The Open Book

In Westhampton Beach, NY, the answer might be yes. Newcomer indie bookstore Books & Books, which opened in July, is giving established indie bookstore The Open Book some competition, and not everyone is happy. The New York Times reports:

Books & Books

Terry Lucas, a librarian and the owner of the Open Book, which she founded in 1999, said Books & Books is on a course to put her already struggling store out of business.

The dueling bookstores have caused a bit of summer drama in this quiet, laid-back town on the south fork of Long Island, where much of the commercial activity happens on Main Street, a tidy stretch lined with restaurants, real estate offices and boutiques.

“You’d think the thing that was going to kill the little town bookstore was the e-reader,” said Glenn Dorskind, a high school English teacher and friend of Ms. Lucas’s. “But the thing that’s killing it is another bookstore.”

I’m lucky enough to live in Boston, which can support a number of independent bookstores. But in a smaller town, the market might be too small for more than one. Should indie bookstores try and spread themselves around? Or should this be a case of free-market survival-of-the-fittest?

Between August 1 and November 30, 2010, Tin House Books will accept unsolicited manuscripts with one special condition–the submission must include a receipt that proves the author has purchased a book at a bookstore.

Any manuscript sent without a receipt will be returned unread. The new policy is part of Tin House’s “Buy a Book, Save a Bookstore” campaign. The Tin House Books website notes:

Writers who cannot afford to buy a book or cannot get to an actual bookstore are encouraged to explain why in haiku or one sentence (100 words or fewer). Tin House Books and Tin House magazine will consider the purchase of e-books as a substitute only if the writer explains: why he or she cannot go to his or her neighborhood bookstore, why he or she prefers digital reads, what device, and why.

Writers are invited to videotape, film, paint, photograph, animate, twitter, or memorialize in any way (that is logical and/or decipherable) the process of stepping into a bookstore and buying a book to send along for our possible amusement and/or use on our Web site.

Fellow independent publisher Dzanc Books has responded with a campaign of their own:

In response to Tin House’s new submission policy, we at Dzanc Books are motivated to reply with what we hope is an alternative solution to one of the issues Tin House seems to be raising; to wit the decline of books being purchased – and purchased at independent bookstores. [...] For the month of July, we at Dzanc will donate a book to a school/library for each proof of purchase provided to us of a book bought at an independent bookstore. The book bought should be a work of literary fiction, though does not have to be a book published by Dzanc Books or any of our imprints.

Just send a copy of your receipt to Dzanc and they’ll donate a book to any school you choose. Full details and the address are here.

The classic Strand tote bag

One of the winning new designs

You’ve seen it a million times: that iconic tote bag with The Strand logo on it. Recently, The Strand partnered with the School of Visual Arts, TOON Books, Drawn & Quarterly, and Fantagraphics Books to host a tote bag design contest. Over 800 emerging artists submitted their representations of The Strand Bookstore, and a panel of judges, including Pulitzer Prize–winner Art Spiegelman, selected three winners.

Check out a slideshow of all the entries, just the finalists, or the three winners. The image by the grand prize winner, Zak Foster, will be featured on a new tote bag, available in-store and online, in June.

With this deal, you’ll not only get the magazine at one-third the normal price: you’ll also be showing your support for independent bookstores and Jeremiah Chamberlin’s Inside Indie Bookstores series. In each P&W issue, he profiles an important independent bookstore around the country, featuring an interview with the owner. (In the Jan/Feb issue, that bokstore was Square Books, of Oxford, Mississippi.) Simply put: the more support we can gather for the series, the more publicity we can give to bookstores during this tough economic time. It’s also a great way to show what a devoted readership we have at FWR. So please help us spread the word!

2. Read the online extended version of Jeremiah’s latest Inside Indie bookstore installment, an interview with Powell’s Books owner Michael Powell, and see photos from the store. Pass on the link, post it, or leave a comment on the site about your favorite bookstore or about the series itself. Every comment helps support the project.

Here’s an excerpt from Jeremy’s article; the print version appears in the March/April edition of P&W:

Few independent bookstores are more iconic than Powell’s Books. Even readers who’ve never been to Portland, Oregon, know about the store from its ads in places like the New Yorker, or from its prominent online presence, or from its reputation as the largest new- and used-book store in the world. The “City of Books,” as the four-story flagship store on West Burnside is known, occupies an entire city block, and carries more than one million books. The sixty-eight-thousand-square-foot space is divided into nine color-coded rooms, which together house more than 3,500 sections. From the moment you walk in, it feels as if you could find anything there. (And if you can’t, try one of the seven branch stores in five other locations throughout Portland, specializing in everything from technical books to home and garden.)

I was early for my interview with owner Michael Powell, so I decided to get a coffee in the attached café. Like the bookstore itself, the guiding aesthetic is simplicity—no overstuffed chairs, no fireplace, no decorations on the salmon-colored walls other than some taped-up flyers for local bands and a Buddhist meditation group. Not that anyone seems to notice. While I was there, every single person I encountered was reading. At the table nearest me a high school girl in cat-eye glasses and a ski cap read Lucy Knisley’s French Milk (Epigraph Publishing, 2000), with a stack of David Sedaris waiting at her elbow. A well-dressed elderly woman flipped through the Oregonian not too far away. And on the other side, near the windows, a young woman with black hair and piercings through both her cheeks was making a list of recipes from The Garden of Vegan (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2003). Filling the rest of the tables were hipsters in zip-up sweatshirts and Chuck Taylor All Stars, a young father in a shirt and tie with his two children, construction workers wearing Carhartt overalls, and women with trendy bags and knee-high leather boots. All were reading. Here was a microcosm of the store: A diversity of people and interests, sure, but what’s most important in Powell’s is neither image nor decor but the books themselves.

3. Become a fan of Poets and Writers on Facebook. You can also leave a comment on the Feb. 10th post about independent bookstores. P&W is looking for your favorite shops around the country.

What is your favorite independent bookstore, and why?

Current nominees range from David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas to Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible to J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Voting ends January 31.

As we announced earlier this month, Poets & Writers is continuing to offer a special deal to FWR readers (a description that includes anyone lucky enough to stumble across this post): only $12 for a year-long subscription!

Take advantage of this hugely discounted rate by subscribing — or renewing your current subscription — via this link.

Be sure to sign up by Friday, January 15 (tomorrow) if you want your subscription to include the Jan/Feb 2010 issue, which includes the first installment of FWR Associate Editor Jeremiah Chamberlin’s Inside Indie Bookstores series.

Subscribing through this link will help show support for this important series and the future of independent bookstores, as well as for our community here at Fiction Writers Review. Poets & Writers is not only a valuable resource and periodical for writers: it’s also the United States’ largest nonprofit serving writers and the writing community.

For a (still-growing) list of events–readings, signings, meals, lectures, discussions, book launch parties, a master class, a midnight costume party, and more–visit the NYCIB’s website.

This double-launch party at Unnameable Books sounds particularly insane/intriguing:

November 17
MIDNIGHT

A never-before-seen, new publication from the posthumous Vladimir N.
AND
A we’ve-seen-it-all-before, new publication from the maverick Sarah P.

THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA by V. Nabokov & GOING ROGUE by S. Palin

Dress as your favorite character from either book.

We will attempt to perform a simultaneous (marathon?) reading of both.