By Valerie Walley. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (August 12)

The fourth annual Mississippi Book Festival will be held Saturday, August 18. At 9:30 a.m. the festival will feature a panel with booksellers in renowned bookstores that have ties to Mississippi. John Evans, owner of Lemuria Books, here in Jackson, conceived the panel.

Openings and expansions of independent bookstores are on the rise after a couple of decades of big box and online expansion, and we’re now experiencing their renaissance. It’s no secret that a lot of their success is coming from their community involvement. Real estate developers are courting these businesses because they understand how important it is to have people connecting in a retail space. A bookstore is a natural attraction.

At the heart of our book festival is the book. The bookstore is where the books come to life and reach the market, where they are built and fed by buzz, publicity, marketing. Where they go to succeed or not. Independent bookstores are where many books are championed and made into bestsellers by the booksellers’ connections with the publishers in developing the marketing and their outreach to their customers through word of mouth, hand-selling, shelf-talkers (written bookseller recommendations), and author events.

Our panel will explore the allure of this profession, what it’s like to own/operate/manage these unique businesses, how they are intrinsically involved with their communities, an aspect that can’t be achieved by chains and online. We’ll discuss how important books have changed lives, current books that should be discovered, new books to look forward to reading and owning this fall that will influence readers and our society.

We’ll also have some fun anecdotes to share–author stories, customer service encounters, how one can become easily addicted to this business and never leave. We’ll also discuss the future of retail, the future of bookstores, and celebrate the importance of books in our world.

The panelists (with a cumulative experience of over 100 years) are Karen Hayes, Parnassus Books in Nashville, TN; Tim Huggins, Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, MA; Cody Morrison, Square Books, Oxford, MS; and Bob White, Sundog Books in Seaside, FL. Valerie Walley, formerly a bookseller at Lemuria Bookstore, will moderate the panel.

Valerie Walley serves on the board and author committee of the Mississippi Book Festival and lives in Ridgeland.

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