In my quest for notable small bookstores in New York and the world over, I must mention the near and dear WORD in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. This neighborhood hot spot – referenced frequently in Shelf Awareness – is a little bookstore with a big heart for its north Brooklyn community. With a vast array of literary events like book groups and readings, plus current Staff Picks and Top 10 lists, WORD flourishes in its neighborhood and is a gathering place for local book lovers.  I interviewed owner Christine Onorati about the origins of this Brooklyn gem, the Brooklyn Book Festival, and how they’ve managed to keep their customers coming back for more! 1) How long have you been in the biz? Any interesting history? I managed a Waldenbooks in college, majored in publishing, and worked in publishing for 8 years before opening my first small bookstore on Long Island in 2001. I closed that store and moved it Brooklyn in 2007. My father owned stationery stores my whole life, so I guess I have retail in my blood. 2) What distinguishes you from other small bookstores in the area (Spoonbill, Courtstreet Books, etc.)? We belong to Greenpoint and therefore we cater to that neighborhood, so while there is probably some overlap between us and other neighborhood stores like Book Court, we are still all a bit unique. Spoonbill is a great store but they lean toward the art world, and they sell used books. Those are two things we don’t do…

Before you send out your query or a book proposal, take a second look. Have you answered these questions? What is the “genre” of the book? (humor, history, memoir, travel, how-to, etc) What is the main subject of your book? (what subject headings would a library give your book?) What topics will be covered? (what keywords could describe your book?) Describe your approach to the subject. What makes your book idea different from what is already available on the bookstore shelves about this subject? If the answers aren’t rolling off your tongue easier than your elevator speech, you may want to ask yourself the following questions. In a bookstore, what section would you look for your new book? Describe the books on the shelf next to yours. Be specific about the current competition for your reading audience. Titles, authors, approaches. On the back cover of any book you always find subject heads. Go shopping in a bookstore and look at the back covers of books you would place in the same subject area as yours. Think carefully about what subject heads you want to appear here. It determines where your book will be shelved in any bookstore. Also on the back cover you often find “blurbs” about the book. What do you want those blurbs to say? Who do you imagine would provide a blurb endorsement? What do you envision on the front cover of your book? Describe what your book “looks” like in aesthetic terms. Will there be illustrations,…

How to prepare for a successful reading Once your book is published, expect to schedule events where you read an excerpt of your work out loud to an audience. Reader engagement sells books and one of the tried and true methods for authors are public readings. How can you best prepare for a successful reading? If you have been to enough author readings you know what doesn’t work. The author who does not make any eye contact with the audience but puts their reading glasses on and focuses on the paper in front of his face. The author who adopts the sing-songy voice of a liturgical reader. The author who doesn’t know when to stop and puts the entire audience to sleep. If an audience turns out to hear you, don’t disappoint. Here is a list of 10 steps you can take to best prepare for your reading. Remember it’s an oral performance. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Time the reading so you know how long it is. Longer than 10 minutes and you begin to lose your audience. Slow down your reading. Be kind to your listeners. Enunciate. Make the right selection for a public reading. Some passages simply aren’t appropriate. Dialogue doesn’t work well if there is nothing more than ping-ponging of he said/she said. Reading the end of the book might be a spoiler. The selection shouldn’t raise questions in the mind of the audience you don’t answer. Find an excerpt that stands alone. Edit the excerpt to make…