Compiled by Shel Horowitz, author, Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers

A panel at the U.S Book Show, May 26, 2021. Organized by Publishers Weekly, this all-virtual event replaced the long-running Book Expo America put on by Reed Expo. Notes by Shel Horowitz, Editor, Down to Business Magazine and award-winning 10-book author.

Nina Barrett, owner, Bookends & Beginnings (Evanston, Illinois)

Danny Caine, owner, Raven Book Store (Lawrence, Kansas)

Bryanne ‘Bry’ Hoeg, manager, Powell's City of Books (Portland, Oregon)

Kwame Spearman, co-owner, Tattered Cover Book Store (Denver, Colorado)

Moderator: Ed Nawotka, Bookselling and International Editor, Publishers Weekly

Kwame: Our big issue is masks. I want to hear how other booksellers are dealing with this.

Bry: We have one area closed to the public that we use for safety for employees. We're slowly increasing the number of people we allow in the store. We are focused now on reopening our used book table, which has been closed the whole time. We also are being really thoughtful if we need to switch back. We've made it through without any major safety issues or COVID cases, so we are requiring masks and enforcing that.

Kwame: in the middle of [an] acquisition, we had to close our flagship store in November. The previous owner got very sick.

Ed Nawotka: I live in Houston. Booksellers have been more [COVID-aware] than many other businesses. Is it going to be like moveable shelves, where we institute our barriers when we need to?

Danny: Children under 12 have been ignored. We want a safe space for everybody, so we're requiring masks. I have a 3-year-old. My guiding principles were to keep everybody on board, and do everything with employee safety in mind.

Kwame: It is a really tough conversation. During the previous administration, we were very clear that we were doing what CDC recommended. But now [they are stricter than new CDC]. The research was showing that the effects on children were not as strong. It's tough to not have events and not have foot traffic at normal levels. It's city-by-city and county-by-county. Our main grocery stores are maskless. We're going to try to make sure our staff is 100% vaccinated, do employee temperature checks. And if someone is with a child who is not vaccinated, they may come to us with e-commerce. We have no guidance on [when kids will be vaccinated]. For all retailers, it will be a ripping-off-the-band-aid moment.

Ed: Publishers are reporting enormous backlist [older book] sales, flipped from 65/35 to 35/65 frontlist [new releases]/backlist. To me, extraordinary backlist sales would favor the larger stores.

Nina: The store is 7 years old. When we opened, there was a big Barnes & Noble. I always wanted to be a backlist store. We're in a college community. I always thought we were not going to be a best-seller store. And so we've always focused on e.g. Penguin Classics, scholarly and quirky presses, to be a fun place. But now people are not having that browsing experience. In lockdown, the B&N packed up and moved out—and now suddenly we're having demand for those flashy frontlist mysteries and best-sellers.

Bry: In the first few weeks, our online was booming, and we were seeing Moby-Dick and Dickens go out the door—things I'd never had the opportunity to hand-sell. We were looking more at what people are buying and they're going toward the classics. We've also struggled to get enough frontlist in quantity to feed the demand. So we might recommend that author's older titles. We're struggling with replenishment. There's a smaller print run, supply chain issues.

Danny: We love smaller publishers, celebrating unsung voices. [You need that browsing experience]. We've doubled down on social media explaining here’s why it's going to take a little longer. It takes re–education to explain why it takes longer [than Amazon Prime]. Online sales were up 2600% from 2019–2020. That will go down again, but not to 2019 levels.

Kwame: We're working with Ingram to do 100% of our ecommerce orders. We want customers to understand the curation aspects, so we can make specific recommendations. The sites are not as friendly to those who are just browsing. We have a really big used section, which allows a different socioeconomic cohort. We've also gone big into curating local authors and bargain books. Those additions are increasing. We're bringing more types of books into our stores. Our inventory was staying high even while [outsourcing e-order fulfillment].

Ed: Nina, tell us about the lawsuit against Amazon.

Nina: My online sales increased last year 2500%. Half our sales. We have this real price dilemma. When you're standing at your front counter explaining that you have to charge the full $30, and Amazon is selling it for $14.99, less than I can buy it wholesale–but look at what we bring to the community. I'm giving a value proposition. But when that business moves online, it's harder for me to make the value argument. And all of these secondary fulfillment–we're making a smaller margin when we use those services. But we're put in that position of apologizing for the price printed on the book by the publisher and trying to explain why Amazon can provide it tomorrow for half price. I don't think it's a position I should be in, because some publisher has calculated that that's the price to make a sustainable book ecosystem.

Danny: It's really hard to make the argument that it's not predatory pricing or a better discount than we get. If we could put our energy into other aspects, like events…

Bry: We put most of our used book inventory on Amazon for a number of years. We're not doing that anymore and we won't do that again. We display Danny's book on how to resist Amazon and why. We're open, we're not making a profit, we can't have in-store events, we have to ask people to use a mask and no, we don't have a bathroom, and our sales are down by half. Kwame talks about the bookstore as a haven for the community. We have houseless people, diverse backgrounds, and we've always welcomed them as a place they could come for the day and don't have to buy anything. Now we have to limit how many people are in the store and can't offer that, can't have customers participate fully in what a bookstore is meant to be. Our online sales and fulfillment were through the roof, but once we got the store opened, there was a sharp drop-off, and we're not making it all up with in-store.

Danny: We keep hearing the book industry is doing well, but why are these people not coming to us?

Kwame: B&N and Amazon created a new generation of independent bookstores. But Amazon is predatory because they can have loss-leaders that are not normal for business. I say to everyone, if you want any independent retail, you have to be vocal. You have to talk to your politicians. We don't want the moon, but the predatory nature has to stop if you want us to survive.

Nina: It's very easy for communities to ignore what's going on behind the scenes. It's like Alice Watters going out and talking for decades about a sustainable food ecosystem, and ultimately reinventing that system. Amazon is like the toxic grower using massive pesticides. Amazon does a great PR job of emphasizing, did that cheap book get to your doorstep fast?

Ed: When it came to Black Lives Matter, Amazon fell flat. It showed the eager audience, and Amazon didn't do much on this. We've seen in the last year, pop-ups becoming permanent bookstores. Houston did not have a black bookstore, and now it's only a pop-up. It's fighting back for social and racial and economic justice.

Kwame: It goes back to the predatory nature. Independents are resilient community institutions. We're going to continue to innovate. And curation has always been one of our strengths–that's what we do. As the light was shined on systemic inequality, and now to put DI [Diversity and Inclusion] front and center–that's why we're so important for the community. The #1 question booksellers have to think through is narratives. We're telling schools that if the only books about blacks are about slavery, that's going to create a narrative. There's a wonderful book on the history of the Negro League, and we don't talk about it. The next level for indie bookstores is to be forces [for those discussions]. We were making statements about Asian-American discrimination before it became in vogue–by providing books and recommending content to understand why we're talking about this today. But we can't do it in the predatory environment.

Ed: Under Joyce Meskis, Tattered Cover had a huge pivotal role in fighting censorship. [What happens when you want to stock right-wing books?]

Bry: It's a meaty topic that impacts every person who works at a bookstore. At Powell's, we do not make the decision for others about what they read. Some of it is educational, some is just abhorrent and we don't believe in it, which is the case with the books that caused the protests outside our store. That showed us that we need to look at our values, educate ourselves. We've been partnering with PEN [PEN America, a long-time literary human rights organization] on educational town halls on hate speech in literature, why censorship is bad, how you get around those issues, and how you react to the public. The protestors' right to freedom of speech is protected. We always come down to, that book is in our store, but it's not going to be featured, not going to be hand-sold. Not a single employee even knew that book was coming out until the protest. It showed us that we needed to make sure we can stand by our value system, and that's what we're working on now.

Kwame. There's no right answer on this one. Tattered got in trouble last year over our response around George Floyd. There are just bright lines you have to think about, in the context of the community in which your bookstore operates. But we do believe in freedom of speech and freedom of protest. We would not want to keep a book off just because it doesn't [align with our own values]. When Pence's book comes out, independent booksellers are going to have to deal with it and it's going to be tough. I appreciate that independent bookstores are all in this together. And that's going to be a conversation the independent bookstore community is going to have to have. It's a hot-rod issue.

Danny: As a 1000 sq ft bookstore with 13,000 books, I'm on a different scale. But I'm not comfortable asking a bookseller to sell something from an author or book that does them harm. I can easily fill the store with books we believe in, whose authors will not do us harm.

Nina: I'm very troubled by the idea that books are dangerous. I grew up with the idea that [I could read what I want], that people might want to read with the focus on “what story is Mike Pence telling about this?” We may not stock it but we will order it for special orders.

Danny: One thing that is dangerous is conflating inventory decisions with freedom of speech. It's a business decision, a curation decision, not a constitutional one.

Kwame: Yet I find it troubling if a store in a conservative market won't stock [Michelle Obama's memoir] Becoming. And meanwhile, conservatives were able to get the books and deconstruct the arguments, while liberals were not (because their bookstores weren't stocking the books).

Ed: What's your most pressing challenge?

Nina: I went online to research a visiting author, and I discovered the PUBLISHER was discounting the book, and people could get it for $7 less than from us. I am very concerned about the trend of publishers dealing with Amazon by doing their own direct-to-consumer sales channel.

Danny: We hear all the time about the value of independent booksellers. But we need help with the Amazon problem, the pricing problem. I'd like to see more partnership on this with publishers–seeing this as an industry, not a bookstore, problem to control Amazon's out-of-control monopoly power.

Bry: We do need the publishers to work with and partner with us. The foundation that has provided the most support is a bookseller foundation, BINC. But it's not enough. It's not supporting the other businesses, the authors. And it's putting the onus on the bookseller to sell it.

Kwame: Give us DI information, so we can put that out. And bring authors. We need them in our stores. Please give us that experience so we can drive sales and traffic.

Ed: The biggest donor is Mackenzie Scott [ex-wife of Amazon funder Jeff Bezos]. Someone should tell her, you should donate some of this money that was gained on the backs of the independent bookstores, who made your ex–husband's business possible.

Shel Horowitz, Editor of Down to Business, has been covering the book industry since 1997. His own latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, shows how to develop and market profitable products and services that foster social change and planetary healing.

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