I was asked to answer some questions for a local paper’s profile on small businesses.\u00a0 One of the generic questions was: “Community support obviously is so important for locally owned stores \u2013 can you describe an experience you\u2019ve had in which this support is in great evidence?”<\/p>\n
My initial reaction was to find an anecdote that showed how this necessary ingredient both worked, and did not work.\u00a0 In the end, I deemed the anecdote itself as too negative (and too academic, says Sarah) to use in a breezy interview of this kind, but I worked hard on writing it up, and it does weigh on my mind occasionally.\u00a0 So I’ll reproduce it here, with added notes and disclaimers.<\/p>\n
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We recently schlepped a couple cases of an author\u2019s new book to a talk he was giving to a hobbyist group.\u00a0 The author insisted that we discount the book \u201cbecause Amazon does.\u201d\u00a0 However, Amazon was not present at his talk, did not coordinate delivery of the books, wasn\u2019t staffing the event, nor helping the author reach a new audience.\u00a0 Moreover, Amazon wasn\u2019t selling signed copies of the book.<\/p>\n
The difficulty lies in the illusion that because Amazon forces so many loss leaders to gain industry prominence, that the MSRP [manufacturer\u2019s suggested retail price] isn\u2019t fairly derived, and that books aren\u2019t valuable.\u00a0 The community needs to recognize that not only is it nice to be able to browse in a bookstore and to discover new works, but that the book industry as a whole works hard to discover, edit, manufacture, and market quality works of literature and non-fiction. \u00a0Without a quality book to identify an interesting and knowledgeable speaker, and a local bookstore to supply the product, even the hobbyist club suffers.<\/p>\n
Yeah, it wasn’t the right anecdote for this interview.\u00a0 And it isn’t meant so much as a rant against Amazon (go ahead, name the beast, we all know who we’re talking about) as it is against the author.\u00a0 Author in question continues to send me email about news of his reviews, talks, and awards, and I wonder if he tells all the booksellers he works with that his book is overpriced and that they should discount it.\u00a0 Is it forgoing his royalties, too?\u00a0 Or perhaps he has stock in Amazon?\u00a0 It is a conundrum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was asked to answer some questions for a local paper’s profile on small businesses.\u00a0 One of the generic questions was: “Community support obviously is so important for locally owned stores \u2013 can you describe an experience you\u2019ve had in … Continue reading