As reported in Liz Button for BTW and earlier as a link by PW: BookPeople bookstore in Austin, Texas joins the cli-fi movement worldwide as ''Cli-fi'' – along with its elder brother ''sci-fi'' – is now considered part of modern literature’s classification system.

0 replies0 retweets1 like

UPDATE PUBLISHERS WEEKLY LINK

http://cli-fi-books.blogspot.com/2018/09/texas-bookstore-highlights-cli-fi.html

''Cli-fi'' – cli-fi -- along with its elder brother ''sci-fi'' – is now considered part of modern literature’s classification system. 

 

And more and more bookstores worldwide are beginning to set up ''cli-fi'' books tables and displays, from chain stores Foyles and Waterstones in the UK to the independent bookstore BookPeople in Austin, Texas. Know any more stores doing this? Send pics to this blog for inclusion. Thanks. Send pics via email or twitter to @verywindycities or danbloom@gmail.com 

Christine Havens told this blogger via a Twitter chat the other day: "In 2017, last year, a customer at BookPeople in Austin, Texas, where I work, the largest independent bookstore in Texas, asked if we had a ''cli-fi'' book section. We don’t an entire cli-fi book section, but I have my own ''endcap display'' now with 9 titles in our store. My fascination with the cli-fi genre really began when I read a copy of Kim Stanley Robinson’s ''New York 2140''.

Christine Havens tells me more details about the cli-fi endcap, as her BookPeople colleagues have given their permission for their names to be used in my blog post here. So the cool update:

''Elizabeth Jordan is BookPeople's CEO. EJ has been at the store for quite awhile, working in all aspects. She just became our CEO this summer of 2018 when Steve Bercu retired. She's awesome, knows her stuff, and encourages creativity in all of us.''

''Consuelo Hacker is one of our book buyers. She is the one who decides which employees get to have an endcap display of their own -- not all employees get to have one. Consuelo works with publishers and our inventory managers to plan the store displays, too.''

''Molly Moore is the first floor inventory manager, which means she does the physical work of creating and maintaining most of the displays. Since she's so creative and artistic,'' Christine said. "I asked her to make the sign when she received the okay from Consuelo to do cli-fi as the theme. I gave her my thoughts and she brought them to life better than I could have."

So Christine Haven's part in this is that she came up with the idea to do the cli-fi display, as she mentioned, based on a  conversation she had with a  customer last year in 2017, who asked about a section focused on cli-fi.

"I hadn't read much cli-fi at that point, but was highly intrigued. What better a place to have a cutting edge genre display than BookPeople?" Christine told me by email. "And I loved the idea of having a unique display. My first display had been about humor books, which was okay, but the cli-fi display would be fun and truly relevant."

''Consuelo okayed my idea, but I had to wait until after Christmas to put it together because we needed space for regular science fiction titles that we stocked a lot of.''

''I chose my titles based on the ''Burning Worlds'' cli-fi trends column 2017 interview with the Chicago Review of Books columnist Amy Brady, as well as suggestions from the customer I spoke to," Christine added. ''Having already read Kim Stanley Robinson's 'New York 2140', I had already been intrigued. I read Barbara Kingsolver's 'Flight Behavior' over Christmas/New Year's and I was hooked. I did more research online for titles and began working my way through the genre, though I'd already read "Dune" several times since high school, and had read Atwood's "Oryx and Crake. " 

https://chireviewofbooks.com/2017/02/08/the-man-who-coined-cli-fi-has-some-reading-suggestions-for-you/

''In January 2018, the display went up. I am responsible for my endcap (as other employees are for their own). I chose the titles and keep an eye on it to make sure the shelves are stocked with the 9 titles I chose (as you see in the photo). One of the strengths of BookPeople is that all employees write what we call staff pic cards, which you can see in the photo. They are mini-reviews of books that we love and most of them are situated at eye-level on every shelf in every section. I write the cards for the cli-fi section.''

''As I was talking to Molly today, she said that it's hard to keep my section stocked, especially Kingsolver's 'Flight Behavior.' It barely used to sell and now we have to constantly reorder.'' 

''So it's apparent that this display is popular with our customers. My coworkers are always recommending more titles and I'm always on the lookout when I'm in the advanced reading copies room. I listen to what customers have to say on those occasions when I'm bookselling (I also work in the accounting office). I love to watch people perusing the books -- they've been quite diverse. I don't have any memorable quotes from customers, but it's apparent that the cli-fi genre is gaining in popularity.''

''My passion is to connect people with books,' Christine said."  Being able to work at BookPeople, where I get to do so, especially with this scary, relevant topic of climate change fiction, feeds that passion."  

Christine tells me: ''What's an end cap? For those of you who are not in the bookstore business, an ''end cap'' is shelving at the end of an aisle in the bookstore. Here are a couple of pics I took on our store. Our inventory manager made the sign; I write the staff pic cards.''

[NOTE: In retail marketing, an endcap, or end cap, is a display for a product placed at the end of an aisle. Products placed on an endcap for sale will sell at a much faster pace than products not on the endcap. The display of products on the endcap is sometimes also called a feature.]

BOOKPEOPLE 

603 N. Lamar Blvd  Austin, TX 78703 USA        512-472-5050        Open 9 AM - 11 PM        

The largest independent bookstore in Texas!

Photo below courtesy of Christine Havens at BookPeople

0 replies0 retweets1 like

  MORE PICS -- Cli-fi is all the rage http://www.eco-business.com/news/cli-fi-is-all-the-rage/ … via @ecobusinesscom

Cool Idea of the Day: 'Cli-Fi' Book Display

August 23, 2013 SHELF AWARENESS files

During this "sweltering British summer," Foyles bookstore in London "did something that was a long time coming: It set up a dedicated 'cli-fi' table with a simple yet eye-catching sign promoting fiction and nonfiction books with climate themes," TeleRead reported.

Among the books displayed were Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, James Lovelock's The Revenge of Gaia, Stephen Emmott's 10 Billion, J.G. Ballard's The Drowned World, John Christopher's The Death of Grass, Joe Dunthorne's Wild Abandon, Liz Jensen's The Rapture, Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior and Ian McEwan's Solar.