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Feb
18
Five More Ways to Support Your Bookstore
2011 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
Yesterday’s post about Borders’ bankruptcy and the reminder it brought that where we buy our books matters triggered wonderful discussions here and on Twitter (and in my poor email inbox, which is still quivering in the corner) about what we as readers—as consumers—can do to support bookstores and help them thrive. The first and most obvious action is the one I mentioned yesterday: do your book buying in actual bookstores. Or, as my pal Ron Hogan said so succinctly, leave the house!
But getting your butt off the couch and into the bookstore isn’t the only thing you can do.
Attend events. A bookstore’s ability to secure authors for readings and signings often hinges on its ability to demonstrate that it can attract an audience and that the audience will—wait for it—buy books! If you are fortunate enough to live near a store that currently offers author events, go check a few of them out. Take a friend. If, after hearing the author speak, it turns out that you’re not all that interested in his or her book, pick out something else to purchase instead. Try not to view author events as free entertainment; the store may not be charging admission, but they have to see profit from events in order to continue making them available to the community.
Ask your local organizations to support local bookstores. If your church, community center, book club, writer’s circle, knitting group, Junior League, or Underwater Basket Weavers’ Association is holding an event related to a book or has invited an author to speak, and you want to have books sold during the event, reach out to an independent bookstore first (if there is one reasonably close by). You may not get quite the discount or donation a big box store can offer, but you’ll be putting dollars back into your local economy and supporting individuals and a business that make your community a richer, more vibrant place to live.
Go indie for e-books. Thanks to a partnership between the American Booksellers Association (ABA) and Google, many independent bookstores now offer e-books on their websites. If you’d prefer to spend your book dollars on digital editions, you are no longer limited to buying from a superginormous chain (unless you read e-books on a Kindle, in which case I assume you’ve already discovered the limitations for book purchasing). You’re going to buy the e-book anyway, so you may as well buy it from an independent bookstore and, again, put those dollars back into your community. Want to buy your e-books indie but don’t have a store nearby? Check IndieBound for listings or pay an e-visit to my friends at Fountain Bookstore.
Remove the phrase “No thanks, I’ll just order it when I get home” from your vocabulary. Most booksellers are too polite to say so to your face, but this is beyond rude. Bookstores are STORES and they exist to SELL you books, not to provide you with personalized recommendations and a place to browse before you go home and shop in your underwear. When booksellers look up titles, recommend books, and offer to place orders for you, they are providing a service, and it is not a service they intend to provide for free. You pay for this service by purchasing items from their stores. If you absolutely must browse in-store but buy online, have the decency not to tell the bookseller that’s what you’re doing. It’s awful for morale, and it makes you look like an ass. And for god’s sake, don’t stand in front of a bookseller, show her your phone, and say, “No worries, I just ordered it from Amazon.”
Tell your friends. Think of your bookstore the same way you think about that fabulous new restaurant you went to last week and can’t stop talking about. When you have a great experience or make a wonderful discovery there, tell people about it. (And when you don’t, take a minute to provide constructive feedback. Most businesspeople, booksellers included, will appreciate it.) Don’t assume that someone else is doing it so you don’t have to. And if you have an online platform (a blog, Tumblr, Facebook page, Twitter account), leverage it to support a bookstore you believe in. Throw your weight behind something you care about and want to see succeed, and do it in a way that is authentically you.
I know there must be more. You tell me: what else?
Related posts:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Rebecca Schinsky and Stephanella Walsh, Mslexia Publications. Mslexia Publications said: Lots of achievable things we should make more effort to do: RT @bookladysblog: Five More Ways to Support Bookstores http://su.pr/1bS7GK [...]
I love to shop online, I then order what I want and pick it up at the store. That way if I am short on time or don’t want to end up spending a million dollars, I just go to the register and grab what I need!
Leteia´s last [type] ..MilSpouse Friday Fill-In!!
It should not need saying, but every time you order online or go to the Big Box you are sending the profits of that sale out of town. Sales tax dollars are an essential part of your community budget, wages stay in your community, and keeping the profits in town supports other local merchants. I know that everyone only has a certain number of dollars to spend (unless you are a Big Banker, and if you are I am now giving you the bird), but to the extent that it is possible for you BUY LOCAL.
ellen´s last [type] ..Im Still Blogging
Excellent points, Rebecca. My local indie bookstores in St. louis have formed a very cool alliance that is formal and fun to help each other stay in business
Thanks for this!
We authors need more gals like you to support the local bookstore industry. Those are the folks who really support local authors and nurture the love of books and quest for creativity.
Keep it up!
I enjoy local bookstores, and patronize them when I can. And if people can afford to pay a premium by buying all their books from them, great.
But as someone once said about the newspaper industry, “You’ll be sorry when we’re gone” is not a business model.
I sympathize with the sentiment expressed here, but sentiment ain’t gonna do it.
Just like local restaurants and other businesses, in order to survive, local bookstores have to have a business model that works and a compelling reason to patronize.
Mr. Scoopy,
It seems there are many compelling reasons to patronize a locally owned bookseller: personal contact with knowledgeable sales people; keeping tax dollars and profits in the local community, which in turn provides local jobs; helping create and sustain a literary community, which enriches local culture.
Cost isn’t just about dollars. And neither is profit. When local bookstores thrive, they offer social, cultural and financial benefits to a community.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Atomic Fez Pub., Scoutliterary, authorrsanabria, VK Brooks-Sigler, Stef Kiper and others. Stef Kiper said: Five ways to support your Indie bookstore from @bookladysblog http://bit.ly/h6aJwR –> these are GREAT ideas. [...]
What is the benefit to me if I pay $24 for a book at a local bookstore instead of $10 online? Is that I can continue paying premiums at my local bookstore? You talk of financial benefits, but if that store closes, another store may take its place, one that doesn’t hold out a tin cup.
Forgive me, but a business, be it local or national or international, must earn my business, and they aren’t going to convince me to pay a premium for the exact same product I can get somewhere else much cheaper. It’s very similar to local newspapers whining about losing customers when they made a decision years ago to recycle the same national content you can find online. How do you succeed in business? Do something someone else can’t do.
[...] need to write anything, as The Book Lady’s Blog covered things so eloquently yesterday and again today. The comments on news articles and blog posts are great sources of free market research for [...]
If all you’re looking for is a book at the lowest price, then no, independent bookstores aren’t going to do it for you. I understand (and have acknowledged in today’s post and yesterday’s) that there is a chunk of the population for whom price is the key factor in book buying, and I get that they are going to go online. But for people who are looking for connection, community, programming and events, and real relationships with other people who love books, the premium price (which is a byproduct of the fact that indie bookstores DON’T just use books as a loss leader) is well worth those benefits. If low price is what you’re after, there are plenty of options, and I’m not going to try to argue you into wanting something else.
While price is always a factor, I get really frustrated by friend who complain about a differnece of $10 or less… and live in a $400,000 home. Really, if you’re not living in a dirty apartment and driving a 10-year-old car, I’m sorry, the “price is everything” argument doesn’t cut it with me. When you buy from retailers who don’t pay sales taxes, that DOES affect you, your community, your schools, your libraries (if price is that much of a big deal to you, why aren’t you checking the books out of the library instead?), your police, your parks, and so on. Yes, because Amazon is a giant behemoth, they can sell at below cost and undercut their competitors. Don’t think you’ll still be getting such a great deal with the competition is all gone. Also, Amazon doesn’t contribute ANYTHING to any community organization or charity. I’ll bet if you check, your local bookstore does support your local schools, literary organizations, writers’ groups, and libraries. And the jobs that will leave your community – including the income taxes and discretionary spending those employess put back into the economy – aren’t going to come back because Amazon gets a little bit bigger. Yes, anyone of course if more than welcome to do all their shopping there. But you’d best do it with both eyes open, and be aware of the consequences when they’re the only ones left on the block, prices go back up to full price, and you can no longer find any interesting or eclectic books that aren’t on the Bestseller lists or Oprah. We get the society we deserve, and everyone contributes to that with each decision we make
Carin S.´s last [type] ..Book Beginnings on Friday
So many of our bookstores are going out of business. There is a small mall near my house, which is much easier to go to with small children than the larger ones in our area, but the bookstore closed a year ago. My children loved going in there to look around and we usually left with something. Often something off of the bargain table but for a family with small children price really is a deterent to some of the regular priced items. They miss going there and I miss that it was close and small so less overwhelming with kids.
Jill´s last [type] ..Wicked Appetite by Janet Evanovich
I love going to Indies. In fact, after the four closest Borders to my house close (they’re all on the list!) the Indie will be the closest good store. But I wonder what would happen if instead of ever shopping there I just gave that money to my local library system (keeping it local) which also has programming, lots of quiet places to read, books, knowledgeable staff and reader/writer clubs? And maybe the money buys more copies of popular books to lend which is a benefit to all. Just saying. And they have book sales, too!
I wonder if it is worth discussing what you get at an Indie that you can’t get at the library.
I totally agree that we should help support book stores. I know there is always the convenience of online shopping, but there is a certain “thrill” about walking into a bookstore and discovering a new ‘treasure’ to bring home. There’s nothing like picking up books from a shelf and flipping through them.
Great blog! Very enjoyable.
Sincerely,
Aya Knight
Author of the young adult fantasy- The Chronicles of Kale: A Dragon’s Awakening
I agree with everything Rebecca is saying about the value bookstores give to consumer and community beyond price. I also think most bookstores do a piss poor job stating that value and making it obvious to their customer base. So yes, while we can talk about all the great things bookstores do for us (and my book money only goes to indies. I’m lucky enough to have 3 within a mile of my home and office), it is utimately the bookstore’s job to speak on their own behalf and demonstrate their value, not ours. I’m happy to do it because I like having bookstores in my community. But I will not continue to help a bookstore that will not help themselves and claims to be too busy to play by the laws of capitalism: If you want to survive, you must demonstrate your worth to your customers, not your customers singing of your worth to each others.
The innovate bookstores like my own Booksmith, like Books & Books in Miami and WORD Brooklyn do this. They deserve both our respect and our business.
Amen.
[...] The Book Lady’s Blog; “Five More Ways to Support Your Bookstore” | CLICK HERE [...]
I love this post and will share it often. I also love the passion with which people talk about independents. I have to say that we are in this business for many reasons which include but are not limited to a love of printed books. Our store is celebrating 35 years of doing business locally. Real business. Not the “oh, I’ve always loved books so I think I’ll open a cute little shop and read all day” kind of business. Customers expect and deserve a quality experience at a fair price. We absolutely deliver.
One of the many issues that we discuss on the sales floor is price competitiveness and I think it’s important to note that the price differences are not so massive as described. We can offer a complete backlist in paperback for much the same price as the Large Online Retailer. We would lose our shirts trying to compete with the new release grown-up hardcover fiction and other loss leaders but the retail price on a comprehensive selection is surprisingly competitive. I lose my customer when they figure in “saving” sales tax. That’s a big problem that hopefully legislatures will continue to help us address.