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Favorite Bookstores
Just as I was entering the book scene, book stores were opting out. Following year 2000 more than 1,000 bookstores closed their doors. There were several contributing factors at play behind the scenes, but most of those point in the same direction. Technology, a great boon to the book industry in many ways, is not a fickle bystander, but a motivated threat.
New gadgets were announced daily; American readers were falling in love. Kindles made books cheap, and readily available in many colors. E books were the trendiest. The convenience of shopping at home, while strip malls popping up everywhere causing traffic jams where none existed before, made staying home an appealing option. Amazon created a shopping miracle and now Amazon Prime delivers the entire bookstore to your home the very next day with a click, and no parking worries.
Bookstore lovers lamented the demise of the comfy little bookstore. And while they were lamenting, they bought their books on line! While they whined the loss of the neighborhood store, they told their friends what a great deal they got on Amazon. Then, over tea at book club, wondered what could be done to save the bookstore. The anomaly here is that those who used and appreciated the book stores the most, were among the cause of their demise! Though authors needed the bookstores to display and sell their books, they purchased their own online. Though they hoped to have signings at their local store, they toldl their friends “My books are on Amazon.”
It’s not all gloom and doom. Many bookstores across the country have reinvented their stores, gotten creative with their space, and expanded their inventory, while stocking their shelves with books people want to read. The bookstore will always be my first choice. I will ask a shop keeper to order a hard-to-find book for me and wait, rather than order it from Amazon. Yes, it’s cheap, yes, it’s convenient, but authors, Amazon is not your friend.
In 2018, more new bookstores opened for business, than the number of closings. It seems to have leveled off somewhat. Readers and authors, need to get behind and push this resurgence. Support your local Indie Bookstore!
Perhaps readers in general are losing their interest in devices and returning to books. Perhaps authors are understanding they can’t have it both ways and it’s in their interest to support the indie sellers if they hope to have indie sellers support them. But what I’ve heard and seen in the past year is that people are wearying of the isolation of electronics and are longing for interaction of sharing a book, reading aloud, and holding a bound copy that smells of paper and ink. I’m still surprised how excited readers are to get an autographed book. A book is so personal. And a bookstore is so special.