Saturday, March 15, 2008

Note from the road

In San Fran and having a bang-up time. Heading for the airport to go back to L.A. but I needed to take this moment to plead with you all (preaching to the choir, I know) to please, please, please support your local indie book store. They are hurting folks. I signed in two of them (including Eso Won, which thought they'd be closed by the end of last year, but the community rallied to keep them afloat...so far) and stopped in the legendary City Lights Book Store. The word every place is the same: hanging on by a thread and hoping to stay open.

I'm broke as the next person. I love Amazon and the chains. And God knows I want my novel to fly off the shelves at Target. But maybe we can all make a practice of buying 3, 5, 10 books at our local indie for every 1 we buy online or at a chain.

11 comments:

Travis Erwin said...

Sadly my city does not have a single independent bookstore that carries new material.

Lisa said...

I use my Amazon one-click out of sheer laziness, but you have a great point. I will commit to buying at least 10 books a year from the Tattered Cover.

Shauna Roberts said...

When I lived in New Orleans, I did make a point of sometimes paying full price at local bookstores, particularly when my friends were signing there. But now, like Travis, I have no independent bookstores nearby. In a university town!

Julie Kibler said...

In Dallas/Ft. Worth we have TWO independent bookstores. One is strictly children's, the other is 40 miles away (and about an hour and a half in traffic!). Very sad in this huge metropolis.

You can order online from some indies, though, which is something that never occurred to me until I saw TC's link recently.

Rebecca Hickman said...

Sadly, the only independent bookstore that I know of down here only sells Spanish books.

Rebecca Hickman said...

Thanks for calling me cool! :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the reminder, Carleen! City Lights is def. one of my faves (it even makes a cameo in my book!). I'm looking forward to visiting all the indies back in NY. There's a book called - New York for Book Lovers - it features tons of stores by location and type of store etc. (kind of the Zagats of book stores). Perhaps they make them for other cities too?

Glad you're having fun on the tour.

Lorenz-Crunk said...

Hey Carleen. I hate I missed you. I would have driven up north just to see you. I hate to lose the independent book stores as well. Where I find them I usually end up spending several hours in them. I so much feel the love and creativeness in those stores. Blessings to you.

Sustenance Scout said...

So much to say on this point...I once worked at Ingram Book Company and remember reading about how distribution reps used to travel from town to town and stay at the homes of independent booksellers, how the whole industry was so different back then, how much we've lost as one after another the indie stores close. I think it's time for me to check out on-line ordering at indie stores across the country. That's one way to support at least some of them. Thank God for Tattered Cover here in Denver! One of my favorites in Nashville was Davis-Kidd, which I understand now is part of a significant mini-chain. So some are doing all right, but not the mom and pop stores, that's for sure. Safe travels! K.

debra said...

Thank you for your gentle suggestion that folks buy form a locally owned book store. We own a small business (gallery/studio) and understand the challenges of staying in business. When you buy locally, you support your local economy=---not just us, but our suppliers---clay, boxes, accountant etc. We appreciate it!

Jamie Ford said...

I'm with Travis. We have a B&N and a Hastings. That's it. For years we had a little indy shop downtown that would get authors like Richard Ford. Sad...