![]() ("Talk about educating them early," Hanson said. Village Books also works with teachers and a variety of writers groups. "We work to strengthen the community outside to strengthen the community inside," he commented. Village Books supplies "authors, knowledge and resources," while the partners, mainly local colleges, provide facilities and registration. Hanson emphasized the importance of the store's co-sponsorships of writing seminars and workshops, like the Chuckanut Writers Conference. Village Books' second tier consists of a mix of free and paid services. "You have to evaluate what your time is worth," he said. Hanson suggested that bookseller charge for any consultations beyond a basic 15-minute session. ![]() ![]() "The emphasis is on education," Hanson said, including workshops that "teach them before they walk in the door." He also recommended booksellers have clear requirements for consignment programs and post them on store websites. At the most basic level, it will take on books by any local author and will offer a brief consultation. ![]() One example: "Tell them if they sell direct to friends and family and don't send them to us, we won't carry the book." Village Books has a three-tiered approach to working with independently published authors. "They have no idea why we get 40%.") He added that it's important to educate authors. ("Be prepared to justify the split," he said. Hanson recounted that having published several collections of anthologies put him "in the shoes of independently published authors," who, he said, often found booksellers antagonistic, which has sent many of them "to Amazon in droves." Village Books, he said, has "one of the most professional" consignment programs, under which it charges $25 to process a book being sold on consignment keeps the book in stock if it sells at least one copy each quarter pays authors for sales in three months and offers a 60/40 split. Paul Hanson of Village Books, Bellingham, Wash., suggested that booksellers call such authors "independently published authors"-and he challenged booksellers to ask if they are treating them "the way you'd like publishers to treat independent bookstores." The only down note was sounded by Battery Park Book Exchange and Champagne Bar, Asheville, N.C., whose sale of used and new books has slipped, leading it to open a wine bar and café.Īnother treat in this story: Shelf Awareness editor-in-chief John Mutter was quoted accurately.Īt the Winter Institute's panel on working with self-published authors, bookseller panelists discussed the importance of their consignment programs and print-on-demand machines in serving the many writers in their communities. "If they have to sell cheesecake or run a summer camp to survive, add it to the to-do list."Īmong the stores mentioned in the piece: Bank Square Books, Mystic, Conn., which was able to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy because of a surge of community support Boswell Book Co., Milwaukee, Wis., an example of a store run by an owner, Daniel Goldin, who knew the business inside and out before he opened BookPeople, Austin, Tex., which hosts extremely popular summer camps for younger customers Singularity & Co., Brooklyn, N.Y., which started as a sci-fi publisher and specializes in "rescuing" out of print titles and now has a storefront WORD, Brooklyn, N.Y., which is opening another store, in Jersey City, N.J., and whose owner, Christine Onorati, said, "Community-building is the most important key to an indie bookstore's success" Bookbug, Kalamazoo, Mich., which doubled in size in 2011 McLean & Eakin, Petoskey, Mich., where Matthew Norcross and his wife-who met at the store-bought it from his mother and have "thrown themselves into the digital side of bookselling" and Journeys of Life, Pittsburgh, Pa., which suffered a fire in November 2011 but has risen like a phoenix and had the second best January ever. In a refreshing contrast to the general media's often superficial take on bookselling, in a wide-ranging feature called " The Novel Resurgence of Independent Bookstores," the Christian Science Monitor noted that indie bookstore sales are up, and said booksellers credit "everything from the shuttering of Borders to the rise of the 'buy local' movement to a get-'er-done outlook among the indies that would shame Larry the Cable Guy," the paper wrote.
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