kathryn ratcliffe-lee

bennettmadison:

rachelfershleiser:

I think I’m on record as loving indie bookstores about as much as a person can, but this is getting out of hand. That is not a high salary for a university president. Cooper Union provides free education to thousands of worthy students. We’re hardly talking Goldman Sachs here. Should he give 10% of his salary to fight AIDS or house the homeless or help literacy programs? The world is full of important things that deserve money, but let’s choose our enemies carefully, shall we?

I’ve worked in several indie bookstores and I love them. And I know that the existence of independent booksellers of all types is incredibly important for books in general and also for my personal career. But I also feel strongly that treating for-profit bookstores as charities— not to mention making an official marketing strategy out of bourgie guilt—serves absolutely no one and will ultimately backfire. 

When I worked at Politics & Prose in DC it was pretty obvious why the store did well: it served the community in a way a big box store couldn’t. It had events that were creatively booked, well managed and fit the tastes of the customers. It was obviously smaller than a chain but the selection was so well-curated that you barely noticed. (Especially since the chains have lately seemed to be doubling down on the Blockbuster-esque strategy of stocking ten thousand copies of the sure-thing books and not much else.)

If Politics and Prose didn’t have what you wanted they could order it easily and basically have it for you the next day. The booksellers were well-read, thoughtful, helpfully opinionated (mostly) and in some cases attractive. It was a nice place to visit and when faced with the choice of going there or going to Borders, it was a no-brainer to choose Politics and Prose, not because you felt it was your civic duty, but simply because it was clearly a better bookstore. (Unless you were shopping for a fuzzy pen or a Dilbert page-a-day calendar, in which case it was Borders all the way.)

There are several stores in New York that I’ll happily walk a couple blocks out of my way to go to because they’re better. McNally Jackson and Word in Greenpoint of course spring immediately to mind. (Housing Works too, of course, but they’re a little different because they actually are a nonprofit.)

But there are also plenty of indie stores where they rarely have the thing I want and are sure to act like I’m insane if I try to special order it; indie stores where they scold me for trying to pay with the fifty my grandma gave me for my birthday and indie stores where it’s impossible to find anything because half of the inventory is misshelved or still in the stock room. Yeah, I still try to go to these stores too, but it’s because I feel like I should. And I know my quest for whatever I’m looking for will often end in me feeling annoyed and heading to Barnes and Noble or, worse, in me special ordering the book— again out of a sense of obligation— and then never hearing when it actually comes in. 

Independent bookstores have freedom and flexibility that can make them inherently better than the chains and Amazon. They should be better. Call me a free market pig, but I really think that people will almost always choose the better store. If indies aren’t capitalizing on this clear advantage they don’t have much of a shot.

I know there are some Pollyannaish aspects to this argument. Running a small business is hard, and the bookselling business— with its relatively high operational costs and low profit margin— is extra-hard even at the best of times. It’s not exactly the best of times right now, and it takes money keep the shelves stocked and the store well-staffed. Furthermore I know that there are also more complicated factors involved when it comes to a semi-specialized store like St. Mark’s or the many any of the many gay and women’s bookstores that have had to close recently because the world has changed around them. It’s occurred to me that some of those stores should apply for some kind of non-profit status, because I think they’re important but not necessarily sustainable, but I don’t actually know how any of that works. 

But what I want more than anything is for indie bookstores to thrive. I need them, the publishing industry needs them and readers need them. I just think that shaming and guilting people into supporting them out of charity is just not a recipe for long-term success. Being actually good, is easier said than done and not a sure thing anyway, but it’s still the only reasonable plan for survival.

yes to all of this. i’m very guilty of the pity-buy, but i’m also not the average consumer, and i think my behavior is to make up for the fact that i don’t financially support my own industry. i don’t “have” a bookstore due to a variety of reasons, but powell’s earns my $40 every six weeks from across the country by putting together excellent packages.