Sunday, December 16, 2007

Independent bookstores, and what they're not

"Last I checked, an "independent" bookstore was run independently and not as part of a chain."

--That's a convenient definition that many people use but that I think is bunk. If you, a bookstore, are getting and carrying books from mostly traditional distribution systems, from mostly big publishers, from mostly the same-damn widely lauded and published writers, you're not really an independent bookstore. On that essay I linked to, as I implied, independent bookstores should also be venues for INDEPENDENT WRITERS primarily, not for commercial writers primarily, not for well-known-and-now-connected literary writers primarily.

First, you don't get to make up your own special definitions and then castigate other people for not following them. An independent bookstore is a non-chain bookstore.

Second, independent bookstores don't follow your very special definition because it's a recipe for a quick financial death. Most people want the stuff on the bestseller lists. Even at specialty stores, mainstream books are the backbone of the operation. Booksellers bemoan this and do everything they can to draw attention to offbeat books--even the Borders store near me has a staff picks section, and it's full of wonderful and quirky stuff--but the truth is that bookstores must stock mainstream books because mainstream books are what sell.

If you want to see more self-published books selling, there are a couple of things you can try:

1. Open your own bookstore. You can even do it online for the cost of a domain name. Create an independent bookstore to your own recipe, and see how you do.

2. Review and promote more self-published books. You say over and over that the self-published work you read is almost as good as the traditionally published work, and sometimes better--so tell us what these gems are! People wouldn't be so averse to self-published books if they could find some good titles. If you're not willing to share what you know, the rest of us are going to keep thinking that self-published books (including yours) all look like this.

5 comments:

Peter L. Winkler said...

Fran would rather speak a million curses than light a candle. I was going to write about her post on independent bookstores, but you've said it very well.

I was also going to write something about where she said she's a maverick because she self-publishes without doing a number of things, most notably including ISBNs. Then she plays the victim/ignored genius card when no one buys her books.

P.S.: I enjoyed the review of the self-published sf novel. It certainly drives the point home.

Peter L. Winkler said...

"Second, independent bookstores don't follow your very special definition because it's a recipe for a quick financial death. Most people want the stuff on the bestseller lists. Even at specialty stores, mainstream books are the backbone of the operation. Booksellers bemoan this and do everything they can to draw attention to offbeat books--even the Borders store near me has a staff picks section, and it's full of wonderful and quirky stuff--but the truth is that bookstores must stock mainstream books because mainstream books are what sell."

Papa Bach, something of a Los Angeles cultural institution in Santa Monica, closed in the mid-80s. I recall an interview with one of the owners. Though the primary reason for closing the bookstore was an impending tripling of the rent, the owner readily admitted that they were reluctant to carry trashy bestsellers and that it was a mistake that hurt their business.

Margot said...

I know of an old, old bookstore, a fixture of the city, that closed a few years back for the same reason. The independent bookstore across the street is still doing well because they carry a wide selection of mainstream books along with the odd stuff. It's sad that every bookstore has to carry these books, and I don't know a niche bookstore owner who likes having them or a mainstream bookstore owner who approves of the quality, but it's a financial reality.

(I don't think anything is going to change, nor do I think anything has changed. From the birth of print, humans have preferred sensationalistic trash. The main difference between 17th-century trash and 21st-century trash is that we have more explicit sex, and any rains of toads or signs of witchcraft now go in the SF/Fantasy or New Age/Paranormal section.)

Margot said...

Fran would rather speak a million curses than light a candle. I was going to write about her post on independent bookstores, but you've said it very well.

Thank you.

Fran's not going to light a candle because it might light the works of authors other than herself. If she ever finds this post, we can expect much howling about how other writers have done nothing but treat her poorly, so she's not going to help them because they've been nothing but nasty to her and yar yar yar... which exposes all of her arguments on behalf of the poor disrespected self-published authors of the world as arguments on her own behalf. And just to make things clear if she reads this: Fran, there's nothing wrong with arguing on your own behalf. Just don't pretend you're doing it for a bunch of people you actually despise.

I was also going to write something about where she said she's a maverick because she self-publishes without doing a number of things, most notably including ISBNs. Then she plays the victim/ignored genius card when no one buys her books.

In an earlier post, she first said that a work's coming under attack wasn't a guarantee of quality, especially to her, then two paragraphs later said that when her own work was attacked, she knew she'd done well. Sigh.

I think she'd be deeply unhappy if people did buy her books. The reviews wouldn't give her the kind of affirmation she's looking for. That's a common problem... People go into writing supposedly to share their stories but really to get personal affirmation, and aren't ready for the particular flavor of affirmation they get back. Horrified, they discover that their readers like to share the story with other readers, not with the author; that they happily rip it apart and talk about how they'd fix it and where the author went wrong; and that they don't give a good goddamn about the author's feelings. If the author jumps in and complains that they're hurting her feelings, they tell her to put her big-girl panties on, go the hell away, and leave the story to the readers because it's theirs now.

It was always like this, but it wasn't always obvious that it was like this. Authors and readers used to meet one another only in polite social situations; if authors disliked their reviews, they were advised to keep their mouths shut because replying publicly would be bad for business. Readers had privacy. Nowadays readers' discussions are right there on the web for authors to see, but authors are still told not to reply because replying is very, very bad for business.

Seriously bad. Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton bad.

But now it's easy to reply, and more and more authors are tempted to do so. The response is never good, it's often enough to destroy an author's reputation (or put them on the map as a nutball if they were previously unknown), and it slices any fanbase they had in two. People who aren't even their readers will get involved, because readers. do. not. want. to. be. messed. with.

But too many self-published authors want to control their readers. They want to tell them what to say and how to say it, they create heavily moderated forums to corral the discussion, they jump on dissent, and they react with fury and grief when their fans don't give them the right kind of affirmation. Most of them--like the author of the self-published novel I linked to--wind up angry and alone, spawning dozens of sockpuppets to fight with critics. Their blogs get steady hits but no comments; they are watched by a silent audience that's just waiting for another blowout. They've become cheap entertainment.

And they do it over and over and over again. When you crave attention and negative attention is the only kind you can get, you start to crave negative attention. It's almost impossible to step off the stage because that would mean giving up hopes of getting affirmation; and whereas most people would find some other source of affirmation, the cases who become spectacles have nothing else in their lives. They keep pounding fruitlessly at the writing world because it's all they have.

On one hand, it's sad. On the other, it's usually obvious why they don't have any other outlets; and if someone is willing to work for decades at driving other people away, then I have limited sympathy when they succeed.

P.S.: I enjoyed the review of the self-published sf novel. It certainly drives the point home.

That book is indeed a wonderment. I always wanted to know: If the first book was so widely acclaimed and has such a huge following, why did the author never write the second book?

BTW, it's best not to name the book or the author. The author vanity-Googles herself and has a platoon of sockpuppets who descend upon unbelievers. I'd invite them in for entertainment, but the beggars can keep it up for freakin' years.

Peter L. Winkler said...

Sssshhh! Nfra (anagram of her real name) is blogging again.

Email me and I'll send you the url.