Pride of Show PW 6/4/07

Ms. Nelson,
I haven't received my first issue yet - but I just found the electronic version of PW so I decided to start our correspondance a few issues early. Note: I'm not sure why the magazine is available electronically for free - but I'm pleased. Unless of course I didn't need to buy a subscription, in which case I'm down $165. But that's a story for another entry. On to my response to your Pride of Show.

I need to get this on the table first. I've never been to BEA - not because I haven't dreamed of it or desired to attend - more because I haven't sold a book yet. But hear me, authors such as myself read about BEA and Frankfort and salivate at the possibilities.

So, with that in mind my first comment has to be about the venue - not the Javitts Center, but the Brooklyn Marriott. My day job is in public health and I was at a conference there two years ago so I know some of it's ins and outs. It's a nice choice, easily accessible from Manhattan, and classy in a downtown Brooklyn kind of way. Also, any attempt at getting out of Manhattan and into the "outter borroughs" has to be applauded. And, yes, in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that I live in Queens.

What I find fascinating in your column is the line, "... who were celebrating: the idea that despite all the downturns, and the store closings, and the fact that there are now fewer than one-third the number of independent stores there were a decade ago, bookselling is still a viable and enviable profession for some." What follows is a display of contrasting statements and reflections on speaches that were bittersweet and fortunate and, for me, disturbing in their attempts to, as Monty Python's Life of Brian cast would say, "always look on the bright side of life."

The number of independent book stores have been reduced to one-third what they were ten years ago. I've watched bookstores go out of business in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, like the smaller stores that did not have a niche all to themselves. Or the niche stores who couldn't compete with price-points. But one-third? In the mean time Books-a-Million, Barnes and Noble, and Borders are up 2.4% in sales in the first quarter of 2007. I'm always torn between jumping up and down for joy for any increase in the sales of books, and despair because it's the big three that have the increases. And what does it mean for US booksellers - their future - when so many unfortunate salesmen/women are no longer working in independents because their stores are no longer open for business? I wish I could say that the big three are producing the best booksellers in their stores, developing them to a new degree of excellence but my experience doesn't play that out. When I want to find out about a children's book I go to Books of Wonder in NYC, because nobody knows children's books like the staff there does. If I want sci-fi, fantasy, or a graphic novel I go to Forbidden Planet. Hey, I've worked at Walden Books during Christmas time. I know what it's like.

The idea that people at BEA this year represented a can do, flag-waving, yankee doodle, spirit, in the face of this, just doesn't work for me. What I see and hear in your column is mourning for another era that has passed and a book business that is struggling for its future. As a writer who hopes to one day be struggling for face-outs in Borders, it's hard for me to get past this.