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...
Stimulated Reading
The Written Nerd has been one of my favorite bookseller blogs for some time now. The author, Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, details her experiences working at one of NYC's best independent bookstores (including this jealousy-inducing run-in with Jonathan Lethem), all the while planning to "have a bookstore of my own in Brooklyn." Stockton recently won the $15,000 Power Up! business-plan competition sponsored by the Brooklyn Public Library in order to help bring her bookstore plans closer to fruition. And closer to fruition they are: I opened a small business money market account with the prize money, which will also be the...
A Holistic Approach
On Reading Ahead, the blog of the National Book Foundation, Executive Director Harold Augenbraun offers us this nugget regarding the state of reading in this country.If literary reading is on the decline, one way to stem that decline is to create a holistic approach along a spectrum of age-appropriate activities and to allow flexibility, which the balkanized literary culture will most likely not be able to do because of varied cultural, political, and social ideologies that have very little to do with inculcating a love of reading. If we leave the creation of readers to ideologues—and I use that word...
The Book Divide
A colleague of mine recently received this feedback from an Amazon customer:2 out of 5 stars: "Three layers of wrapping for a book! This is expensiveand wasteful. Just stick it in an envelope and send it." Another illuminating example of the wide range of relationships that people have with books. There are those who cherish the book as an object and those that cherish the content and unfortunately, rarely the twain have met.
"You’ll never find us and we’re rarely open."
Lloyd and Lenore Dickman are booksellers with perhaps one million books. But they don't advertise, don't keep regular hours, and are located on a farm in rural Wisconsin. Oh, and one of their twelve (!?) buildings-full-of-books is in a former manure tank remodeled to look like a castle. Bill Geist recently profiled this charming and wildly-endearing couple for CBS.Now, I have to go check plane fares to Wisconsin...UPDATE (5/23/08): Recently came across the store's exact contact info/location: County Road K in Markesan, WI. 920-398-3375.