey and a “New-to-NEIBA Bootcamp.” And CALIBA is kicking off with a session for first-time attendees, followed by a panel on how to measure the success of events beyond the financial.
PNBA begins with a membership meeting, followed by the opening keynote, “Bookselling: Conflict, Care, and Community in Bookstore Workplaces,” presented by two Seattle-based human relations consultants already familiar to Winter Institute attendees: KJ Williams and AJ Williams of Rise with Us. PNBA has also scheduled a session specifically for first-time attendees following the presentation, and another one the next day.
Not only is MPIBA setting up an open mic for booksellers to share things they’ve done that have been successful, but FallCon will once again offer a tour of the exhibit hall, led by executive director Heather Duncan. Three different “Conversations with Colleagues” roundtables organized around business models are on the schedule, as is “The Expert Is In” booth, which veteran booksellers will staff in hourly shifts, providing advice on their specific areas of expertise to other booksellers.
“Education is front and center at Heartland,” says GLIBA executive director Larry Law. The conference will begin with five different retreats, organized around job titles and responsibilities—including buyer, events coordinators, managers, new owners, and veteran owners—followed by an orientation session for first-timers.
American Booksellers Association representatives were at NVNR in full force and will be on hand at the next five regionals to supplement peer-to-peer educational sessions with their own. In “Measure What Matters: Five Key Numbers to Focus on During Turbulent Times,” ABA’s new director of education, Emily Nason, explains essential performance metrics for tracking and interpretation when making data-driven decisions. And American Booksellers for Freedom of Expression associate director Philomena Polefrone is presenting a “Navigating Attacks on Your Store” session at all but one show, with best practices and strategies for dealing with harassment and vandalism. ABA CEO Allison Hill will lead this session at CALIBA.
“NVNR kicked off an excellent start to the regional trade show season,” says ABA COO Joy Dallanegra-Sanger. “ABA had a great time, meeting with members and presenting education. Emily addressed a packed room; the booksellers had many questions about KPIs and folks lined up to talk with her after the fact. And Philomena’s session really resonated with attendees.”
Polefrone made similar presentations at the ABA’s institutes in February and June; the inclusion of her presentation in the programming at this year’s regional gatherings underscores the urgent need for booksellers to learn how to respond quickly and effectively to attacks on the freedom to read. Two associations are reinforcing this urgency by supplementing the ABA’s efforts with their own presentations.
NVNR hosted a screening of Banned Together for early arrivals on August 3; the documentary follows three South Carolina students and their adult allies, who formed the Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization to fight to return 97 books removed from school libraries.
NVNR’s opening breakfast keynote the next day, “Heroes on the Front Lines of Book Banning,” which Polefrone emceed, featured two DAYLO representatives, two booksellers, and three authors, speaking of the personal impact, from each one’s perspective, of books being challenged or banned.
Bookending NVNR, Heartland’s organizers put together a panel entitled “Banned Together: Responding to Book Bans,” featuring Nicole Lintemuth, owner of Bettie’s Pages in Lowell, Mich., and the author of This Book Is Dangerous, plus a librarian, a student, an author, a publisher, and a school board member. The speakers, GLIBA’s Law says, “are all sharing Midwest-focused perspectives on censorship and community advocacy.”
Read more from our fall regionals preview feature.
