Tag Archives: Books and Boos

Dec 7 2012

Author to Share Her ‘Apple’ at Grand Opening

Author and New England Horror Writer member Kristi Petersen Schoonover will be part of the grand opening festivities at the new bookstore, Books and Boos, in Colchester, Connecticut on Saturday, Dec. 8.

Schoonover will be reading and signing her newest novel, Bad Apple, from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. For every copy sold, she will be giving $3 to the American Association of Caregiving Youth and 50 percent of the books royalties will be donated to the AACY as well.badapple

According to the AACY’s website, “Caregiving youth are children and adolescents who look after someone in their family who has an illness, a disability, frailty from aging, a mental health problem or a substance misuse problem. They take on practical and/or emotional caring responsibilities that normally would be the role of an adult … In addition, many caregiving youth also have responsibilities for younger brothers and sisters and all or most of the household chores.”

There will be coffee, tea, treats, and more at the store, which will be opened from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Plus, anyone who spends $5 or more will get a FREE new copy of The Priest of Blood by Douglas Clegg, another NEHW member, while supplies last!”

Schoonover will also be gift wrapping with two other authors and members of the NEHW, Stacey Longo and Jan Kozlowski, at Barnes and Noble in Manchester, Connecticut from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 9.

Nov 20 2012

Author Speaks to Students

On Nov. 8, Stacey Longo, author and Co-chair of the New England Horror Writers, spoke to a couple of groups of students at the Putnam Middle School. She read her children’s book, Pookie and the Lost and Found Friend, to them.

Author Stacey Longo signing a book for a young fan. Photo by Jason Harris.

Author surrounded by readers. Photo by Jason Harris.

Photo by Jason Harris.

Author Stacey Longo reading her book, Pookie and the Lost and Found Friend. Photo by Jason Harris.

Photo by Jason Harris.

Along with writing stories and books, Longo is the co-owner of a bookstore, Books and Boos, which opens its doors Tuesday, Nov. 20. The store is located at 514 Westchester Road in Colchester, Connecticut.

Oct 23 2012

Two Authors to Appear at Marlborough Shop this Saturday

Two Authors to Appear at Marlborough Shop this Saturday

By Jason Harris

This Saturday, authors Stacey Longo and Catherine Grant will be appearing at The Shops at the Marlborough Barn in Marlborough, which is located in Marlborough, Connecticut. They will be reading and signing from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Longo will read from her story, “Private Beach,” which is in Epitaphs, the first anthology created by the NEHW. This collection will be on sale at the event. Longo is the Co-chair of the NEHW, a former columnist for the Block Island Times and the co-owner of Books and Boos, a bookstore.

Grant will read from her story, “Three Fat Guy Soap.” Along with being a NEHW member and writing fiction, she also runs a writing critique group, Central Connecticut Writers Group.

The Shops at the Marlborough Barn is located at 45 North Main Street in Marlborough.

Oct 14 2012

Rock and Shock 2012

My Experience at Rock and Shock 2012

by Jason Harris

Another Rock and Shock has come and gone. The New England Horror Writers were there once again. We have been there for the past four years. This year saw less atttendees then last year, but last year’s guest line-up included Robert Englund, whose line went on forever and never seemed to get any shorter, and Ace Frehley, former lead guitarist of KISS. This year had Heather Langenkamp, of Nightmare on Elm Street fame, Anthony Michael Hall, of televison series The Dead Zone and movies The Breakfast Club and Weird Science, and another former KISS member, Peter Criss.

Before getting to Rock and Shock, the wife and I went to fellow NEHW member Trisha Wooldridge’s house, where we were staying over the weekend. We were also going to be joined by another NEHW member Kristi Petersen Schoonover, who would be arriving later that night. It’s always a party when the NEHW members get together.

After leaving Trisha’s house, we drove to Annie’s Book Stop in Worcester to talk to the owner about her bookstore. The wife and I were picking her brain since we’re opening our own bookstore called Books and Boos in Colchester, CT. It was a very informative 40 minutes.

I was there the entire weekend and Saturday was the busiest day. Friday started off with Breakin’ into the Biz panel, which included myself, T.J. May, Matt Bechtel, and Kristi Petersen Schoonover, who ended up as moderator since there wasn’t anyone from Fangoria magazine there to do the job like there were for the other panels during the weekend. The panel went well and there were a lot of suggestions and advice given to the people in the audience.

Heather Langenkamp, Tracy Carbone, Stacey Longo, Trisha Wooldridge, and Lisa Marie on the Women in Horror panel. Photo by Jason Harris

The audience grew a little bit for the Women in Horror panel, but that was to be expected since Langenkamp and Lisa Marie (Ed Wood, Mars Attacks!) joined NEHW members Tracy Carbone, Stacey Longo, and Trisha Wooldridge. This panel had Jack from Fangoria, moderating the panel. One thing surprised me was that the audience didn’t asked two many questions when that time came. Four questions were asked of people on the panel and two of those questions came from me. I asked Heather how was it working on Just the Ten of Us and if she would do another television show. She said, she would love to do another tv series. It was also nice to hear that she will be in the next Star Trek movie titled Star Trek into Darkness, but she couldn’t say what character she’s playing. It was also great talking to her and Lisa Marie when the panel was over.

Tracy Carbone, Sean Whalen, and Stacey Longo. Photo by Jason Harris.

On Friday, it was great talking with Sean Whalen who was in The People Under the Stairs and Twister, and many other movies. Check out his credits on the Internet Movie Database by clicking here. He gave Carbone, Longo, and myself some good ideas.

I introduced myself to Doug Bradley, who portrayed Pinhead in most of the Hellraiser movies except the last one, since I conducted a phone interview with him a few weeks ago. You can read the article here.

I was hoping to interview Hall on Sunday since that was the day his manager, John Boitano, said would be the best day since it’s the slowest of the convention. On Friday, I had the feeling it wouldn’t happen since there was a sign on Hall’s table stating he wouldn’t be at the convention until 2 p.m. on Saturday. When Saturday came, he didn’t show up at his table until 3 p.m. Later on Saturday evening, he took a break and a sign said he would be back at 5:45 p.m. He didn’t get back from his break until 6:15 p.m. Seeing those signs, physical and figuratively, told me that Hall wasn’t going to keep an interview with me on Sunday. It would have been cool to interview him, but it wasn’t disappointing. I did interview another filmmaker, Ryan Convery, on Sunday about his movie Mourning Wood, which is about “humping zombies.” There will be an article and a movie review coming in the near future.

It was great meeting Tony Todd (Candyman), Brian O’Halloran (Clerks), and Sig Haig (House of 1000 Corpses) this weekend. I won’t get autographs since I am not paying $20 or more for an autograph unless they are selling a movie or a book. I will shake their hands and tell them I love their work.

There was a Horror in the Movies panel on Sunday, which Rob Watts, Bracken Macleod, myself, and Stacey Longo were on. Longo ended up being the moderator when Jack from Fangoria couldn’t do it since he had to do something else. It was attended by a good number of people.

There will be another post with pictures tomorrow.

Oct 6 2012

The Good and Bad of the 2012 NEIBA Fall Conference

The Good and Bad of the 2012 NEIBA Fall Conference

By Jason Harris

The New England Independent Booksellers Association 39thAnnual Conference took place from Oct. 3 through 5 at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence, Rhode Island.

I will start with the good first. I went to the first day of the conference on Wednesday. I was looking forward to the panel “Social Media 2.0: Beyond the Basics: Using Social Media to Drive Sales and Customer Engagement.” As the NEHW Director of Publicity and Webmaster and Marketing Director and co-owner of Books and Boos, a bookstore, I knew I could learn something from this panel. The panelists were Sarah Rettger, of Newtonville Books in Newton, MA., Mary Allen, of Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, VT., Kirsten Hess, of R.J. Julia in Madison, CT, and Ann Kingman of Random House.

The panelists mentioned there are ups and downs when using social media. One downside is that you have to use it five times a day, Hess mentioned.

One thing I was surprised to hear was the fact that the panelists don’t like Hootsuite, which could help with having to be on social media five times a day. The reason is it’s not genuine and people know it from seeing where the message is from. “Voice is important” when posting in social media, Hess said.

Hess also mentioned that people should be looking at other Facebook business pages, not just look at the book business.

Allen mentioned that people love photographs and live pictures of things with authors. She wasn’t talking about pictures of authors reading from their books either. She’s talking about a picture of them making a funny face or something behind the scenes before they become professional to do their reading.

Hess said customers want to see the people who sell them their books.

If you own a bookstore or any type of business, a good word to keep in mind is “partnerships” with other businesses in your community, Allen said.

Rettger said you should do what’s best for you and not to force it.

The other panel I checked out was “It’s All About Customer Service: Strengthening the Brick and Mortar Advantage.” This one wasn’t has interesting to me as the Social Media one, but it did contain some good ideas. The panelists were Susan Mercier, of Edgartown Books in Edgartown, MA., Ann Carmichael, of Kennebunk, ME, Michael Kanter, owner of Cambridge Naturals in Cambridge, MA., and Karen Corvello, of Baker & Taylor.

Kantor said that customer is all and everything. Stores should be kept cleaned and stocked, he said.

“My goal is for customers to leave the store and say ‘wow’ that was an amazing experience,” Kantor said.

He has noticed that in many bookstores employees are indifferent.

It was mentioned that every customer should be greeted as they come into the store.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Carmichael said. She also said that customer service begins on the sidewalk before the customer even comes inside. This means that the landscaping to the windows to the building itself has to be in the best shape possible.

Now we come to the bad of NEIBA. I had a couple of assignments on Thursday, which kept me away from the conference. I was able to attend on Friday and I wish I didn’t. The main reason I was going to go on Friday was to attend the panel, “Think Tank Round Tables – New ideas for New Business.” This is how the program guide described the panel: “Whenever booksellers get together the room seems to fill with new ideas. This 45-minute ‘think tank’ is an opportunity to gather – at tables organized by small, mid and larger-sized stores – and talk with each other about what exciting things you’ve done in your store in the past year and what things you’ve learned at the Fall Conference you’re going to do. We hope this will be a useful and focused way to wrap up the educational offerings of the Conference.”

When I got to the convention center, I found out that the trade show exhibit room was already shut down and packed up. It only went on one day this year and that day was Thursday. I didn’t realize this would happen from the program guide. I figured it would go on the entire conference. This was the first year they only had it for one day I was told. NEIBA was trying something new this year. Hopefully, they will go back to having it open all three days next year.

After being disappointed about the trade show, I went to the room where my panel was going to be held. I was about twenty minutes early so I waited outside the room. As it started getting closer to the 11 a.m. start time I wanted to the door. Once it got to 10:55 a.m., I was leaning against the doorway and started to worry. When I heard Steve Fischer, of NEIBA tell Neil Strandberg of the American Booksellers Association to continue talking and that he had plenty of time and it was around 11:10 a.m., I started getting upset. Later on, Fischer said that Strandberg could continue until 11:30 a.m. The last twenty minutes of the supposed panel I went to see was used to continue the discussion of the Kobo e-reading program, which was the subject of the previous panel. I had made a two hour and fifty minute round trip from Connecticut for nothing and I wasn’t happy about this. If NEIBA wasn’t going to have the panel they promoted in its program then they should have gotten the word out. Instead of still promoting it, by having the panel’s name and description listed on the wall outside the convention center’s conference room.