independent bookselling

[ray gonne]

Henry Musikar wrote:
> 
> On 12 Aug 97 at 9:09, Andersen Jesper Sparre <janderse at haverford.edu>
> wrote:
> <snip>
> > someone to fish out a copy from "out back" for me a couple of weeks
> > ago.
> <snip>
> 
> Without unlimited (eg. virtual, ala amazon) shelf space, how could it
> be otherwise. Not every book can be on display, so choices must be
> made.

the question is <how> are those choices being made. seems it's not a
matter of what people like to read so much as what is most profitable
for them to be reading. bookstores are not just repositories for what
there is to read, they are platforms upon which new ideas, new fictions
are displayed. big chain-linked bookstores are bland, pumping
mass-produced best-sellers and soulless sure-shots. barnes and noble
bases many of their displays on kick-backs they receive from
mega-publishers. small independent bookstores (yes, i work at a small
independent) represent the communities they serve. chains serve wall
street. barnes and noble and amazon do not make a profit, or they
haven't in the past. when the independents are dead and everyone shops
at the chains because there are no other options, there will be fewer
books published and no more petty 10 or 20 percent discounts (they
aren't offered for any reason other than to kill small independents who
survive on 3 percent net profits, no shit, and who cannot possibly stay
alive if they offer 10 percent discounts). i've heard many a
presentation this season by publisher representatives (salespeople) who
talk about how the company is publishing less titles this year (down by
up to 1/3 of the total books published last year). ostensibly the reason
is that they want to be able to direct more advertisement resources
toward the titles they do publish, but the pattern seems all too
clear--chains buy shitloads of bestsellers and stock just enough of the
moderate sellers to pass as a decent place to find a couple good books,
then they return shitloads of whatever doesn't sell, which drives up the
prices, which the chains discount because short-term profit is not
important to a company with endless (or nearly endless) capital, and the
stakes are raised with no corresponding rise in quality of available
output, and no one can afford to sell books but the chains. and there
are less interesting books to sell and it's no longer worth the struggle
for many independents, who end up surviving themselves on a few pieces
of trash like <conversations with god> and <path to love> and <tenth
insight> and countless other antidotes to (post-)modernity, while
fucking mindblowing books like <mason & dixon> and <going native> and
<infinite jest> sell moderately if at all. so choose well, while the
choices exist.
ray