User: fjm Date: 2006-05-15 21:20 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

I'm biased. Most of my experience of small bookstores was before I was eighteen. They treated me with contempt: books I ordered never arrived. I'd be asked "do you really want that?". Sometimes they'd order something "more suitable". And they treated readers with contempt: the commonest thing was to order more of the same, but never the sequel.

User: jaylake Date: 2006-05-15 21:52 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Clearly these "bookstores" were manned by government trolls charged with distorting your reading habits into something acceptable for the Social Good.

User: tharain Date: 2006-05-15 22:00 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Bummer on Cody's. That's a great store.

User: libertango Date: 2006-05-16 01:57 (UTC) Subject: Cody's (and the topic generally)

It's never a good sign when, charitably, a writer leads off with something as misleading as that (uncharitably, it's what's known in the journo biz as a Gross Factual Error).

To wit: Cody's is not closing. Cody's on Telegraph is closing... But there will still be two remaining locations, and of course, a web site.

What's he also not mentioning is ABEBooks, which is a consortium of used book sellers from much of the Anglophone world (USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), and much besides. While there are a number of indies that have shuttered their bricks and mortar stores, I know a fair number of those same indies who have gone to ABEBooks, and a goodly number who have started selling on both ABE and eBay from scratch.

In fact, I would argue that ABE has been far more of an influence to specialist book buyers like myself than Borders, or B&N, or even Amazon. A great many books are out of print. The big boys simply won't have them. Take Leopold Kohr's Breakdown of Nations. This was a book once so rare Kirkpatrick Sale had to prevail upon his publisher to get a reprint out the door. Today, ABE has 14 copies available. To use a genre example: Howard Waldrop's Howard Who? 31 copies.

What the death of the physical indie store has made more rare is serendipity. You have to know what you're looking for. But then, if one agrees with Nicholson Baker, that's true almost everywhere with the death of card catalogs into electronic databases. {shrug} So in a way, this is a Golden Age -- when those who were brought up in the old style of bookfinding can take full advantage of the new... In ways that probably won't naturally occur to future readers.

I won't venture out to the normative ledge as to whether that's a good or bad thing. (I mostly think new readers will simply find new techniques suited to the tools they have to hand. They'll be different, sure... But better? Or worse? Enh. Who can say?)

User: slithytove Date: 2006-05-16 14:35 (UTC) Subject: Re: Cody's (and the topic generally) Keyword: curious

Cowan did indeed mention ABEBooks, glowingly.

User:	blzblack
Date:	2006-05-15 22:46 (UTC)
Subject:	(no subject)

Locally, the small book store is getting by through being a sort of community center, bringing together alternate lifestyles and (separately) poet/writer readings, open mics, reading clubs, workshops, and selling cappuccino (sp?).

I think that's a good idea. Whenever I go in, I try to buy something--mocha and a book if they have one I'm interested in. It would probably be better if they had more space for people to study, wifi, etc. More of a crossover.

I have no idea how they're doing, however. It's the place I tried to tell you about, earlier.

On the other hand, they have the usual suspects on the shelf. Not much appeal in grabbing them.

User:	blzblack
Date:	2006-05-15 22:50 (UTC)
Subject:	after reading further, I conclude:

On the other hand, maybe opening a section of porn is the way to go! ;)

User: gvdub Date: 2006-05-15 23:36 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

It's a mixed bag here in L.A. All of the Dutton's bookstores (small independent local chain) have closed and the only genre specific stores I know of are a mystery store in Pasadena and Dark Delicacies (horror and gothic) in Burbank. Dark Delicacies seems to be doing pretty well, hosting lots of events, but they're pretty specialized.

There are a couple of good used book stores around, but they have to rely on owning their buildings or having sympathetic landlords, since I can't see any of them dealing with the type of massive rent increases that are endemic here in lalaland.They definitely tend to live in low rent areas. As a matter of fact, I just picked up an interesting book today at The Illiad (which just moved so it is no longer next door to The Odyssey video store) - The World of Storytelling by Anne Pellowski, a scholarly look at storytelling traditions and forms from around the world.

User: cristalia Date: 2006-05-16 00:41 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Granted, I'm speaking from a background at a specialty store, but there is one thing I can do for you at work that nobody online, at B&N, Borders, Chapters/Indigo, nowhere else but a few other specialty indie stores can do for you:

If you walk in and tell me three authors you like, I can give you a stack of current and backlist books that I know you'll like.

There are some serious good points on commercialism and image there, but I still do think there's a value to be had in supporting the other independents: one greater than other people seeing you do it. It's flaky to call it the love of the game, but that's part of what it is. I'm not sure what the author's experience with independents has been, but I know an independent can get you a special order or small press book without you having to leave a credit card number, or get a book signed for you and mailed out if you can't make an author event, or explain to you what in publishing has caused this book to go out of print, or know which book you mean when you come in and say well it's this book about X years old, I don't remember the title or author, but it was about Y. If we think it sucks, we will tell you we think it sucks. And the division of labour in a small store means that there is very little even the lowest staff member on the food chain doesn't know about when something will be in, from who, why, etc. -- all of which can be disseminated without looking over one's shoulder for corporate policy or having to push the promotions mandated by head office.

It's these small and essential personal services that make the difference, by me, and they're why I shopped in independent bookstores before I worked in one.

Business models have to play to their strengths, and while there's serious good points in the piece, I think it's a little facile to suggest that a put-on sense of social image is the only thing a smaller business model can offer to bookselling.

User: garyomaha Date: 2006-05-16 02:00 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Amazing. Change a few nouns and you could have just described the state of radio broadcasting. (I imagine a number of other corporations-have-taken-over industries, too.)