First tickets sold

Last Sunday Jan Gardner wrote an article about BiblioExpeditions in the Boston Globe and over the past few days I've started getting response to this. Three people have signed up for the email newsletter (now I guess I will have to WRITE a newsletter) and two people actually bought tickets! One person bought 2 tickets for the Boston trip, and one person bought a ticket for Boston and a ticket for the June 2 trip to New York.

I've now come to the conclusion that I will need to create a jam-packed touring schedule for launch in the fall. I'll do the planning in the early summer, and start promoting a comprehensive schedule by August, and have several tours running in multiple directions every weekend, by September. I will probably focus on weekly trips in and out of New York, Boston and Amherst/Northampton.

The trick in differentiating various trips is developing those thematic elements I was wrestling with conceptually, a couple of months ago. Like: a children's bookstore tour that goes--

1)Depart Books of Wonder in New York on Saturday morning. (Alternate departure point on a similar trip: Bank Street Bookshop on the Upper West Side).
3) Arrive at Eric Carle Museum in Amherst at noon.
4) To Eight Cousins in Falmouth late afternoon.
5) Dinner and overnight in Falmouth.
6) To Martha's Vineyard for Sunday morning visiting the bookstores there (Riley's Reads, Bunch of Grapes), then leave Falmouth.
7) Arrive The Children's Bookshop in Brookline early afternoon.
8) Short hop to Curious George Goes To Wordsworth late afternoon.
8) Return to New York VERY late Sunday.

Hmmm -- maybe the trip has to start Friday to be done by Sunday night...

There are so many similar options. Makes my head spin.

Here's Jan's article:

You're either on the bus ...

With his new venture in the book world, entrepreneur Andrew Laties is betting on bus trips. Every day buses deliver dozens of customers to casinos in Connecticut. So why not hire buses to bring book lovers to the best bookstores in the Northeast? That's the idea behind BiblioExpeditions.

The inaugural bus trip leaves Amherst on May 6 to visit independent bookstores in Newton and Cambridge and to take in the Mayfair Readers Ramble, a traveling series of readings in Harvard Square. Tickets are $29. The next bus trip, on June 2, which also leaves from Amherst, will visit bookstores in Greenwich Village, N.Y. In the fall, Laties plans to offer a bus trip from Cambridge to BookMarks, a literary celebration at 10 museums in Western Massachusetts.

Needless to say, Laties, the author of "Rebel Bookseller," is bullish on his new business, though he's been bruised by the harsh realities of the marketplace. Over the years, he has founded four bookstores. One of the two survivors is the shop at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, in Amherst, which he now manages. The other -- Vox Pop, in Brooklyn, N.Y. -- is a coffeehouse and publishing company as well as a bookstore.

Amherst To Boston May 6 Press Release

BiblioExpeditions
161 Pondview Drive
Amherst, Massachusetts 01002
413-253-6689
andy@biblioexpeditions.com
www.biblioexpeditions.com


For Release April 29 - May 5 For Editorial Consideration

BIBLIOEXPEDITIONS LAUNCHES WITH MAY 6TH BOSTON BOOKSTORE TOUR

Pioneer Valley bookstore lovers can enjoy a day of Boston book-shopping Sunday, May 6, when they join BiblioExpeditions for our maiden bus-tour. Bibliophiles will stop first at New England Mobile Book Fair, featuring the Northeast's largest selection of discount titles. They'll continue on to the annual May Fair Festival in Harvard Square, to visit bookstores while sampling food, taking in author events, and enjoying live music and children's programs. Featured stores on the tour include Harvard Bookstore, Schoenhof's, Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Curious George Bookstore, Globe Corner Bookstore, and Pandemonium. The BiblioExpeditions bus departs Food For Thought Books, 106 North Pleasant Street, in Amherst, at 8am, Sunday, May 6th, returning to Food For Thought at 11pm. Bus tickets are $29 and can be purchased at Food For Thought, or on the web at www.BiblioExpeditions.com.

The first company in the nation to offer day-long outings to bookstores, BiblioExpeditions aims to support the field of independent bookselling by encouraging and assisting booklovers in bypassing the big-box chains and online retailers, and instead visiting outstanding independent bookstores. Future bookstore tours will visit New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington DC, as well as bringing booklovers from these cities to the Pioneer Valley to visit our outstanding local bookstores and literary museums. BiblioExpeditions bus tours are organized and guided by Andy Laties, manager of the Eric Carle Museum Bookshop and author of the award-winning “Rebel Bookseller: How To Improvise Your Own Indie Store And Beat Back The Chains”. For more information visit www.BiblioExpeditions.com.

Press Contact: Andy Laties, 413-253-6689
andy@biblioexpeditions.com

Publicity and Sales

Yesterday morning Jan Gardner of the Boston Globe's book section interviewed me about BiblioExpeditions -- I don't know when her column will run though. Then last night I had a great conversation in my University Without Walls class, at UMass, about how I ought to publicize this trip to Boston. Apparently I can with impunity post flyers in bulletin boards all over campus, and leave flyers in faculty mailboxes! What's more I can propose these tours as Continuing Education courses! However the soonest that one could be included in the published course catalog would be next Winter. One of my classmates, Marcy, said that there used to be a very popular Continuing Ed class in which an art historian took busloads of people to Boston to go to art museums, and the buses sold out as soon as they were promoted.

All of which said, I now have enough detail about itinerary and style of promotion that I'd better design the darned flyer and start selling these tickets. Else I may be going to Boston in an empty 57-seat bus.

New England Mobile Book Fair

Yesterday I made an impromptu jaunt to this amazing retail/wholesale store/warehouse outside of Boston. Frank Kramer, owner of Harvard Bookstore, had recommended it as a stop for us on our visits to Boston. What a place -- certainly one of the largest bookstores in the country, with enormous depth of title-base on obscure non-fiction subjects. Much of the store is organized not by category, though, but by publisher! This makes browsing a very odd experience, but quite provocative. Half of the building is remainders and publishers overstock and hurt books -- a really astonishing selection at very low prices. For that matter, the half of building that's new books is all 20% off.

The itinerary I think -- given the previous post's info, which is that the Harvard Square literary programming begins at 5:30 -- would be:

Depart Food For Thought in Amherst at 9am
Arrive New England Mobile Book Fair at 11am
Depart NEMBF for Harvard Square at 1pm (arrive about half an hour later)

Since the Mayfair is in large part a "Taste" event, with lots of restaurants selling food to the party-goers, we'll split up on arrival and people will be on their own for late lunches/early dinners, and for finding their way to various bookstores over the next few hours.

Mayfair Readers Ramble starts at Harvard Bookstore at 5:30pm.
Ramble concludes at 8:30pm
Depart at 9pm, arrive back at Food For Thought in Amherst at 11pm.

Mayfair Readers Ramble

The literary program for May 6th in Harvard Square is still in development, however here's the preliminary description:

Mayfair Readers� Ramble!

Celebrate the literary and cultural side of Harvard Square at the Mayfair Readers Ramble, a traveling reading series featuring five talented authors reading at five quintessentially Harvard Square locations.

Readings take place every half-hour from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Ramble organizer Harvard Book Store hosts novelist Mameve Medwed, author of How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life, the Pierre Menard Gallery hosts New Yorker staff writer Joan Acocella, author of Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints: Essays, and the famous Grolier Poetry Book Shop hosts poet Tomas O'Leary, author ofThe Devil Take a Crooked House. Additional readings will occur at the Democracy Center and the Papercut Zine Library at 45 Mount Auburn Street.