As you might know, I’m originally from Portland, Oregon. I know things are hard all over for indie bookstores, but this notice in Publishers Marketplace distressed me enough to bring it to your attention.
Portland, OR-area bookseller Stephanie Griffin closed her store Twenty-third Avenue Books in January and then became homeless. “Startled neighbors discovered this in June” as “Griffin had started panhandling outside her old store,” Willamette Week writes. Neighbors have set up a relief fund:
Donations can be made to Stephanie Griffin Fund, c/o Glenda Magistrale, Consolidated Federal Credit Union, 2021 NE Sandy Blvd., Portland, OR 97232.
I am grateful for a lot of things Amazon does…it makes finding out about books very easy. It sells a lot of books, which is good for authors and publishers. It provides a place for reviews which probably helps sell books too. But I think that if a book is available at an indie then I will ignore the deep discounts and free shipping and just suck up the extra cost (I did this recently, ordering from Powells, and the cost was considerable). I’m not saying I’ll never buy another book from Amazon, but I am saying that after reading this, I will consider all my options even more carefully than I usually do. If we writers don’t support the indie bookstores, how can we ask them to support us?
This story breaks my heart but it needs to be known. My wife Joelle knows very well that I’m no fan of Amazon. As an indie musician, I have had my CDs listed on their site. For every one shipped, they made more money on the sale than I did. Just so ya know. I suspect the same is true for books. I’m not much of a “consumer” anyway but what little I do buy, I buy from mom and pops. My way of thinking is better to buy fewer things from an indie than more things for the same money from a corporation. It’s the only way to take back our economy. End of rant.