Rebel Bookseller

"How to [pioneer] your own indie bookstore and beat back the chains!"

Sit down with this document of how chain bookstores wrecked the industry for everyone, especially readers and book lovers, by the man who nearly invented in-store events, community outreach, and store mailings.

In the 1980s independent bookstores controlled the realm. They had managed to retake the scene because so many new owners had been former employees at chains and knew the ins and outs of the system -- and what needed fine-tuning. They got frustrated and started their own businesses, creating new bookstores with kitsch and character.

By the early '90s the chains had lost their control and were quickly losing market share. Barnes and Nobles and Borders were new upstarts that merged with B.Dalton and Waldenbooks; two dying chains. They slashed prices on books and undercut all the indies. Suddenly, indies were going out of business left and right. Legal monopoly legislation was enacted, thanks to elicit deals between publishers and chains. The chains were using financial leverage to get absurdly low price discounts and fucking these publishers by over-ordering so they could create displays built out of books. They were taking far more books than they could ever hope to sell, which caused suggested retail prices to rise, in order to cover these deep discounts and high returns.

Andrew Laties has been in the trenches of bookselling and community organizing for the last 20 years. In addition to this history, you'll find a masked how-to guide to start, and succeed, in your own bookselling endeavors, in the face of the competition from the chains and big conglomerate jerks. Andrew is not afraid to shame the chains, and is blunt and open when possible.

A welcome change for this subject matter, there is a lot of great opinion and passion here, as well as practical tips for effective independent bookselling. It's a big inspirational tip.

Listen to a chapter from the book!