Responses to book buying ideas

Hi Foxfires,

Love the new blog site. And, not to sound like a wet blanket, but I won't be able to make a similar book purchasing vow, largely because of my job, which involves marketing to Amazon specifically. Indeed I commit all the sins: I buy from Amazon, read on my iPhone, download books from Audible and listen to them, and love the Kindle, though I don't own one yet. I also buy from bookstores and love them, large and small. But because I'm involved in the business of selling books, I need to understand all the outlets.

My own view is that you can argue that not buying from Amazon might help some local bookstores, but it certainly won't help publishers which are largely dependent on Amazon now. Without Amazon many publishers, large and small, would not have survived the past few years. You can also argue that Amazon has helped fuel a reading revolution, which unfortunately also involves the publication of many exceptionally bad books. I think most bookstores are going to survive and thrive only by specializing and catering to their local reading and writing public. Indeed, bookstores still help to define what's hot and what people should read, much more so than big box stores, Costco and Amazon.

Anyway, none of the above is meant to be argumentative. I believe in shopping local as much as we can and whenever it makes sense to do so given all the factors involved including affordability, whether we're buying clothing, shoes, the news, or books.

Cheers!

Sara


On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 11:18 AM, sophie jensen <jensen.sophie@gmail.com> wrote:
a fine resolution! alibris is good for old books because their sources are usually indie stores.
both google and yahoo give you the option of marking a sender as spam, which is a good way of never seeing another msg from old foxfire.
publishing cutbacks have a potential silver lining: they might stop publishing all those barely rewritten versions of self-help books. hoping
new blog looks great!
sophie

I like the idea in theory but think buying locally is complicated. I am hoping that Obama and folk will figure out much of this for us. I can't always buy locally. I buy at half.com and will continue to because that is green purchasing and reusing. I can't afford to buy all my food locally just like I can't afford to buy all my books locally. Either can my students, and I want them to care about reading and find ways to do it. I can't afford to buy all organic. It is not always as easy as I would like to make what seems the right choice. Sigh.

Miriam

Thank you, Susan. I'm one of those people who only buy online as a last resort. If we want to keep our local businesses in business we need to patronize them, and besides that tax money that we hate to pay is needed to keep things working here in California. If we can be locavores about food we can be locashoppers too. In an Orwellian way, we could be reduced to shopping for things on line if our local businesses fail. I like the smell of books and tactile pleasures of picking them up and handling them. Plus as Sara has informed me, shopping on line (and even Googling) is horribly energy wasteful. Who knew? We will have to ask Sara at book club to explain why buying on Amazon is probably more energy wasteful than driving downtown. Love to all. I just got back from LA and am a bit pooped so I may not make that movie tomorrow. Much love,

Robin