See Katherine Rant

OK, so I wrote a very considered, level-headed response to the Amazon/Macmillan showdown. I plan another very considered, level-headed post with my thoughts on book pricing.

Then I got a comment on my other post that said, “Amazon doesn’t scare me, it makes me angry”.  And I thought, all my level-headedness disguised the fact that I spent the entire weekend very angry…. and folks who know me will tell you that I do not have a quick temper.  And you know what? People shop indie because of their passion for books.  So here goes… Katherine’s weekend (if you don’t want ranty, barely disguised cursing, please stop reading now):

(Wow, I just re-read what I wrote.  Yep, very emotionally honest post here. I normally try to only write positive things about books and publishing here, and this most certainly is not. I don’t think name-calling and yelling solves anything, I believe rational discussion does. I do not claim that any of this is rational.  Try back tomorrow for rational if that’s what you want….it’s what I want too… I just felt that maybe people need to see that there is anger here. Not just on the Amazon customer side.  Don’t mess with our authors. Don’t mess with our books.)

Friday night:

12:30 am… I will admit I was out drinking at Seasons (hey, it was Friday night).  Read @oblongirl’s tweet about Amazon.

My response: What !?! Amazon?!? What?!? There’s a reason I can’t stand you.

And 20 minutes later: Boys are stupid. So is amazon. That is all. (yep, I was tipsy.)

Wake up Saturday morning, read tweets and realize it was not all a dream.  There are already blogs starting to cover the situation.

At work, to fellow booksellers: Can you BELIEVE them?  They are just a bunch of bullies!  They don’t like the way that Macmillan wants to do it, so they’re gonna take their basketball and go home.  Macmillan had BETTER stand their ground! If Amazon gets their way then it will just prove that they can walk all over the publishing world no matter what!  They can tell us what a book ought to be worth, they can decide how much authors’ livelihoods are worth. B_____t! They have no appreciation for books, for thinking, for stories!  All they want is to sell one more freaking microwave.  Well, that is NOT OK!

Runs off to do a display of Macmillan titles we love and happily sell, all while tweeting Macmillan titles we happily sell on our website and furiously mumbling: you GO Macmillan! You TELL them! We’re done being bullied by a child who wants to throw a hissy fit and mess with our authors! With our Books!

Back to fellow booksellers: And you remember last year!?! Remember when they removed all the GLBT titles from rankings?  Remember that? When they said HEATHER HAS TWO MOMMIES was considered an adult book? And then they said it was a glitch?  And even if it was a glitch, WHO CARES! One retailer should NOT have the power to influence sales that much!

Oh, yeah! And remember when they deleted all the 1984s from people’s kindles without permission? Yep.  Jerks.

And you KNOW they did this on a Friday night because they thought the world wouldn’t notice.  Or be too distracted by the chili fest (it’s a Vineyard thing) to care ! Jeff Bezos is a s_____d c_____g with no concern for books! (side note: I only included that insult because I’m pretty sure no one can figure out what it stands for. Please do not try to figure out in the comments).

Then Sunday is spent trying very hard to calm down by making many Valentine’s displays and decorating with lots of hearts to point out favorite love stories.

Then: the letter.  The amazon letter where they “capitulated” (p.s. STILL can’t buy WOLF HALL on Amazon).  Go read it. OUTRAGE RENEWED!

WHAT!?! What did they just say? They did NOT just invoke the word monopoly AGAINST Macmillan!?! Macmillan has a monopoly on its own titles?  Yeah, it’s called a copyright, jerk.  What, you’re supposed to now be able to print whatever you want whenever you want and the magical fairies will just deliver it to your doorstep and not get paid? Because magical fairies don’t need to eat! They live on number 2 pencils and dreams! (OK, I admit I got a little past reason here.) *grumble*monopoly on its own titles*grumble*  And they talk like it’s some big crusade for the poor oppressed kindle owners.  Well, it’s NOT.  If this were just about the fact that ebooks shouldn’t be 9.99, they would let the price rise and when no one pays it, the price will go back down.  Free market. Done.  But they REMOVED THE BOOKS!  Not the kindle editions.  The paper books! That was a strong-arm tactic (hissy fit) in order to get their way to maintain their dominance over the ebook market.

And all you folks calling Macmillan the bully in the comments? THEY ARE NOT THE ONES WHO REMOVED THE BOOKS!  They offered an option for continuing the current pricing agreement, Amazon just didn’t like it, so THEY REMOVED THE BOOKS.  Not Macmillan.  There is a bully here and Macmillan ain’t it.

Mission, my butt.  I’ll show you a mission. It’s called getting great books to people. It’s about a 2% profit margin. It’s about caring so much about your books that you cry over them.  It’s about lugging boxes up 3 floors and climbing ladders and alphabetizing. AND SELLING BOOKS NOT FOR THE MONEY.  FOR THE BOOKS! Because nothing will ever be more important!

*i need a drink*

And that is my rendition of Katherine’s weekend.  I will return to a sane being tomorrow, and hopefully, you will never be subjected to my ranting again.

Amazon Scares Me

Many of you already know this, but as it happened on a weekend off-news cycle, some may have missed it…

This weekend, Amazon deleted the “Buy” buttons from all books (both kindle and physical) from Macmillan publishers because they are in disagreement with the publisher over kindle book pricing. You could still find the books on Amazon, just not order from them.

For those not familiar with publishing, Macmillan is one of the “big 6″. In other words, this was a pretty big deal.  Some of the books you couldn’t order this weekend were  WOLF HALL, the 2009 Man Booker Prize winner; SARAH’S KEY, a constant bestseller at the BoG; A LONG WAY GONE, one of my current staff picks; all the Martha’s Vineyard mysteries by local author Cynthia Riggs.  That’s a tiny sampling.

At this point, Amazon has said that they have “capitulated” to Macmillan’s demands, but the books still do not have their buy buttons back.

There are a lot of people who have intelligently discussed the entire situation and I won’t try to recreate what they are doing; I’ll just give a list of links at the end of this post in case you’d like to see them.

But I do have a response.

My responses to this boil down to three main areas.

1.  People should really be shopping local anyway. When you do, your money stays in your community, both through taxes and through the employee paychecks (thank you, by the way, I love my job and want it to never go away. I also want to always be able to spend my money at local stores and farms.) It’s also better for the environment.  But I’ve said all this before.

2.  How much should books cost?  What are they worth?  How much does that answer change when it is an ebook? I haven’t posted about this, and I have a lot of thoughts on the topic, so I think that we will talk about that another day.

3.  But this is where my mind went first: Amazon is scary.  As in, chills me to the bone scary.

To have one retail outlet that has enough influence, or even believes they have enough influence, to force their business agenda on publishers by withholding sales is disturbing.

(And yes, I believe it is a business agenda… not any altruistic “people deserve ebooks for less”, but a continuation of their strategy to use books as loss-leaders to encourage the purchase of electronic devices. But we’ll talk about that on that other day.)

I know I’m biased, but I firmly believe it is our stories that make us human. All those old definitions they used to teach us in high school? Use tools? Nope, other species do that. Have language? Nope, they do that too. But stories, imagination, history: they belong to us. They keep us sane in the darkest of times, entertained in the best, and hopefully better educated in between.

To have those stories (and yes, a big piece of their method of transmission continues to be books, “e” included) in a position where they can be controlled, held, kept behind a gate, removed from dissemination by one company, led by one man (any man) is unacceptable.

And that is where we are headed right now.

I know that sounds drastic. But look around.  Borders seems on the verge of implosion, B&N is not having it easy either, indie bookstores continue to close all the time. And who takes their place? Amazon.

But we’re still here now.  We are passionate, we are knowledgeable, we are your neighbors.  But most importantly, when you come into my store, you will see different books than when you go into Edgartown Books, which will be different from Eight Cousins. And that’s just within 7 miles.

If you want continued diversity, if you are disturbed by the concentration of power in one retail outlet, if you think we should care about monopolies in the book trade even more than we do in phone companies, steel and railroads; it is in your power to have diversity.   Next time you are looking to buy a book, think about where you buy it from, and ask whether it is worth a couple extra dollars to maintain diversity in our literary marketplace. Remember that if you want the convenience of online shopping, you do not have to shop at Amazon. You can shop at the Bunch of Grapes, at Indiebound, at Powell’s, at Barnes and Noble, the list goes on…

And I have a commitment for you too.  I mentioned that Macmillan is one of the “big 6″ publishing houses.  About 63% of the literary marketplace is taken by 6 companies.  I love all of them. They are wonderfully diverse, with many fabulous imprints that provide a great range of books.  But I still find it disturbing that so much of the market is dominated by so few.   I have always tried to maintain a quirky kids corner, I have always purchased from smaller presses, and local self-published authors.  But I renew my commitment there. I promise to make a conscious effort to increase the diversity of my purchasing, as I hope you will increase the diversity of yours.

And I am very proud of myself for keeping my cool in the writing of this post…(I couldn’t yesterday)… we’ll see if I manage it on the next one too.

Here are some links on the whole mess:

My favorite one, Scott Westerfeld

New York Times

Tobias Buckell

Mike Scalzi

The Word Hoarder… which also has a lot of great links to more articles

(And before I get every self-published, small press on my doorstep demanding shelf space… yes, I still follow our discounting guidelines, it has to be good, local always gets priority, and right now it’s February on the Vineyard, which means I ain’t buying much of anything at all, come talk to me in June. Cheers.)

I’m Katherine, and I’m a Bookoholic.

Among my co-workers and bookseller friends, I often see the lamentation that “I just can’t help myself!”  There are many variations, as they bring home a teetering stack of books: “I don’t have time to read these”, “I have nowhere to put these”, “I promised my wife I wouldn’t buy any new ones this week”, but in the end “I just can’t help myself” wins.

When you look at my shelves at home, surrounding my bedroom, all doubled-up rows, with more boxes in the closet, I have THREE copies of the BOOK THIEF. WHY do I need three copies? (Well, of course I need three.  It’s an amazing book. Read it now.)

At any point on my twitter stream, filled with booksellers, you will see at least one tweet to the effect of “I need to clean/do work/be writing/get dressed/leave the house… but I’m reading instead.”

If you read those “Do you have a problem?” pamphlets, they always ask whether you allow your problem to adversely affect your finances.  Even ignoring the dollars spent on the books themselves, you have to look at the fact that we’ve chosen to work at bookstores. We’re a group of highly educated, very intelligent people, and we work at a job where the starting salary is the same as the cashier at the grocery store, and the salary cap is not much higher.  But if you ask us about it, there’s no question.  We could never give up the joy of getting books to the right people, the feeling of being surrounded by them… and yes, there’s the discount.

Bookaholics are the best people to be selling the books because we are expert at identifying those who share our addiction.  I remember one man who came in before a forecasted blizzard. He was in cold sweats because he only had 6 books on his nightstand, and what if he got trapped in the house?  I remember one woman who bought a $100 gift certificate, then used the entire thing herself, because she could tell her husband that the gift certificate was for a client and then she wouldn’t get in trouble.

We can spot these folks from a mile away, and that’s when we become pushers.  Hear a couple buying books for their 6 month old comment on their love of pop-up books?  ”Have you seen this one?”, handing over a gorgeous pop-up that won’t be appropriate for at least 8 years.  See the person wandering through the aisles while you wrap a gift they’ve bought?  Wrap slower.  They will pick something else out before you’re done.  An excited kid asking for the last Harry Potter book?  Yes, grab Harry, but also grab the first Percy Jackson. You know when you finish that, this is the next one you need.  We know just where to prod to get the stack of books a little bit higher.

Now that my circle of bookseller friends has grown exponentially thanks to twitter, I’ve noticed something more.  Yes, we are book addicts, but I think we just have addictive personalities in general.  Listen to the conversations among booksellers, when we stray from booktalk, we are often sharing our other obsessions. For some it is shoes, for some it is doughnuts, for some it is wine (yes, there was a study a couple years back that said the publishing industry had one of the highest drinking rates), but one I see over and over is television shows.

What I’ve seen is not so much that book people sit in front of the TV for endless hours each night… that would interfere with the reading time, but when we find one we love, it seems that the preferred method is not to watch the show each week, but to wait, get the DVDs and then immerse yourself in three days of marathon story-watching, whether it’s Lost, Mad Men, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I think that shared obsession speaks to what it is we are hooked on with the books.  We love the fact that we can drown in our stories.  We look to lose track of time, to get lost, to be transported, to take in the words in gigantic gulps.  Yes, we’re looking for the out-of-body experience.  We just happen to get it in a bit healthier way than from actual drugs.

In these days of articles foretelling the demise of publishing, the people doom-and-glooming that paper books are on the verge of disappearing, you get a lot of comments and responses that amount to “You will pry the paper from my cold dead hands!” “Paper will never die!” “I can’t curl up with a laptop!”  No, they are not always rational, but what do you expect from an addict? Our books are the physical reminder of what our reading does for us.

The smell as you walk into a bookstore is that first whiff of nicotine when you open a new pack of cigarettes. The sound of the rustling pages, the clink of ice in a rocks glass. The sight of a wall of books is the perfectly iced chocolate cake on a platform. The feel of an old favorite book in your hands is the hand of an ex-boyfriend who was never a good idea in the first place.  Each one of these sensations is beloved, but not for itself: for the reminder that you are about to be drowning in the experience you are addicted to.

Yes, I read books on my iphone.  It lets me read books at unexpected odd moments when I might not be able to otherwise: in line at the deli, waiting to meet a friend at a restaurant. Because it makes books convenient, there are more readers than there used to be. That is wonderful, and cannot be ignored. But when given the choice, I will always read the physical book, because I don’t want convenience.  I don’t want 3 minutes grabbed when I can. I want hours of being lost in my book.

Now people are talking about “enhanced ebooks” and “vooks”. How can we improve the reading experience?  Everything I’ve seen so far is additions that serve to remove you from the book… While you are reading, you can click over to a dictionary, or related articles.  In your vook, you will come to video sections that allow you to witness the story (whether the characters look like the ones in your head or not).  There was a recent article (I hate to say I can’t find it now. Apologies) explaining how wonderful and exciting vooks are, it said that while traditional books are made for gulping, vooks are intended for sipping.

That is contrary to everything I want in a book. I want great big giant gulps of words. I want to be lost. I want to forget where I am. The last thing I want is to be taken out of the experience.  And I’d bet money that many of the book addicts (the ones who pay the rent, at our store anyway) feel the same way.

But when they come up with an enhanced ebook that increases one’s immersion in the book? That brings us further into their worlds? That lets us gulp to our heart’s content, while also providing the convenience?  Well, that’s when I’ll start worrying for my job as a paper pusher.

2009 Top Ten

Tis the time to look back over the year, and apparently that means making lists. Last year, I gave you the top ten bestsellers of the year, and I’ll do the same this year.  I made two separate lists for adults and kids, but then made no distinction between fiction, non-fiction, hardcover or paperback.

Adult Books

1. Morning Glory Farm: and the Family That Feeds an Island by Tom                        Dunlop

2. The Big One by David Kinney

3. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows                     and Mary Ann Shafer

6. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

7. A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids by Margot Datz

8. The Help by Kathryn Stockett

9. Raising the Salad Bar by Catherine Walthers

10.  Seen the Glory by John Hough

Children’s Books

1. Good Night Martha’s Vineyard by Megan Weeks Adams

2. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

3. Pinky and Bub’s Stinky Night Out by Frankie Spellman

4. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick                                Riordan

5. Friend or Fiend with the Pain and the Great One by Judy Blume

6. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

7. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

8. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

9. A Clam Named Sam by Lee DeVitt

10.  Diary of a Wimpy Kid 3: The Last Straw

For my bookseller friends off Island, there are a few of these books you’ve probably never even seen, and I can only say, check them out.

Yes, Morning Glory Farm is about a farm on the Island, but the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards named it the the best local cuisine cookbook in the U.S. It’s a beautiful book with amazing photography, great seasonal recipes and thoughts on the importance of eating local, from a family that has been making it possible for over 30 years.

Yes, The Big One is about the fishing derby on the Vineyard, but it’s a great story of the characters that you meet in an obsessive sporting event.  Perfect for a gift for Dad, no matter where you are from.

Yes, Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids is by a local painter, but it’s also the perfect gift among girlfriends, and it’s been on our top ten list 2 years running.

Yes, Seen the Glory features men from the Island as they experience the Civil War, but it also has one of the most harrowing, eye-opening descriptions of the Battle of Gettysburg I’ve ever read.

All these books are dear friends, some are even written by dear friends, and we are happy to play a part in bringing them to you.

I wondered if I’d write a teary-eyed post on how far we’ve come in the space of a year, how great it feels to be back in our Main St home where we belong, how wonderful it’s been to welcome back our friends who missed us.  I thought it would be another one of those posts like the one I wrote when we reopened the big store or opened the temporary location last year, the type of post so full of passion and gratitude and joy that it still makes me cry every time I read it.

But here’s the thing: that’s not where I am anymore.  I’ve marked the milestones and loved every one, but now it’s back to work.  Time to be past “before the fire” “after the fire” and “woe is we”.  We’re selling books, selling a lot of great books and making a difference in our community, both in the economy of our community and the preservation of our local culture. We’re in the midst of a rough patch money-wise.  We’ve been hit just like every other business on-Island. We’re also experiencing the evolution pains of an industry that doesn’t quite know where its future lies.

So here we are, New Englanders to our core. We’ve recovered, we’re here, and we’re going to put our backs into whatever comes next. And we’re lucky enough to do that by reading a bunch of amazing books, and sharing them with people we love.

So we’ll see what this next year brings, and we look forward to giving you your next favorite book soon.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas, book folk!

This is what happens when you trap a book person inside by dumping a blizzard on her…

Apologies for offending your ears…

Merry Christmas!

December 10!

In addition to all the great stuff happening all this month and every Twilight Thursday (see this post) today, December 10th from 5-7, we will have author signings from Tom Dunlop, Alison Shaw and the Athearns for MORNING GLORY FARM; Carol McManus for TABLE TALK; Tina Miller for VINEYARD HARVEST and Shirley Craig for DELISH.  Yes, they will all be bringing goodies from their cookbooks!  And we’ve got the eggnog!  And, since all those count as Vineyard books, they are 20% off on Thursday night!

Also here on Thursday 5-7 will be Jynell Kristal from Jynell Designs (remember that with the purchase of any Jynell designs bag and a book, you receive 2 free Islander Christmas glasses), and Ingrid Goff-Maidoff with her lovely handmade books and paper arts.

And last, a bunch of us booksellers, as well as our owner, will be here…. more than necessary, so that we can chat, get to know you (even more than we already do) and give you all our holiday recommendations.

Come see us!  We’ll be sad if you don’t!

WRITERS’ GROUP

Would you like to have some fun?    Join the Bunch of Grapes Writers’ Group with Cynthia Riggs.    The group meets every Tuesday morning from 10 to 12, upstairs in the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore.   Give writing a try!    Brand new and seasoned writers are welcome.   Lots of laughter is part of the deal.

CONTACT

criggs@vineyard.net

 

For the birds…

We’ve just gotten in a new shipment of our book birdhouses, and if you haven’t seen them, they are fantastic!

All are handmade from books found at library and estate sales.  The roof is the book itself, then images from the pages decorate the walls.  Each house’s perch is chosen to match the book it is made from… The Winnie-the-Pooh house has a honey dipper perch, Green Eggs and Ham gets a fork, etc.

Right now we have in Winnie-the-Pooh, Our New Friends (a Dick and Jane book), Fun and Thought for Little Folk (that’s the one with Santa), History of the US, Book of Wild Birds and Audubon Birds of America.  Green Eggs and Ham, as well as To Kill a Mockingbird from this batch have already been reserved, but if you’d like to get on a waiting list for future shipments, or are interested in any of the other houses, give us a call! (508) 693-2291, then press 1 to speak to a bookseller… free shipping for any birdhouse!  If you’d like close-up photos of any house, or dimensions, just email books@bunchofgrapes.com.

* To answer questions I know are coming… they are not meant to go outside.  These are indoor decorations.  Each handmade birdhouse is $120*

Twilight Thursdays!

No… not like the vampires…

The Tisbury Business Association is hosting Twilight Thursdays this holiday season and tonight is the first!

Businesses in Vineyard Haven are staying open late to help you get your shopping done… here at the Bunch of Grapes, we will be open until 8:00 tonight!

From 3:00-8:00:

• 20% off all Vineyard books!
• Receive a free Bunch of Grapes cloth shopping bag with any purchase over $50!
• Bring your Bunch of Grapes receipt over to Waterside Market, and receive 10% off your purchase there!
• With any purchase, enter a raffle for a gorgeous gift basket… drawing is Friday morning!
• Enjoy our famous egg nog, courtesy of Bunch of Grapes and Vineyard Grocer!

As always this holiday season:

• Receive a ticket to the Tisbury Business Association raffle with any purchase of $25 or more (first prize is $600!  Drawing on December 20)!
• Enjoy free shipping on any purchase over $100 (one box to one U.S. location)!
• Receive 2 free Islander Christmas glasses with your purchase of a Jynell Designs bag and a book!
• Shop local!

BUNCH OF GRAPES BOOK CLUBS

BOOK CLUB

DO YOU WANT TO START A BOOK CLUB OF YOUR OWN?

DO YOU WANT US TO START A BOOK GROUP?

WOULD YOU LIKE A SPECIAL KIND OF BOOK GROUP……CLASSIC FICTION, BIOGRAPHY, MYSTERY?    YOU NAME  IT AND WE CAN TRY IT.

DO YOU NEED HELP WITH BOOK CHOICES?

 

WOULD YOU LIKE TO MEET IN THE BUNCH OF GRAPES?

(EVEN AN ESTABLISHED GROUP COULD DO THIS.)

 

LET US HELP YOU!

Ask Karen or e-mail her at karen@bunchofgrapes.com