It actually occurred to me on business Saturday, when I heard that, in honor of the day, a handful of famous authors were working a shift at local independent book stores. I thought that was super cool. In some ways I think it's very important to shop at your local bookstore. For one, it helps promote local authors, people who aspire to be writers will often hand bind there books and float them in their neighborhood bookstores. Jane Roper and many other contemporary authors claim that they would not have been able to get published in the online shopping world of today. It's also good for local economies, fairly recent studies show, without taking inflation into account, that if you spend $100 at a local store then $68 will stay in your local community, but when you spend $100 at a chain only $42 will remain in your local community. Not to mention there is a certain aesthetic appeal to shopping at bookstores, they're warm, they have a nostalgic up north cabin smell and perusing through books can be cathartic in a way that most retail shopping experiences can't do for me. Though I wonder if the bookstore is really more a novelty (no pun intended) than anything else.
The local bookstore is often used as the stand alone poster child for this new local-vore trend that seems to be sweeping the nation. Though, I was reading Farhad Manjoo's recent article in Slate, and I felt he offered up some interesting points. For example, should we really be demonizing large online retailers like Amazon? Amazon is selling books at an alarming rate. I think some authors and readers like to believe that there is something more to books than just sales and while that might be true, without sales, there would be no authors or readers. If you enjoy the bookstore experience, please go there and buy your books and please, shop local whenever you can, but let's not romanticize book stores in the eyes of authors and consumers. In my experience, book stores are largely inefficient for the consumer looking to purchase specific books. If you've ever been to John K. King's Book store, you'll learn soon enough that there are no databases designed to help you find whatever book you're looking for, you have no choice but to browse or ask a slightly less confused sales associate. Even large independent bookstores like the Strand in New York can't afford to pay for rent, property taxes (in New York) and employees without jacking up their prices. At Amazon, the book prices are cut in half while still providing a fair profit to the authors and publishing companies. When comparing the two, it seems that the institution that sells more books at a fair price is doing the author and the consumer more justice.
Honestly I would steer people in the direction of libraries. Libraries are all about access, they often support local authors and even if you want to buy books, they often have affordable book sales. There is nothing more community driven than a library in my mind, but that being said, I can't necessarily buy all of my Christmas books at the library right now... Odds are, I'll probably get some really old, grubby books at the local bookstore. Fresh clean books are almost too impersonal for a gift and I like the surprises that I might not have found if I had gone the Amazon route. I just thought I'd drop in to give my two cents: Bookstores offer a very unique, but specific enjoyable experience, but don't let that fool you into thinking that buying your books anywhere else, like Amazon, is going to ruin the literary world.
Thanks for Listening,
Kyle
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