American Booksellers Association's Winter Institute Recaps via PW and Self Awareness

I am back after a long weekend to watch my second kid's Junior recital at college with the whole family in attendance. I will be catching up on emails and such today but first, for all of you, I have something for you to catch up on as well.

Last week the American Bookseller Association had their Winter Institute 2026 (WI2026) in Pittsburgh. This event is comparable to their ALA Annual. Bookseller and authors converge from all over the country. There are panels, an exhibit hall, and tons of ARCs. 

I have said this before, but I know many of you still don't take it as seriously as I do, but understanding what independent booksellers are focusing on, how they are promoting books, and how they are attracting readers-- all of it-- is comparable to what we are doing. We need to be not only paying attention to them, but also, working with them more.

I am doing the working with them more part right now and there will be more on that soon. (Do stay tuned for more on this, I am working on a larger initiative and some smaller collaborations.  

In the meantime, you need to do your part and follow the news from last week's WI2026. I have made it easy for you. 

Click here to pull up all of PW's coverage.

Click here to pull up all of Shelf Awareness' coverage.

There is a lot of information here that you can use. This is the first major gathering of booksellers and authors for 2026. See what they are talking about, what authors were there, what the panels were about, what people said. It is all there. 

I did here from my colleague Lauren, one of the owners of the Twisted Spine, a horror only bookstore in Brooklyn, that there was a general consensus at WI2026 that horror author events are among the most popular at bookstore and this is true all year long. 

Finally, one of the reports that comes out during the Winter Institute is the Lee and Low Baseline Diversity Survey for Publishing. However, this year, Jason Low had to suspend the survey because of the state of book bans. And this suspension is indefinite. He instead released a call to action for everyone to work harder to fight books bans, especially those of children's books. Click here to read his call to action as published in PW.

And follow Kelly Jensen's censorship coverage on Book Riot for the most up to date information and even more action steps. 

Getting Ready for Banned Books Week.

Banned Books Week is coming October 5-11, 2025. Now is the time to prepare. Well, every day is the time to prepare because those who want to limit intellectual freedom are busy every single day.

But Banned Books Week is the one week of the year where all media outlets will be paying attention. There will be a blitz everywhere and your patrons will be hearing and reading about it. They will have questions and most will want to help us in our fight. 

I am here to help you get ready with some things you may not know about and some practical advice.

Actually, I am to start with the practical advice and some "real talk" to deal with threats to intellectual freedom all year long. Lila Denning had this extremely helpful post-- How to Navigate Book Displays When You Have To Be Careful. 

Please everyone read this. Denning works in Florida. She understands what all of us are dealing with and has still been able to make all of her displays reflect all voices.

You can use her advice for Banned Books Week as well.

Speaking of, here is the link to the official Banned Books Week website with tons of lists, social media scripts, events, graphics, and more.

Recently Shelf Awareness published  their Special Banned Books Week issue

I also had this post in late August when PW had their Freedom to Read Issue. 

Book Riot has excellent censorship coverage by Kelly Jensen all year long here. https://bookriot.com/category/censorship/

And EveryLibrary Live! has a great lineup of author talks during Banned Books Week here, including Joe R. Lansdale whose latest book I am giving away TODAY on the horror blog.

I hope all of these resources help you figure out the best way to promote Banned Books Week at your library. 

PW's Freedom To Read Issue

This week, PW released their Freedom to read issue. Please see the letter from Editorial Director John Segura and the ensuing links to the articles included. You can also click here to go directly to the page.

Click here for more

The 2025 Freedom to Read Issue

I really, really didn't want to write this letter. And it’s with a certain amount of dread clanging around in my head that I sit down at my desk this morning to do so. Nobody reading this needs to be told yet again that banning and suppressing books is at best unconstitutional and at worst unconscionable. Nobody reading this needs a reminder about the crucial role libraries play in communities large, small, red, blue, urban, and rural. And certainly nobody reading this needs a history lesson on what tends to happen after government censorship is normalized and weaponized.

But I do think it’s worth taking a minute to say thanks to the folks who are out there every day trying to extinguish these fires before they become infernos. So, for our second Freedom to Read Issue, we’re highlighting the amazing work being done in communities across the country, from the Diet Coke–drinking mom who a couple years ago cofounded the Texas Freedom to Read Project to the members of Penguin Random House’s Intellectual Freedom Taskforce, who led PRH to become the first American publisher to sue a school district. Yes, that’s the state of things: the country’s largest publisher has found itself in a spot where it needs to sue schools.

There’s a pervasive nastiness to the organized and well-funded opposition that the people profiled in these pages are up against. What five or six years ago were pockets of parents who mistook their desire to limit what their own kids had access to in schools and libraries as a mandate to dictate what every kid has access to in schools and libraries, now has the blessing and backing of the White House and the extended Project 2025 apparatus. None of this is actually being done to, ahem, protect the children. It’s a campaign to take the country back to the good ol’ days of 1863.

Imagine if they get what they want. Imagine if there’s no government funding for arts or humanities. Imagine if libraries become more or less propaganda depots where the catalogs are determined by sweaty, narrow-minded toads whose picture of how things should be is a whiter shade of Mayberry: Want to check out a copy of Beloved? Sorry, out of circulation. But we do have The Turner Diaries.

Slippery slope? Maybe. But think about what this country looked like just nine months ago. We are less than a year into this nightmare of an administration, and its war on empathy, education, and intelligence has notched a frightening number of victories.

Which is why resisting this creeping authoritarianism is absolutely vital today and will be tomorrow and, unfortunately, for years to come. At PW, we cover these stories every day, and I want to tip my hat to our news team, who have more than risen to the occasion. PW is also, once again, donating a portion of this issue’s proceeds to a right-to-read organization. This year we’ve chosen Unite Against Book Bans, an American Library Association initiative that mobilizes grassroots support across the country against government censorship efforts.

Like I said, I wish I didn’t have to write this letter. I wish we didn’t have to do this issue. But I am, if nothing else, glad we can put a spotlight on the people who could have just as easily not shown up at school board meetings, or not gone through the expense and ordeal of going to court to protect their constitutional rights. They chose, at no small peril, to not sit it out.

It’s great to see the publishing community is right there with them.

Read more from our Freedom to Read feature.

How 10 Grassroots Activists are Fighting for the Right to Read
These 10 advocates uphold the freedom to read on their local turf.

Books on Trial: 8 Freedom to Read Cases to Watch
These legal cases may determine which titles are available in public schools and libraries for years to come.

Book Banners Are Everywhere. These Lawyers Are Playing Offense.
Restrictions to reading materials are taking a toll on communities nationwide. These lawyers are helping librarians, teachers, and others fight back.

What’s Next for PRH’s Intellectual Freedom Taskforce?
Penguin Random House launched its Intellectual Freedom Taskforce in May 2023. Its work is far from over.

Librarians Without Borders: PW Talks with Kim A. Snyder
The Librarians, Snyder’s documentary on combating book bans that is already a Sundance festival hit, will tour libraries, campuses, and cinemas across the U.S. and around the globe this fall.

What Happened After ‘All Boys Aren’t Blue’ by George M. Johnson Got Banned
An inside look at the fight to keep the author’s bestselling memoir-manifesto on the shelves.

PW's Coverage of ALA Annual 2025

Since it is the holiday week and I am still digging out from being at ALA Annual, I wanted to start my ALA Annual 2025 coverage with PW's coverage.

Here are the articles with links:

• ALA 2025: Program Picks
• ALA 2025: Leading from the Heartland: PW Talks with Sam Helmick
• ALA 2025: Librarians Converge on the Cradle of Liberty
• At ALA 2025, Attendees Reflect on History and Democracy
• ALA 2025: Librarians Chart a Course for the Future Amid ‘Existential Threat’
• ALA 2025: AI Tech, DIY Zines Capture Librarians’ Attention
• Daniel J. Montgomery Named ALA Executive Director (announced during the conference)

There is a lot of information here including things I was not able to get to. Also, this is the book world covering us. I like seeing how others report on us.

I will be back tomorrow with a wrap up of one of the panels I moderated and offer the books by all three authors to one lucky winner. 

Then I will be back on Monday with my ALA Annual thoughts before I get to all of my Booklist reviews and the LJ Horror Genre Preview in the July 2025 issue.

And I am sure there will be more people and organizations with ALA 2025 coverage which I will make sure to post here for everyone as well. Whether you were in Philly or not, there is a lot to learn from these reports

So it will be a slow start to July but then we are going full blast.

Genre Fiction Sales Are Stronger Than Ever and You Need To Be Aware

This is my last post for September here on the main blog. What does that mean? Well it means starting Monday, this site is going to be playing second fiddle to RA for All Horror for the entirety of October. I will have more here on Monday, but for now, know that while this blog will post every weekday, my main attention is on 31 Days of Horror during October. 

And believe it or not, once Halloween passes, we are going to be knee deep into year end "Best" territory. In fact, soon I will have a HUGE announcement about my annual "Year in Review" webinar that I have been offering over the last few years through PCI Webinars. Just know that it is happening, but this year, I will have a new partner and because of that partnership, the webinar will be more widely available and completely FREE to view live. Details soon.

Which leads us to today post which touches on BOTH issue from the above. I am already keeping an eye out for articles and information which is summarizing year end trends and my Horror expertise is in high demand. So, when PW had this article about Bookstores experiencing HUGE increases in sales of genre fiction, my antennae went up.

I pulled out one quote from the story as an example:

While general fiction at Maria’s Bookshop in Durango, Colo., grew by 7% in the first half of 2023 over the same period in 2022—after what adult book buyer Jeanne Costello described as two “awesome” years in 2021 and 2022—genre fiction continues to post bigger gains, including a 23% sales increase in mysteries, 26% in SFF, 36% in horror, and 64% in romance. “Art rises to the times we are living in,” Costello noted. “The past several years have dealt us some overwhelming problems, from the pandemic to extreme weather and deep political and cultural clashes. Romance and mystery allow us to process emotions and solve problems that elude us in our real lives. Horror helps to process trauma, and science fiction/fantasy can build worlds that can offer hope, featuring heroes and worlds that are saved in the end.”

Click here to read the full report.

At the end of each year I always cross reference book sales data and library circulation data and use the information in tandem to make larger proclamations about trends. You can see last year's slides from my 2022 Year in Review for an example.

Now, here in libraries we have been seeing an increase in genre readership for a few years, but some libraries ignore it. Why? Well even in 2023, I still see a bias in the library world that places "literary" titles above all others even though genre titles, especially Romance and Mystery, have always been our most widely circulating books.

The disdain many library workers have for "Genre" fiction is not hidden. Trust me, I encounter it all of the time, but even if you are one of those people who only promote genre titles because you have to, you cannot argue with sales data. If bookstores are clearing more space for genre, you should also be highlighting it more. 

And since it is going to be October, why not start with Horror. 

More on that starting 10/1, but it is all genres, so check out the full report and think about how you can incorporate this increase in sales into your RA work.