Join us for food and drinks on the second floor of Kelly O’Bryan’s restaurant, just a 9 minute (700m) walk from the Grand Okanagan Resort. This informal meet & greet is open to bookstores, reps, and publishers. Bring your own wallet!

What sets a great website above a mediocre one? This broad concept will be explored as we distill a set of guiding principles that you can apply to your own webstore, all without the need to bring in outside help from a designer. Follow along as we take a "bleh" webstore and make it pop, all while keeping the consumer experience the top priority.

This session is for webstore newbies and veterans alike, and will cover strategies for de-cluttering your homepage and creating a streamlined browsing and checkout process for your consumers.

Armed with a set of guiding principles for website design, we'll now spotlight a few stores that have succeeded in attracting customers and increasing their online sales. Includes a 30 minute Q&A at the end.

Panelists
Alicia Neill - Mosaic Books
Angela Schwesnedl - Moon Palace Books

This session will round up all the new webstore features we have released since the last BMA, and why you should implement them on your own webstore. We'll also be giving a preview of the soon to be released responsive Webstore 2.0 — a project over two years in the making! Includes a 30 minute Q&A at the end.

The Bookmanager software has seen some great improvements and feature additions over the past two years. Follow along as we take a tour through the latest and greatest, and see if you've discovered them all! Includes a 15 minute Q&A at the end.

Team up with your fellow booksellers to tackle common retail hurdles and avenues. This session will have two parts, the first of which has booksellers randomly assigned to tables in groups of eight. A list of topics will be provided to choose from (or feel free to choose your own), 15 minutes per topic for a grand total of four topics for the first round.

For round two, booksellers will once again be assigned to tables, but this time groups are based on your store specialty and/or size. A list of topics will again be provided, four of which to choose and explore with 15 minutes dedicated to each.

Bookmanager staff will be moderating tables to help prime and transition topics if need be. Notepaper will provided and encouraged to submit at the end so we can distill your findings and share the results with everyone after BMA.

Hosted at Sandhill Wines with hor d'oeuvres by Waterfront Catering. Two complimentary drink tickets will be provided, but feel free to bring cash or card for more drinks. This party is open to all booksellers, publishers, and reps.

The Webstore's Analytics is hugely valuable, but needs a little steering if you're new or unfamiliar with the tool. Kelly McKinnon from Vancouver Kidsbooks will be joining Michael on-stage to highlight the ways she has used analytics, with examples spanning day-to-day use, to long-term trend spotting. Bring your laptops and follow along with us on your own Bookmanager website to get insight into your store's inventory and profitability.

With the Analytics basics covered, lets put this tool to use and dive deeper into a few more pointed examples. This session will also explore the power of the Browse tool and filters, along with peer data and various tools the Bookmanager website has to offer to take some of the guesswork out of buying, organizing, and discovering titles and trends. Includes a 20 Minute Q&A at the end.

A session giving publishers and distributors the spotlight to discuss their business practices and services with a focus on the independent market. This session should help booksellers and their suppliers learn more about how they can work together. This session is open to all booksellers, publishers, and reps. The whole session will have a Q&A structure.

Panelists
Leslie Bootle - Orca Book Publishers
Pete McDougal - Raincoast Books
Cory Beatty - HarperCollins Canada
Robb Soriano - Ingram Content Group

Join Don Gorman of Heritage Group on an initiative to get funding direct to interested booksellers to cover the costs of events and promotions of Canadian authors and their books, why Ottawa is ready for this idea, and what you can do to support it.

With so many metrics to pour over, it can be hard to make sense of it all and pinpoint what exactly is making and costing you money, and where your valuable time is best spent. Luckily, our vast network of bookstores has allowed us to see what works and what doesn't, so consider this session a must-attend for all stores. At the end, we'll walk through the finances volunteered by a few annonymous stores and see what lessons can be learned. Includes a 20 Minute Q&A at the end.

BMA wouldn't be complete without our famous Town Hall! An entire session dedicated to your questions and feedback, no topic is taboo during the Town Hall. That said, a freeform Q&A like this should be geared for open, positive and constructive discussion — leave them pitchforks and tomatoes at home! Come prepared with anything on your mind regarding Bookmanager, bookselling, publishing, and running a business in general, or feel free to send in your questions or concerns before BMA so we may present them anonomously on your behalf. We'll also have a few topics pepared in advance to prime the pumps and keep the forum rolling!

Hosted at Mosaic Books with food by Okanagan Street Food. It’s a bookstore party with food and live music... need we say more?! This session is open to all booksellers, publishers, and reps. Food and an open bar are provided.

This exclusive 5-hour workshop features COO Robert Wheaton, Director of Independent Retail Sales Mary Giuliano, and Director of Operations Athmika Punja, and is open to Canadian booksellers only. More details have been emailed directly to attendees of this session. Light refreshments will be provided.

It's crucial for publishers and their reps to maintain good relationships with their bookseller accounts. Bookmanager has some valuable tools to help publishers do just that. This session will help those reps learn about those tools, discuss their value, and give any feedback. From making sure your books are displayed in the best way possible, to using catalogues and statistics, and ultimately helping stores buy more of the books you provide. This session is for reps only. Light refreshments will be provided.

This informal session has a loose agenda and is geared towards US booksellers. Michael will be leading a casual discussion with the aims to better understand shifting trends and the needs of the industry as a whole, along with Bookmanager's role in its growth.