Taking what it calls "a leap of faith . . . in order to demonstrate the collective clout of independent bookstores and booksellers in the south," the Southern Independent Booksellers Association has offered to waive membership dues for the coming year if stores "allow SIBA to place a single banner ad on their store websites. The ad, whose content will be sold by and controlled by the organization, will appear simultaneously on every participating SIBA store site for the duration it is booked--giving it extensive regional exposure."
"We are always looking for ways to show the impact and clout our stores have on the market," said SIBA executive director Wanda Jewell, who envisions a "circle" of store websites collectively promoting the same title simultaneously. She expressed confidence this will boost sales of the book and raise the visibility of the bookstores with publishers.
Jewell added that initial reaction from member stores has been "very enthusiastic" for the Bookstore Banner Program, which will go live January 1. A list of participating stores is available on SIBA's website.
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The book pricing battle has spawned an equally intense discussion regarding the present and future impact of loss-leader discounts on booksellers, publishers and authors.
In a Huffington Post column titled "Not a Simple Price War--It's a Fight Over What You Get to Read," Bill Petrocelli, co-owner of Book Passage, San Francisco and Corte Madera, Calif., wrote: "Predatory pricing is a means of driving other booksellers out of business. When this happens, the choice of books is one of the first things to suffer. Some readers think that if their favorite store closes they can always buy the book they want somewhere else. But that's a dangerous delusion--the books they want may not be there at all. In fact, these types of disruptions in how books are sold or distributed has a profound effect on what publishers decide to publish in the first place."
He concluded by pointing out the irony that one of the 10 books in the discount wars is Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna. "But Kingsolver wasn't always a best-selling author," Petrocelli observed. "When her first novel The Bean Trees was published in a modest print-run in 1988, independent booksellers recognized it as a literary treasure and sold thousands of copies. After that the chain stores climbed on the band-wagon, but without that first push from independent booksellers Kingsolver's career might never have taken off. Anyone who loves books should worry that the doors seem to be closing on the Barbara Kingsolvers of tomorrow."
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Encore magazine explored the indies versus big box/online issue in Wilmington, N.C.: "It is true to say that our attachment to the independent bookstore--or record store, grocer, pharmacy, and the list goes on and on--is, in part, affectation. It fulfills a self-conscious desire to belong to a particular community. Yes, sales, numbers and profits can tell us what’s popular, but is that always necessarily what’s best for our community? The core value of the indie store is to help introduce us to new titles, new authors and new storylines that may otherwise go unnoticed."
Shawna Kenney, author of I Was A Teenage Dominatrix and former owner of Rebel Books, confessed that she is "guilty of shopping for the cheaper deal at times. But I do try to support local bookstores (and farmers, restaurants, artists, etc.) as much as I can. When we spend our time and dollars in our own backyards, we build community."
Encore also noted that independent bookstores are "eagerly willing to match different methods of competition. For example, Old Books on Front Street will also hand-deliver books to our residence if we live within city limits. The smiling faces, of course, is free. Most importantly, many independently owned book stores, like Two Sisters Bookery downtown, or Pomegranate Books in midtown, feature different attitudes toward their customers."
"We are family-run," said Gwnyfar Rohler of Old Books on Front Street. "We genuinely care. And if I don't have [a book] here on the shelf, I'll make sure we help you get it. We adore our customers, our area, and we want you to come back. It's not just our job, it's what we love."
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Inkwell Bookstore's Blog featured "Top 10 Reasons Book Club Is like Church."
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Unbridled Books will host a Twitter author event today from 12-1 p.m. EST, during which Masha Hamilton will field readers' questions about her new novel, 31 Hours (hashtag #31Hours).
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Canadian consumers have limited e-reader options and "still can't get the Kindle," but author Kate Pullinger observed that the wait may ultimately be worthwhile, telling CTV News that "she hopes e-books and modern literature evolve beyond the simple written word."
"A problem for me with the e-readers is they basically just replicate the book--I'm perfectly happy with books, thank you very much," Pullinger said. "Electronic replication of a book is pretty uninteresting for me. The more interesting potential lies in . . . whole new ways of telling a story that use other media. But the new devices aren't with us yet."
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Book trailer of the day: The Road Out of Hell: Sanford Clark and the True Story of the Wineville Murders by Anthony Flacco with Jerry Clark (Union Square Press).
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Mary Grey James, a former lead book buyer for Ingram Book Company, has joined East/West Literary Agency as a partner literary agent, effective immediately.
Before joining Ingram, where she worked for 11 years, James was a national accounts manager for Harcourt and earlier worked at several independent and university bookstores.
James serves as v-p and president elect of the Women's National Book Association and chair of the WNBA Pannell Award Committee. She may be reached at mgjames@eastwestliteraryagency.com or 615-386-6760.
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Linda Jones, formerly senior v-p of merchandising at Borders Group, has joined Andrews McMeel Publishing as senior v-p of AMP's calendar and greeting card and Accord Publishing divisions. At Borders, Jones oversaw children's books and toys, newsstands, games, calendars, music and movies.
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Mentors, Muses and Monsters: 30 Writers on the People Who Changed Their Lives edited by Elizabeth Benedict (Free Press, $24.99, 9781439108611/1439108617, October 27, 2009)
When the economy began careening downhill in 2008 and magazine editor Suzan Colón lost her job and her six-figure salary, she went home and did what generations of women in her family had done in hard times: she put up soup. So begins Colón's slim but highly satisfying memoir of food, family and making do. It is a testament both to her thriftiness and to her skills as an editor that Colón manages so effectively to combine cultural history, personal journey and recipes in such an economical package.