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Eight Reasons To Buy From Local Independent Bookstores By Peggy Millin

"Bookselling is one of the primary means for the distribution of ideas in our culture. Once this is concentrated in the hands of a few large corporate chains, ideas that have limited commercial appeal or that upset the powers-that-be will effectively disappear. The only way to counteract this potential for de-facto market censorship is to make sure that independent bookstores continue to exist and flourish." --Left Bank Book Collective 1. Buying books from chains, locally or on the Internet, hastens the demise of a vehicle of free speech and of small entrepreneurs as well as withdrawing your money from the local economy. 2. Independents now provide a way to buy from them online. Go to www.booksense.com. 3. Independents can order any book you can acquire on the Internet; most are willing to ship to you if you order by phone or email. 4. Independents support local authors, self-published authors, and small presses. 5. Independent bookstores are community based, buying books with the community in mind and supporting local arts and non-profit organizations. 6. Independents support and encourage new, unknown and out-of-the-mainstream authors to continue practicing their craft. Many books become top sellers by virtue of being "discovered" and promoted by independent bookstores. These are books that were bypassed by large publishers and omitted from distribution to the chain bookstores. 7. Independents offer a more diverse selection. There are only a handful of buyers in the entire USA for several thousand K-Marts, Borders, Waldenbooks, B. Daltons, and Barnes and Nobles. In contrast, each independent has one, two, or three buyers. That means several thousand buyers reviewing and selecting books. 8. Many Independents are joining Book Sense, a national branding concept developed for the American Booksellers Association, offering booksellers and book lovers many of the same conveniences as chains without eroding the identities of the individual stores who participate. For the Book Sense members near you, go to www.BookSense.com.

 

If you know of any other independent bookstores in Western North Carolina that you would like to see listed here, please let us know. Send info to Bob Boeberitz at bboeberitz@gmail.com