Tag: Book Shopping

Perusing the shelves

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

I’ll be honest, I really needed to rethink my book buying habits, so I did. Just not in the way you’d expect.

I’d been a subscriber to the magazine Publishers Weekly for a good number of years, mainly because I got to read all the news and reviews about the writing field, and during those years I would make note of many of the books that got reviewed and add them to my shopping list. In fact, I ended up obsessively working on that shopping list just like I’ve always done with music releases.

Thing is, there were a few problems with going this route. One, I had to wade through a lot of reviews of dramatic “heartbreaking” litfic that I had zero interest in. Two, these reviews were for books that would not come out for another couple of months, so whenever we made a bookstore run, I’d often get frustrated because everything I wanted to look for was not yet out. Three, eventually I began losing interest in the magazine and going through the same process with every issue. I’d fall behind, sometimes six or seven issues behind, and I finally made the decision to let it lapse earlier this year. Four — and most problematic — I realized that about half of the reviewed titles I thought might be interesting were not resonating with me at all once I read a page or two at the store. It was too much of a long game crapshoot and I was losing interest.

And as a writer, that’s really not something I want to let happen.

So. Did I have any new process for finding books worth reading?

Yes! And it was deceptively simple. It meant doing it old school: perusing the shelves, picking up titles that caught my attention, and perhaps buying them if not making a note of their release for later purchase (or alternately, borrowing via the Hoopla library app on my e-reader). I reminded myself of those pre- and passive internet Belfry years when I would spend hours at Barnes & Noble or Toadstool back in New England, just trying things out. I found so many of my writing influences that way, and not via a professional trade.

And let me tell you, it felt so…refreshing. The other week when we stopped at Copperfields in Petaluma, I truly enjoyed scanning through their science fiction section, truly paying attention to what they had and what popped out at me. Seeing the trending styles and paying attention to what resonated with me. I did it again this past Sunday when we stopped at Books Inc on Van Ness when we were out and about, and I’m sure I’ll do it again the next time we step into Green Apple Books in our own neighborhood.

I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to walk into a store and not immediately refer to the shopping list on my phone (which, by the way, I’ve been threatening to thin out for the last couple of weeks). That’s not to say I don’t mind heading into a book store knowing exactly what I want to buy, it’s just that I think it’s time I started relying a bit more on chance and fate when it comes to finding something new to read. I need to find more books that will influence and inspire me, because I’ve been obsessing with the same styles for far too long.

Won’t you be my dictionary, won’t you translate fun

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

I am absurdly gleeful that I finally bought the twelfth edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary! I picked this one up at the Barnes & Noble in Corte Madera, just over the Golden Gate Bridge, on our way back from a visit to Petaluma. The last edition I owned was the tenth, which I bought back in 2003 at that bookstore in Harvard Square that I used to frequent. [This was the one at 30 Brattle Street across from the small plaza, just around the corner from Million Year Picnic. It’s a stationery store now.]

I often think about that store, even though it’s been gone for years now. I found a lot of really great stuff to read there. It was part of my weekend jaunt into Boston and Cambridge in the summer, hanging out near the Pit, people-watching and listening to the street musicians, hitting Newbury Comics and Million Year Picnic and HMV and that store before taking the Red Line back up to Alewife Station where my car was parked. This was back when you could park there all day for a super small fee. It was the perfect place to keep your car during Boston day trips like these.

I’d take these trips every now and again in the mid-90s after moving back home, often on Saturdays when I wasn’t working at the record store, but they became more frequent during the early 00s, at least once or twice a month. This was during the peak Belfry Years when I was writing the trilogy, which meant that those bookstore visits were a mix of revisiting my recent past with a lighter heart, looking for inspiration in the science fiction section, and wanting to learn more from writing reference books. Two reasons I remember buying that book there: a) the price sticker had the store name on it, and b) I bought it in early 2003, and on that day the store was playing Beck’s Sea Change album, which I’d been obsessed with even then. I distinctly remember having it hand while browsing, a customer a few aisles away quietly singing along to ‘Lost Cause’. I’ll think about that store every time I listen to that record.

That dictionary got one hell of a workout over the next several years. Cracked spine, worn edges, dented cover, slight water damage and all. When I heard the latest edition was in fact out late last year, I finally retired the old one. It’s somewhere in the garage with the rest of my writing stuff, having kept it down there when we moved house last year. [This is why I don’t remember the store name off the top of my head. Perhaps if I dig it out at some point I’ll edit this entry.]

And now I have a new one, not yet used, shrink wrap just taken off, already placed on my black bookshelf next to my copy of Kipfer’s Flip Dictionary, ready to go at a moment’s notice. Sure, I could use MW’s website — which I do every now and again if I need a quick confirmation that I’m using a word correctly — but sometimes it’s fun just to pull out this big book and do some old-school referencing without any pesky pop-ups or online distractions.

State of Independents

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

green-apple-books
Our local indie bookstore in the Richmond

This past Saturday was Independent Bookstore Day, and so of course we made our way over to our local indie bookstore, Green Apple Books, to spend some time and a bit more money than normal.  Sure, we go there at least once a month anyway, but it’s always fun to join in the celebration.  [And to be honest, I’ve kind of given up on Record Store Day, which was a few weeks previous, as it’s become more a Come Buy Our Overpriced RSD Collectibles Day for me, but I digress.]

A and I will always find a reason to head there to browse the shelves.  They have a stellar collection of all kinds of new and used titles, and if they don’t have it, they’re more than happy to order it for you.  A lot of the music bios I’ve read over the last six or seven years have come from that store, in fact, as has most of A’s history books.  And as I’ve mentioned before, they sell e-books on their website via Kobo, as well as ordering self-published books through CreateSpace…which means this store carries my trilogy!

Which brings me to a conversation A and I had earlier today when we were out for a walk around the neighborhood.  One of our internet friends had tweeted her concern about the state of e-books, having read an article somewhere online about how Kids These Days are leaning towards Good Old Fashioned Paper Books or something of the sort, and I replied saying that e-books really weren’t dying a horrible death at all.  It was just stabilizing.  Having followed Publishers Weekly on this very subject for a good couple of years now, I think I can say that with conviction.

We got to talking about how, just like the music business, the excitement and shininess of having a new platform in which to enjoy something has leveled off.  Just like CDs, just like mp3s, e-books have matured as they’ve become more prevalent.  Sidetracking ideas and not-quite-successful failsafes (like DRM) have slowly faded into the background.  You don’t need to buy a Nook when you can download an app (and on your tablet, PC, or phone at that) instead.  And for every person who swears by physical books and loves them like children, there’s another person who swears by e-books because they save a hell of a lot of space.  [And like music: I used to be a physical-copy purist and my collection took up a sizeable chunk of a room in my parents’ basement, but it’s now 99% digital and takes all of one external drive the size of an index card.]

This is partly why I don’t take sales too seriously.  Sales teams are there to push the latest toy into your hands…as well as push the latest version of the toy you already have.  They’re there to say This Version Is Better.

Which is all well and good, when the thing your selling is constantly evolving.  Back in the 90s, with computers getting smaller and stronger, CDs being more durable and travelworthy, and so on, Sales had their work cut out for them.

Nowadays, I think the reading public is at a point where they’re just as happy reading a book as they are reading something on their tablet.  The product excitement wore off some time ago; they just want to enjoy the actual text at this point.  Which means that if you look at the sales graphs just for e-books alone, they’ve sort of leveled off, maybe gone down a bit.  But if you take book sales as a whole — books, e-books, audiobooks, and everything in between — it’s still a pretty stable and vibrant business.  It might not be skyrocketing the way Sales wants it to, but it’s moving at a damn healthy walking pace.

When we lost Borders Books & Music a few years back, and now that we’ve also lost a number of Barnes & Noble storefronts, there’s a justified worry that there’s no available bookstores in a lot of towns and cities.  Some of them had gotten run out of town by those two chains, others had simply given up.  Or didn’t bother.

But I’m starting to see a return to that, really.  The ‘big box’ stores are indeed becoming a thing of the past, for multiple reasons:  internet shopping, unrealistic sales forecasts, and even a small resurgence of small stores.  Some companies aren’t quite sure how to handle that, but others are finding new ways to make it work; some are even flourishing.  The Bay Area is blessed to have a high number of independent book stores and small local chains (such as Copperfield’s and Books Inc), so this area is more of an exception than the norm, but I’ve heard tell — again, via Publishers Weekly — that that’s slowly turning around.

Viva independents! 🙂