Booksellers Are Amazing

I keep saying I'm going to get back to regular blog posts, and then I stop. A few months go by, I try to start a post, then stop again. It is a hybrid form of writer's block at work here, built from a conflict between working for a living and writing for my customers and friends, who are often one and the same. It's not just that working for a living takes up time and creative energy that might go into writing. My blog has always been meant to promote bargain books to booksellers, and bound paper books to the digitally addicted. In the times we are living through now, there is an additional conflict between that mission and the need to say something more generally helpful. That conflict gets the best of me when I freeze up and can't write anything.

So, for this post, I am going to stay off my bargain book soapbox and focus on booksellers, those marvelous beings who have, for my whole life, walked a fine line between success and poverty, threatened by chains, online behemoths, competing platforms, and the relentless dumbing down of their cultures.

I would not be writing this post were it not for my readers (yes, okay, both of you!) telling me they miss my posts and, especially now, think other booksellers could benefit from them. And when I say "writing," picture two of my thumbs (I have ten of them) pressing a couple of keys and then disappearing from the vicinity of the blog for another few days, then coming back to delete the few characters they input before. This has been going on for weeks; I hope today will be the day I finally manage to publish my sorry efforts. Thank you for urging me on.

Seeing so many of you doing whatever it takes to stay safe and keep your customers safe, while at the same time investing incredible amounts of energy and elbow grease in getting books to them using whatever tools you have available, is an inspiration. What have I seen and heard? For starters:

💖Arranging books by author, theme, or subject category, as if in a store window or end cap or tabletop display, and posting pictures of those displays on social media, in email, on websites.

💖Here's the amazing Arsen from Boulder Book Store on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y2VOht226s&fbclid=IwAR1ceBiV5aknczsTC6u64TvR7d8Kp_CcC4B69Ev2pPQ0GBDFuYrIE7m_qfM

💖Creating packages of books based on what particular customers like and having them delivered to those customers. The customers can then call and say what they don't want, the booksellers picks them up, and collects the payment for what was kept. All of this is done with disinfectant, gloves, and masks applied at the right time in the appropriate places.

💖Fulfilling wishlist items for kids in foster care.

💖And then there's this from the amazing Megan at Hills and Hamlets Bookshop and Underground Books:
https://www.facebook.com/UndergroundBooksCarrollton/videos/247338776503365/?t=2

💖Third Street Books is tweeting black ownded bookstores all day, 6/2/2020:

@ThirdPlaceBooks

💖For those bookstores with pets beloved by many customers, the pets show up in the posts with various backgrounds, maybe including books, maybe not, more just to say hello and comfort the lonely.

💖Doing "buy 3 from this stack, you get one free from this stack" deals. See above bit about posting pictures. (Uh-oh, I feel a plug for bargain books coming on...)

💖Here's Janet at Source Booksellers getting on BookTV on C-Span:
https://twitter.com/sourcebksellers

💖TONS of readings online. Booksellers reading children's books for the kids, authors reading novels for the grownups.

💖Here's Third Place Books raising money (and books) for students in need:
https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/books-students-fund

💖Several friends are in danger of losing their businesses during this time. Some are doing "GoFundMe" drives, asking for donations to keep them going. One pays her employees whether they stay at home or not, whether or not they are getting government money, whether or not she ever gets her PPP. Another, who did finally get her PPP, announced that she is going ahead with her long-delayed plans to finish her build-out on her new location, making sure everybody knows she is still in business, is not going away, and is aggressively moving forward.

💖Some are driving (or riding bicycles, or walking) summer reading mystery bags or boxes to customers who have subscribed to the service. At first, they had the impression that this was partly charity on the part of their customers, but so many have said that it's so great that they want to continue past the reopening, that now they think, if it was charitable to start, now it is just another fantastic way to sell books.

💖And many, whether or not they've been told they can reopen, would rather not expose their staff and customers to danger, as Hannah from The Book Shop at Beverly Farms writes here:
https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2020/05/22/massachusetts-reopening-small-business-hannah-harlow

Ostensibly, I suppose, all of these efforts are meant to, eventually, in some way, directly or indirectly, lead to sales, but they sure feel like they are really there to help their communities through this time. It all takes immense amounts of work, time, planning, thinking, creating. Who else, what other merchant professional does this? Outside of some nonprofit organizations, health and medical professionals, and the military, are there other industries like this? Our extended family of booksellers is made of some tough, good, wonderful stuff.