This is the headline from the company's press release:Barnes & Noble Donates Books, Toys And Games Valued At $3.4 Million, To Military CharitiesBookstore Joins America Supports You Team at Andrews AFB Joint Service Open HouseY3K Grafix and Penske Logistics Truck Goods Across the Country.and from CEO Marie Toulantis:“On behalf of all the booksellers at Barnes & Noble, we thank America Supports You for this opportunity to express our support to our fellow Americans,”It sounds like as grand a patriotic gesture as one could hope for from a corporation.But could it be so noble?This is the how we got there:Barnes &...
Independents and Community. It’s More than Economic Impact
A couple of weeks ago the San Francisco Retail Diversity Study was released. The goal was "to provide consumers and policy makers with an understanding of the economic benefits of redirecting spending from chains to independents."The study, sponsored in part by the American Booksellers Association (ABA), concluded that " independent retailers as a whole -- bring far more economic value to their communities than do chain stores."This is far from rocket science. Owners of independent businesses tend to live in or around the communities in which their business operates while the corporate chain store tends to feed the minimum wage...
A Full Service Bookshop
While the traditional bookstore model continues its death spiral I trust there is a core group of booksellers out there who are actively searching for the right combination to ensure both the survival and the success of "the bookshop."Simply trying to maintain the status quo is a failing proposition (feel free to substitute newspaper book review sections for traditional book store model, they are interchangeable).The independent bookstore has put up one of the better fights to date of any independent business in our corporate culture but it cannot ultimately win the battle without significant revision. We might have lost half...
More Book Review Fodder. Frank Wilson’s Epiphany
Frank Wilson, the book review editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and one of the few truly wired book editors was driving home from a Elmore Leonard/ Chuck Palahniuk doubleheader at the library last night when he was struck by this musing on the Palahniuk reading:"I kept thinking on the way home how newspapers are desperate to attract younger readers, but haven't a clue as to how popular this guy is with just the people they're looking for. Never have I had a greater sense of just how out of touch newspapers have become."300 people showed up for Leonard and an...
Counterpoint Comes Home
Publishers Weekly reports that the Counterpoint imprint has been purchased by a small group the includes its founder Jack Shoemaker. The imprint had been owned by Perseus who has been busy trying to incorporate their newest bankrupt prize Publishers Group West into their mix. It will now live with Winton, Shoemaker & Co. a newly formed group that includes two of Shoemaker's cornerstone authors Gary Snyder and Wendell Berry.Originally called North Point Press then Counterpoint and finally Shoemaker and Hoard the press has always published with a social conscience and with integrity. Two attributes that tend to get compromised when...