Amazon is Still the Devil

Every writer I know has stated their opinion of Amazon this past week. I've offered mine before, but here's a simpler take.

1) Amazon is by far the most innovative publisher/retailer in the world today.

If you're an author, you sell more books because of Amazon. If you're a reader, you spend less for books because of Amazon.

2) Amazon wants to kill your community bookstore. 

If you're an author, you should be appalled. If you're a reader, independent bookstores are places where some are willing pay a few dollars more for books so they can have a center for literary culture in their neighborhood/city/region. Some areas are lucky enough still to have them.

That's the crux of it. Book Sales for Authors/Cheap Books for Readers/Innovation v. Death to Community Bookstores.

Solution: 

If you don't love your community bookstore and don't care about literary culture, I suspect there's nothing I can say to affect where you buy your books. There is a great anti-corporate argument against buying from Amazon, but that's a much larger argument and won't be explored here today.

If you love your community bookstore, every penny you give Amazon is a penny spent to destroy your community bookstore, so plan on spending a few more bucks at your local indie so you can have a center for literary culture in your neighborhood/city/region.

Or dance with the devil.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Watch the Book Trailer for Badge.



Buy Badge.

Badge for Sale at Broadway Books!!!

Anyone else out there prefer to buy books at an actual bookstore?

I'm one of those. I like to take trips to a store, browse the aisles, pick out titles, and take my time doing it. Every purchase comes not just with bound pages but an genuine in-time experience with people, sights, smells: life. Getting it through the mail just doesn't compare.

If you're looking to find Badge at a brick-and-mortar store, look no further Broadway Books, hands down the best bookstore in NE Portland. Broadway is one of those places in the world that are getting rarer: a genuine small business enterprise that counts on actual sales of books to stay afloat. Walk into the store and you'll immediately be greeted, asked if you need help, and if you don't, you'll be left alone to make your buying decision at your pace. The ladies up front always seem genuinely happy to assist, find you what you want, order it for you if they don't have it, or just chat. This place is one of the most distinctly Portland experiences around. I once ran into Cheryl Strayed there! During the whole Oprah thing!

So, go to Broadway Books and buy Badge, or if not Badge, something else. It's your life.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Watch the Book Trailer for Badge.



Buy Badge.

Ebooks and your Local Indie

I posted last week about what I called the Audio Book Revolution. In it, I suggest that audio books have a place, along with ebooks and everything else, in the conversation about the future of publishing.

They indeed do, but don't think I'm making a big deal about it. In fact, I don't ever want to make a big deal about any medium to translate written thought from one person to the next. I'm really not that passionate about it. The world needs strong, insightful, well-considered writing. And we shouldn't care too much if we get it from a paper book, an ebook, an audio book or a computer.

Because, when it comes right down to it, all reading devices are fetish items. They all exist to get the good stuff from the writer to you. That's their only purpose, and to give them powers they don't have is silly.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Shakespeare is Shakespeare no matter where you read it.

Having said that, there is one reading device I would miss should it ever disappear, and that is the book. You know, the one made with paper.

And, funny, it's not so much the paper book I'm concerned about, it's the bookstore.

And it's really it's not even so much bookstores as the independent bookstore.

I went to Powell's on Hawthorne this past week to hear Gina Frangello and Zoe Zolbrod read from their latest works. I browsed the stacks, bought two paperbacks, listened to the readings, met three writers. The trip really made my month.

And then it hit me when I got home: Nothing says Powell's--and indie bookstores in general--are going to be around forever.

Hard to imagine, but not impossible. Just look at what indie bookstores had to compete against ten years ago.

Big boxes (Borders, B&N)
Online Retailers (Amazon, etc.)
Mall-y type Chains (Waldenbooks, etc.)
That shelf at your local Goodwill where everything's a buck.

And now they have to compete against ebooks, a medium that does not require a bookstore to get the words to you at all.

Kind of scary, if you love independent bookstores.

So, support your local indie bookstore, if you want indie bookstores. I know I do.

Yours in laying down the law,

Art

Try Ghost Notes, the award-winning novel, in print form for just $5.




Try Ghost Notes the Audio Book as an unabridged digital download.



Or try Ghost Notes the Ebook.