That’s the title of Jim Milliot’s piece for Publisher’s Weekly on the unveiling of the American Booksellers Association (ABA) new marketing “movement/revolution” initiative, IndieBound.
The good news is that it replaces Book Sense which has failed miserably in helping independents remain competitive in the fast changing world of bookselling. The bad news is that IndieBound won’t fare much better.
What is IndieBound? Here is their Declaration:
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for individuals to denounce the corporate bands which threaten to homogenize our cities and our souls, we must celebrate the powers that make us unique and declare the causes which compel us to remain independent.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all stores are not created equal, that some are endowed by their owners, their staff and their communities with certain incomparable heights, that among these are Personality, Purpose and Passion. The history of the present indies is a history of experiences and excitement, which we will continue to establish as we set our sights on a more unconstrained state. To prove this, let’s bring each other along and submit our own experiences to an unchained world.
We, therefore, the Kindred Spirits of IndieBound, in the name of our convictions, do publish and declare that these united minds are, and darn well ought to be, Free Thinkers and Independent Souls. That we are linked by the passions that differentiate us. That we seek out soul makes to share our excitement. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the strength of our identities, we respectively and mutually pledge to lead the way as we all declare that we are IndieBound!
Their kidding, right? How is this going to help their members sell books? In the last 20 years independent bookstores have gone from selling 100% of the books sold in this country to less than 10% today! And for most of those 20 years the cries of ‘support your local independent bookstore’ has been heard loud and clear in communities throughout this country. New t-shirts are not going to make a difference.
Simply providing cheerleading merchandise and tools won’t solve the fundamental problem.
What is needed is a comprehensive e-commerce solution that provides independent booksellers an opportunity to compete with the big boys. What is needed is a portal, call it IndieBound if you wish, that offers the same book-related merchandise, content and convenience that Amazon does. A place where one can order any book in print and have it at their door in a reasonable amount of time. You don’t need to be price competitive you need to be technologically competitive. People will pay more if they know that their purchase is helping their local independent bookstore. Don’t ask them to put their zip code in when they hit the home page- let them shop- and when they put their zip code in at checkout up pops a list of the independent stores in their area. Let them decide which store will receive a portion of the sale, then keep a portion for website maintenance and marketing.
If the distributors don’t want to play and adjust their shipping model to provide direct to consumer shipping than do it yourself. Use some of the $39 million that you have in reserve and invest in a distribution center for your members.
There are plenty of people out there who would support an alternative to Amazon and Barnes & Noble but a viable online alternative has yet to be created.
“I want to be enthused about IndieBound. I don’t think it is much more than Book Sense renamed. I kind of felt like a teenager who only got to second base last night.” said Maryelizabeth Hart, co-owner of Mysterious Galaxy Books in San Diego, after witnessing the unveiling of the new initiative.
Unfortunately, they are still on first base.
They same issue persists in the non-new book world as well. The Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA) has also failed to provide its members with a viable alternative to the used book aggregators like AbeBooks.com, Alibris and Amazon.
I wish I knew what everyone is waiting for.