Quick take: Booksellers are workers
Building community is part of that work, and it should be encouraged
This week’s Book World kerfuffle (or one of them, anyway) involves an author asking a local independent bookstore whether they’d be interested in stocking her book. Stung by what seemed like a dismissive attitude on the bookseller’s part, the author shared her experience, and people weighed in with a wild range of takes—up to and including “retail workers like booksellers should arm themselves.”
That the author in question has a book with a university press in a state adjacent to mine lent my scroll through the drama some extra oomph. I’ve spent a lot of time chatting up booksellers in my capacity as a publishing professional, which has meant lots of supportive, generative conversations, but also some interactions that felt a little like the one the author describes. (Her name is Grace Loh Prasad, and you can buy her Ohio State University Press book from, among others, the indie White Whale Books.)
Some quick thoughts informed by my perspective as a small publisher, as well as a short stint, three decades ago, at a bookstore:
—Obviously bookselling is work, and skilled work. Part of that work is building relations with the community—so when bookselling is done well, even telling a local author or publisher “no” leaves everyone feeling appreciated. Since authors and publishing workers are also book buyers, there are self-interested reasons to get members of the local ecosystem supporting one another. (There are also, of course, plenty of times when indies benefit directly from answering “yes” to author and publisher inquiries.)
—Like all work, bookselling is a set of skills that takes time to develop, and it needs to be compensated appropriately. I think strains like the Great Resignation and the overall post-pandemic dip in book sales are showing up at independent bookstores just like they’re showing up in publishing and other parts of Book World. When it’s harder to retain good booksellers because wages aren’t keeping up with inflation and sales may be down, then indies will end up with more churn and fewer experienced professionals who can handle delicate work like fielding pitches from authors. The easiest way to help is to buy more books from indies.
—The decline of social media means fewer opportunities for independent bookstores, authors, and publishers to interact. Face-to-face conversations like the one that Grace Loh Prasad describes can be eased along by sentiments like “oh, I love your tweets about the store!” (It’s certainly been an ice-breaker for me.) My unscientific sense is that indies are investing less in interactive social media and more, perhaps, in visual platforms like Instagram that don’t encourage the same amount of sharing, commenting, and mutual support. And again, those social-media decisions by bookstores are about allocation of resources in an environment where sales are returning to earth after the pandemic high.
—It’s a hobbyhorse of mine, but books benefit from being considered special. People invest a lot of emotion in books, which means that prioritizing extra sensitivity in the way books are handled can pay off. But that sensitivity—including fielding inquiries diplomatically, and expressing genuine interest in the work of local colleagues—is an expense, and it only makes sense that it will be subjected to cost–benefit scrutiny. Many bookstores see the investment in community relations as worthwhile. I hope the rest of the ecosystem continues to offer support so that bookstores receive a clear message: Authors, publishers, and readers value their community-building efforts.