Today's forays

Today's foray is a slight departure. As a part of my "Intro to Graduate Writing" class I have to prepare a 15 minute oral presentation about a "topic of interest to contemporary writers." The idea of presenting anything orally makes me nauseous (I'm a writer for a reason!) but I'm determined to remain positive.

The first step was to pick a topic that truly interests me: independent bookstores. I'm not sure there's something in the DSM about "book addiction" but if so, then I have it. My kids once challenged me to enter a bookstore without making a purchase for myself and it was very difficult. Something about the smell of a bookstore, the tantalizing array of covers, and the satisfaction of holding a book of my hand that makes my heart do cartwheels.

The rise of superstores like Barnes & Noble and Amazon initially closed some 1,000 independent bookstores between the years 2000-07 and it was hard to imagine that the trend would reverse itself. However, I'm happy to say the American Bookseller Association (ABA) reported that as of Feb 2015 the number of independents has increased 27% nation-wide. That's good news, but there are still many challenges.

As part of my research, I spent close to two hours with Chris Doeblin chatting about the health of the independent bookselling industry. It's clear that owning a bookstore is not an easy profession--he said he spends many sleepless nights worrying about such things as the increase of minimum wage ("who can afford to pay their staff $15 an hour?") and a publishing industry that doesn't care if the little guys gets squeezed out of business because they can't afford to discount their books like Costco and Amazon.

So I asked him why he does it, if it's so difficult to keep his stores running? He believes firmly that bookstores are places where "the best of humanity meet the public." People buy what they see and we need to see bookstores so we don't forget the value of the written word. Yes, we can read and purchase books online, but society loses a sense of community, personal touch, dialogue when there are no physical places to browse. It is up to us, the consumers to support local businesses because people like Chris know they are serving the community in a way that corporations can't. Without our help, they are more likely to fail.