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Angry Booksellers, Angrier Bookmakers, and the Indie Art of War

October 07, 2008 by Wheatmark, Admin Book industry trade publications are not generally known for their attention-grabbing headlines, and booksellers are not generally known as war-mongering hot-heads, but this morning’s PW email greeted me with one of the most intriguing subject headings this book marketing chick has seen in quite a while: "Angry Bookseller’ Speaks Out at GLIBA."

Read the article and you’ll learn that Publisher’s Weekly isn’t above sensationalizing an email subject heading in order to increase their open rate.

Read the comments following the article and you’ll find that there appears to be a growing disconnect between indie booksellers and indie publishers/authors.

While I don't think so-called "Angry Bookseller" Carol Besse (co-owner of Carmichael's Books and outgoing GLIBA President) could rightly be labeled as anything more than perhaps mildly perturbed (at least not based on anything revealed in this little article. I mean come on, there were no chairs thrown, no hair pulled – I've seen angry – this is not angry; this is maybe miffed), her "call to arms" (in preparation for war against Amazon.com) did manage to catch the ear, as well as the ire of some indie publishers and indie (ie: self-published) authors who feel they’ve been too long ignored by their bookselling brethren.

Rather than argue as to which literary indie group has the most to be angry about, let's just assume that these days there are plenty of problems to go around in the independent literary community, and it sounds like everyone has more than their fair share.

What was it SunTzu said in (what could be considered his best book on the subject ever) The Art of War? Ah, that's right (thanks Google): "Victory comes from finding opportunities in problems."

Or something like that.

Point being -- maybe the problems that indie publishers, indie authors, indie distributors, and indie booksellers are facing individually, might collectively present a big fat opportunity.

Maybe, if we all put our indie heads together, indie publishers and authors could work with indie distributors and booksellers to form mutually beneficial relationships.

Maybe we could even involve the likes of the indie book and publishing associations such as Independent Book Publishers’ Association and SPAN; and indie print reviewers like Foreword Magazine and Midwest Book Review; and while we're at it we could include the indie book blog-o-sphere, etc. to bring readers' attention to those lesser-known, but deserving, self-published & indie-pubbed titles.

Maybe in this war of indies and locals versus big-boxes and online giants, the best defense for all of us indies is a collective, customer-focused and value-rich offense.

I'll take my comments off the air…

Tags: marketing, bookstores, amazon, authors, google, titles, publishers weekly
Filed Under: News & Events

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