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CBS News
01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Bay Area Book Festival holds Bookworm Block Party for second day in Berkeley
The 2025 Bay Area Book Festival kicked off its last day on Sunday in downtown Berkeley. Here's what to know The festival begins at 11 a.m. in downtown Berkeley and will have several free events for people to attend until 5 p.m. The two big events of the day, which will each have several things for attendees to see and do throughout the day, are the Bookworm Block Party and Inside Ideas. The Bookworm Block Party, formerly the outdoor fair, spreads across five areas, including three stages. There will be live presentations, local food trucks, and literary-themed exhibitors BART Plaza Stage, 2170 Shattuck Avenue Poetry Stage Kittredge, Street and Harold Way Family Stage Allston Way, and Milvia Street Health in Community Row, Allston Way Small Press Alley, Allston Way Inside Ideas has six indoor stages where there will be a variety of panels with topics such as fiction, essay discussions, tech, and romantasy. Brown Center, 2150 Allston Way. Two stages: the Goldman Theater and Tamalpais Room Hotel Shattuck Ballroom, Crystal Ballroom and Courtyard, 2086 Allston Way The Marsh Berkeley 2120 Allston Way. Also has two stages The headliners will speak at two ticketed events that take place at 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. Ticketed events Who's Afraid of Gender with Judith Butler, Micha Cardenas and MK Chavez takes place at 5:30 at Freight and Salvage, 2020 Addison Street. The 7:30 p.m. event, Portable Intersectionality: Roxane Gay in conversation with Alicia Garza, will also be at Freight and Salvage. How to get to the Bay Area Book Festival Taking BART to the Downtown Berkeley station will drop riders off right next to the festival. There are also other transit options, with the 51B, 79 , 67 and 7 line all near the festival.
Forbes
23-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
In A World Of Choice, Selection Can Be The Key To Success
For all the convenience of technology, physical books retain their aesthetic appeal. Next month an impressive crop of crime writers will emerge from the shadows for a long weekend of events at a London hotel at which they will meet each other and their readers. At a time when social media enables stars of any genre to connect with their fans at any time, a set-piece, in-person gathering like Capital Crime looks like something of a throwback. And yet it is hugely popular. Last year, it attracted about 2,000 people buying £17,000 (about $23,000) worth of books in two days and David Headley, the man behind it, expects this year's event — the fifth — to be the biggest yet. But it is just one aspect of a business that in the age of Amazon not many would have expected to succeed let alone flourish. For Headley is not just an event promoter. Admitting that he likes that 'there is nobody quite like me in the book industry,' he says he is also a podcaster and a literary agent as well as a bookseller. All this, along with running a prize for crime and thriller writing with the winners announced at Capital Crime, is designed to help build the core bookselling business, Goldsboro Books, which was started 25 years ago as an online enterprise. Headley, who had previously attended a seminary before deciding that the life of a Catholic priest was not for him, took the plunge because he had become an avid book collector and assumed there must be others like him. With the afore-mentioned online giant already on the scene, he realised that there was no point in just being a generalist bookstore. Instead, he concentrated on thrillers, crime, science fiction, fantasy and similar genres, with a special focus on signed first editions of hardback books. The concept duly repaid his faith, with the move to a bricks-and-mortar shop in London's Cecil Court, a renowned centre of the book trade within a year. Now, there is another shop in Brighton, on the U.K.'s south coast, and a warehouse that ships 11,000 to 15,000 books a month. All of which means he is able to claim to be the biggest independent bookseller in the country. Nor is he part of a dying trade. Despite what many might think, book sales have show some resilience, with the latest industry figures showing a 3% rise in the U.K. to a record £7.1bn ($9.4bn) in 2023. In the U.S., total sales were $9.1bn in 2022, with printed books remaining strong, while e-books have slipped back and audiobooks appear to be on the rise. Such is the demand that the operation now employs nearly 20 people, and Headley is adamant that everybody is paid at least the living wage. 'I don't want people to go home and worry about money,' he says. Oddly perhaps, Headley says social media has played a role in the growth of his business, with many customers posting attractive images of books. He also feels that the typical customer has changed since he started. Rather than book collecting just being the preserve of middle-aged men, there are now many more women involved. Headley is not alone in finding success in a business well known for its perils. Ryan Holiday, the marketing professional-turned author, has recently written of the lessons he has learned from running his own bookstore in a small town in Texas, while in my own town just outside London the long-established bookshop appears to go from strength to strength and wins awards. What appears to unite all these stories is a realization that it is not enough to sit behind the counter and hope to sell books. You have to work hard at getting people in the door by organizing events (like Capital Crime), holding book signings and having other uses for the space, such as a cafe or meeting place. Holiday writes that another bookstore owner advised him to 'have more than one way to win.' He explains: "Most bookstores only survive if they're multi-purpose spaces. The Painted Porch isn't just a bookstore—it's my office, my employees' office, the place where we record podcasts and film YouTube videos. So if nobody comes in and buys books, we're not necessarily losing money. At the same time, it probably also wouldn't have made sense to build out this level of podcast studio or even a writing office by itself either. So multi-use allows you to do more than you ordinarily would—across the board.' While my home-town store is an unashamedly generalist store, both Goldsboro Books and Holiday's Painted Porch have consciously decided to limit their offerings. For the former it is certain genres, while Holiday has gone for a personal selection. He and his wife only stock books that they love and can personally recommend to customers. As well as making it easier to manage, it helps the store stand out. Like Holiday, Headley believes in the power of curation, to the extent that a highly popular aspect of the business is the subscription clubs that allow customers to receive books in their favoured genres on a monthly basis. And the sense of community that this helps to build will, of course, be evident when those enthusiastic readers meet each other and some of their literary heroes next month.
