This recent piece in newrepublic.com speaks to a specific, if not new, concern for publishers and the book business – the potential demise of Barnes & Noble. Bear in mind, this has been a topic of conversation for many years and despite rumors, challenges and financial constraints, B&N is still in business.

Alex Shephard mentions in the piece: “In a world without Barnes & Noble, risk-averse publishers will double down on celebrity authors and surefire hits.” That might be true, but we’ve been seeing this for a long time. Same with his assertion that “Literary writers without proven sales records will have difficulty getting published, as will young, debut novelists. The most literary of novels will be shunted to smaller publishers. Some will probably never be published at all.” This has been a refrain we’ve heard on repeat for years.

My sense about the retailer’s impact on the book business if it were to shutter its doors is that it would be a significant and negative impact, but not an insurmountable one. No question, B&N has been a wonderful partner for bringing books to a wider audience. They provide some very nice opportunities for books and authors, from in-store events to co-op advertising (front of store placement) to their now 25 year-old Discover Great New Writers program. And while publishers still rely heavily on B&N’s feedback on many things, including covers (I’ve had several covers change at the last minute because B&N didn’t like it), the truth is that the number of books they purchase for their stores has dropped dramatically over the years. Yes, they still carry lots of copies of the big bestsellers, as do all the retailers, but they take a lot fewer copies of almost everything else.

This, in part, has resulted in smaller first printings for most books from years past with the hope that if the book starts selling, publishers can quickly hit the reprint button and fulfill market demand. But that doesn’t feel like new news to me. I hope B&N can survive and find a way to thrive in a very difficult market, but I feel strongly that even if that doesn’t happen, authors, publishers and agents will figure out a way to make it work, just like we’ve always done.

But as many things as I loved about being a bookseller, I also came away from that career with quite a few pet peeves. So when I saw an Esquire article called “How to Shop in a Bookstore” flying around Twitter, I opened it with trepidation. Just what kind of bookstore behavior was being suggested? Then I was pleased to read a quite beautiful little essay on the joys of discovery in bookstores – on going in with an open mind, and letting yourself be guided by the brilliant, hilarious, sophisticated, and elegant bookstore employees. Or the article puts it, “I advise finding the man or woman with the weirdest glasses.”

So now that the readers of Esquire will be storming into bookstores eager for recommendations and serendipity, I decided I should to put a few comple

mentary bookstore Don’ts out there:

• Are you looking for a specific book? Do your friendly bookseller a favor and try to remember the title or the author. Don’t just say “It was on TV.And it’s orange? Or red?” Though you’d be amazed how good a mind reader you become after a couple of weeks at the info desk. And Google will be your new best friend.

• Do you see a book you’re interested in? Don’t wait – buy it right now! Bookstores change their displays all the time, often on a regular monthly or weekly schedule, sometimes on the fly in response to hot news topics or emerging trends. We’re BOTH going to be unhappy when you storm up to my counter grumbling “HEY where’s that book I saw on this table the other day.” Buy it when you see it! Or come in happy to discover whatever book took its place, as the Esquire writer suggests.

• Want to dip into a book before you buy it? Go right ahead! That’s one of the beauties of a bookstore – flipping through the pages (and yes, that bookish smell) will always beat out the LookInside preview. But don’t forget that the book isn’t actually yours yet, and be respectful of its pages, cover corners, and spine.

• Don’t take off your shoes in the bookstore. Seriously.

• Don’t dismantle a display to create a computer desk for yourself (yes, this happened).

• And please, for the love of all, do not use the children’s department for free babysitting. ‘Nuff said.
  

  Don’t forget to appreciate your hard-working booksellers!!

Okay, so maybe those last couple etiquette points are the kind of outlying horror stories that grizzled booksellers love to swap when they get together,

and not the kind of behavior any reader of THIS blog would engage in. And pet peeves aside, there’s nothing a bookseller loves more than meeting a reader eager for suggestions. No matter how you feel about Amazon, whether it’s your best friend or your Lord Vader, nothing quite matches the experience of wandering through a bookstore. The Esquire article puts it beautifully:

“Somewhere in there is something that’s entirely fresh to you, and will reward your soul by exposure. That’s what good books do, and good bookstores, too. They let you step out of your algorithm.”

Do you have a wonderful bookstore in your area? Or do you have any tips for serendipitous discoveries when shopping for books online? 

Like most publishing people (really, like most book people) I’m thrilled at how nicely the independent stores are doing after being pummeled by giant corporations starting in the ‘90s and facing the threat of death by e-books that doomsayers predicted (and still do).  What I didn’t expect, and find rather ironic, is the fact that we now are all worrying about  and rooting for Barnes & Noble’s survival in the wake of its recent struggles.  B&N, once publishing’s bad guy, has relinquished its evil empire status to the mighty (Villanous? Depends on who you talk to…) Amazon, with the result that people who once reviled the company are now offering suggestions on how to stay afloat for the sake of the book business as a whole.  This piece by Jason Diamond in Flavorwire goes to the heart of the issue and suggests that B&N act more like an Indie in order to save itself.  Did I mention irony?

As much as I love a musty, cluttered shop that I can lose myself in for hours at a time, growing up in the Miami sprawl, I went to the Waldenbooks or Borders at the mall because quaint, pretty Indie bookstores were not just a stroll away.  Sure, these mall venues lacked charm, but they offered access to the titles I wanted and needed and I was grateful they were around.  I do hope B&N, which effectively replaced those old mall stores, will hang on for a new generation of readers who get dropped off at the mall by their parents.

So, what’s your favorite bookstore?  And why?

• I really liked this “7 Things I’ve Learned So Far” post from Melanie Gideon over at Writer’s Digest.  The question of to-Google-or-not-to-Google is always a big one, and I tend to agree it’s best to let a trusted friend or spouse filter through all the information and present just the important things–both good and bad.
• Speaking of Google, their Valentine’s Day doodle is quite possibly my favorite yet. Too cute!
• B&N’s Nook news isn’t good. I wonder if they should go back to selling books?
• The DOJ cleared the Random House/Penguin merger in record time and without any conditions. Maybe they’re being lenient since Penguin (and now Random House, as part of Penguin Random House) agreed to the e-book settlement.
• And, finally, if you want to feel old: Scholastic announced a new cover for the first Harry Potter book to coincide with the 15th anniversary of its first publication.  I think Kazu Kibuishi did an amazing job. That’s one brave dude to tackle such a daunting challenge!

I wandered around the B&N behemoth at the top of Union Square the other day and thought about the ways that stores innovate in what are not the easiest times.  As I passed the sizable Lego section of the store on the escalator (and glanced down at the enormous book-reading Lego Men that I’d strongly consider purchasing if they were for sale), I realized that it’s well past the time that I cringed in response to non-book space in the store.  Don’t get me wrong: when that particular store expanded their Nook…nook, I was very happy they found space from the DVD/music area and not the bookshelves.  But even when I forced myself, I found I was happy that people who might not go out of their way to buy books have to pass tons of books on their way over to build at the Lego table.  What use are shelves and shelves and shelves of books that will be returned if no one goes into the store to buy them, after all?  However complex the economics, eyes on books seems better than not.

Over the years, we’ve seen stores adding cafés and media and toys and games.  We’ve seen stores try to find a home for themselves in a world of e-books with things like the Nook and the customized e-book shelf talkers that Melville House offers indies, as recently reported by Laura Miller in Salon.  When I worked at B&N, the store I was in had recently begun an events program (which was nothing new in general, but it’d previously been deemed too small to find the space for them), with signings, readings, story time and writing groups.  Whatever the results may be in this time of great change for the industry, I’m pleased any time I see that a piece of the intricate publishing ecosystem won’t go down without a fight (so long as it’s not at the expense of authors, of course—the rest of us are nothing without them).

For those of you who sometimes shop in physical bookstores, what do you see stores doing in a bid for survival?  Any great ideas that you think should be adopted more widely?  Any ideas you wish they’d try?

Then, when I first got to New York, I was blown away by places like Shakespeare & Co., Brentano’s, Coliseum Books, Papyrus and that promised land for bibliophiles, The Strand.   A few years later many of my favorite haunts had gone out of business or been taken over by soulless corporate giants (you know who you are) but I never lost my love of browsing aimlessly in book stores.  These days, I still occasionally wander over to the Barnes & Noble on Union Square and spend my lunch hour in the fiction stacks on the fourth floor.

Of course, book stores have also traditionally been a place for authors to do their dog and pony show in support of their work.   Book tours are going the way of the Amazon forests but certain authors are still a huge draw (just try to get anywhere near the third floor at the aforementioned Barnes & Noble when David Sedaris is doing a reading).  Some of these events can make you fall in love with a book or its author, sometimes both.   They’re also the makings of a cheap date for grown-ups and an alternative to a $30 movie outing for young kids.  Except, it seems, no more.

Check out this  Gawker piece about the new trend of book stores charging admission to author events.  I actually understand and support independents in their efforts to get people in the door.  These are trying times for book sellers and if they are to keep their doors open in the face of the online juggernauts (you know who you are, cough, Amazon) they are going to have to figure out a way to make money.  But it does make me sad.   How many times did I walk out of a book store with a title I had no intention of buying when I went in after stumbling upon an author reading from his/her book?  I wonder if the days of the accidental book buyer are numbered as a result of these new pay-for-play tactics.

What do you all think about this new development?

Speaking at GigaOm’s Structure Big Data conference yesterday, Marc Parrish, Barnes and Noble’s VP of Retention and Loyalty Management, made some very interesting comments (as reported by Cyndy Aleo in this GigaOm article). First, he noted that as readers move to e-books, their buying patterns change, favoring a particular author or category, which means that consumers are focusing on a much narrower set of books. When you combine this with evidence that e-book consumers are on average buying more e-books than they did print books, it presents publishers with a challenge: they clearly have a market for established authors–maybe even an easier one to reach–but how do they sell new authors in this environment?

Which leads to the second point Parrish made: bookstores are still the best discovery tool around. All that table, endcap and shelf space is advertising (we all know that it’s bought through co-op), but it’s the best, most-focused, cheapest advertising around. Publishers pay for it because it works. By time someone is in a bookstore, they’re at least peripherally interested in purchasing books. And finding something new is easy with the choices that abound. Even if someone is looking for a particular author, so many other books are presented along the way. (I hate anecdotal evidence, but I will say that while I’ve found new authors in all sorts of bookstores, I’ve never bought a book in an e-bookstore that I wasn’t already looking for.)

Now, I take this with a grain of salt, as B&N clearly has a vested interest in keeping the brick-and-mortar stores alive. But they also have a big investment in digital, and in the book ecosystem generally. I think his conclusion is quite right: bookstores matter. Curious to hear what you think. Are bookstores a necessary and important part of book discovery?

I know that I’m taking this news particularly hard because Borders has supported a couple of my authors in really big ways.  While I know both would have been successful without Borders, I don’t think they would have been as successful as quickly.  Borders’s taste (I know it seems odd to think of a chain having taste, but hear me out) was always just a bit different, a little bit less obvious, maybe.  They could often see the commercial side of the not-so-commercial books, and in being the underdog, I think they paid particular attention to books that others might have been overlooking.

It’s terrible to be losing 200 of their stores, and even more terrible to think that it’s quite possible they won’t pull out of this mess ever.  I’m sad that great booksellers will be losing their jobs and that some nice retail locations here in SoCal will close—the Pasadena store was pretty great.  I’m sad to think the bookstore that I frequented most often in high school might no longer exist.  And I’m sad for the authors who won’t get championed by a company that truly believed in books.

Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, I attended the Middle East Studies Association conference, which is the yearly gathering of scholars of the Middle East. With its panels and papers, receptions and speeches, it is probably not unlike academic conferences of other disciplines, except that the music at the Sunday night dance party was Arab pop (if you’ve never heard the Middle East’s answer to Madonna, she’s worth a listen: check out Nancy Ajram on youtube) and among the post-docs getting down were a daunting number of accomplished belly dancers.

I go to MESA to get a sense of the ideas percolating in the field, sit in on assorted lectures, and meet with potential and existing clients whose research crosses over from an academic to a mainstream readership. This year, while helping out friends and former colleagues, I also had the memorable opportunity to moonlight as a bookseller. I have limited experience in the retail end of publishing; as an agent I’m in the business of selling books, but I’ve never tried it on a copy-by-copy basis. The experience was instructive, and I emerged from my adventure with a renewed sense of respect for the business of hand-selling.

It quickly became obvious that matchmaking between book and customer is both art and science—in this case I happened to know the books I was selling quite well, but to occupy that sweet spot between helpful and obtrusive was a wholly different challenge. When I convinced a browsing professor to purchase a novel I’d particularly loved, I was immoderately pleased. That she was already very likely interested in the subject I was peddling in no way diminished my sense of accomplishment. Other artisanal processes, like making cheese or crafting small batch whisky seem to be enjoying a renaissance, but hand-selling books, and the people who do it, ably and for real, are faring less well. Perhaps the book industry needs its own answer to the locovore movement. (Perhaps it’s out there—if yes, let me know).

Programs like B&N Discover and Borders Original Voices are efforts to scale up the hand-sell, and I like these programs immensely, but I note them professionally perhaps more than I respond to them personally. I’m curious to know how you all respond to them—ditto Amazon recommendations. Amazon’s ability to target my interests is undermined by the fact that I use the site as a research tool more often than I do to make purchases, but maybe you have better luck. Shelf talkers are great, but for me, nothing beats interested, widely read booksellers with whom I can speak; not only are they brilliant at suggesting books, they see the publishing industry from a perspective of the buyers who keep it alive. These days I’m particularly fond of New York’s Idlewild bookstore, which specializes in books on international themes—travel, world lit, etc.

But as I suspect is the case with many of you, indie bookshops have always had a special place in my heart. When I was growing up, each year, probably right about this time, my parents (both inveterate readers of nonfiction) would report to our local bookshop, where the owner would recommend a raft of novels that were just right for me. The stack that ended up beneath the tree, selected by Santa Claus, never disappointed. When, eventually I figured out that it was the bookstore owner and not St. Nick doing the selecting, it did not render the achievement any less magical. I was, however, crushed when the store closed (take that Virginia). Imaginary though he is, Santa’s position seems more secure than that of the independent bookseller, a figure whom I hope will not become a ghost of holidays past, as Jane touched on recently.