James Patterson tries to save bookstores

At left: The Open Book, the first place I ever worked here in South Carolina, closed its doors permanently four years ago.










Mega-successful author James Patterson is on a mission to save the beleaguered, independent bookstore. Good luck, James!

As I have written here before, I looove bookstores. And so many bookstores are closing; Amazon and e-books and the net have threatened the book industry. (In fact, my photo in that last link, Carolina Book Rack? Like the Open Book, it is now long gone.)

Patterson is giving away $1 million to bookstores, in what he calls a "bookstore bailout":

The best-selling author James Patterson has started a program to give away $1 million of his personal fortune to dozens of bookstores, allowing them to invest in improvements, dole out bonuses to employees and expand literacy outreach programs.

More than 50 stores across the country will begin receiving cash grants this week, from Percy’s Burrow in Topsham, Me., to Page & Palette in Fairhope, Ala., to A Whale of a Tale in Irvine, Calif.

“I just want to get people more aware and involved in what’s going on here, which is that, with the advent of e-books, we either have a great opportunity or a great problem,” he said. “Our bookstores in America are at risk. Publishing and publishers as we’ve known them are at stake. To some extent the future of American literature is at stake.”

The current health of independent bookstores is mixed. While some have benefited from the disappearance of the Borders chain in 2011 and a shrinking Barnes & Noble, the stores have been hit especially hard with consumers switching from paper copies to e-books.

And though many communities remain loyal to their shops, and the American Booksellers Association says its membership has recently grown, the online discounters have wreaked havoc on the independent bookseller’s business model.

Patterson began complaining last year, that the book industry needed a bailout from the feds, just like Wall Street got a bailout. Not surprisingly, nobody paid any attention, so he took matters into his own hands:

Last year, Mr. Patterson placed full-page ads in The New York Times Book Review and Publishers Weekly arguing that the federal government’s financial support of troubled industries like Wall Street and the automobile sector should extend to the bookstore business. Since that appears to be a pipe dream, Mr. Patterson decided to create his own bailout fund as part of his mission to promote literature, especially for children.

“I’m rich; I don’t need to sell more books,” Mr. Patterson said. “But I do think it’s essential for kids to read more broadly. And people just need to go into bookstores more. It’s not top of mind as much as it used to be.”

He began his project last year by getting the word to store owners that he was willing to begin writing them checks, which will range from $2,000 to $15,000, according to a spokeswoman for Mr. Patterson.

Bookstores responded with informal mini-proposals, explaining what they might do with some extra money. Bank Street Bookstore in Manhattan said it would use the funds to post and stream online video of in-store events. Hicklebee’s in San Jose, Calif., said it wanted to buy a new computer system, replacing its “small, ancient screens with green print” and perhaps bestow a bonus on its hardworking manager, Ann Seaton.

“I think it’s going to have a huge impact,” said Linda Marie Barrett, the general manager of Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in Asheville, N.C., which successfully applied for a grant to replace badly worn carpeting and a damaged parquet floor. “He seems to be keenly aware that bookstores operate on small budgets.”

And I love seeing the name of MALAPROPS, one of my favorite places in the world, in the New York Times. I am SO PLEASED they are getting some of the bailout money... and believe me, their carpet sorely needs replacing!

I am wishing all the best to James Patterson and the bookstores... and wouldn't it be nice if other rich people took this kind of initiative, to help others in their field? Millionaire musicians should be helping music stores; millionaire athletes ought to be helping small-town teams; millionaire chefs should be teaching young folks to cook, etc etc etc. Let's see some civic responsibility, rich peeps!

As it is, it makes international news whenever Bill and Melinda Gates or James Patterson or Bruce Springsteen or Dolly Parton or Oprah or someone like that, spends money altruistically and helps regular people.

That should be the norm, not the exception.

The History Project, part 2

My original intention was to put the lady-stuff here on International Women's Day... and I guess you see how that turned out. Hey, better late than never!

And so, I am finally getting around to posting Part Two of the History Project. Intro to the DEAD AIR History Project (and first installment) is here. (You can click all photos to enlarge.)

~*~

Anarcha-Feminist Notes, September 1977, which I believe was published in Madison, Wisconsin.



San Francisco Women's Building Newsletter, March 1981.



From Berkeley 1981, movie poster for "El Salvador: The People Will Win".



Ancient black-and-white photos of my hometown (Columbus, OH) Take Back the Night march, one of those antiquated Second Wave feminist things almost completely lost to posterity. (1983)



Bookmark from Fan the Flames feminist bookstore in Columbus, OH. Since they began in 1974 and this bookmark is celebrating 10 years, it must be from 1984. From Outlook Columbus:

Began in 1974 by six women who each contributed $100 to a book collective, the shop evolved and moved many times over the next 22-and-some years. Fan the Flames grew from the United Christian Center, to the Women’s Action Collective, to the YWCA, and finally to their own space in Clintonville [and the store was then renamed Women's Words]. It may have been the final move that killed them. Moving away from their diverse audience downtown, and adding on to that the burden of renting their own space, proved too much and the advisory board decided to close shop.

The Women's Action Collective was in its own building for awhile, something I can't even imagine now.



Purty Pittsburgh Smoke-In poster, which I framed for my spare room. (1977)



"Freeze It! A citizen's guide to reversing the nuclear arms race"--San Jose, 1983.




Stay tuned for the next installment, sports fans! And I promise it won't be another half-year this time.

HeroesCon 2011

Heroes Convention at the Charlotte Convention Center this weekend, razzle-dazzle for fantasy fans of all ages. This was my second HeroesCon and it was loads of magical fun. I managed to satisfy a lifelong ambition by locating (and happily purchasing) a Speed Racer T-shirt! (I guess you're all pretty jealous now, huh?)

Photos below.

First up--WIMMINZ COMIX, yeah! We proudly practice Affirmative Action here at DEAD AIR, and hereby give space to the Women of HeroesCon, exhorting them to KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK in that veritable sea of testosterone that is the modern comics industry. YOU GO GIRLS! It was wonderful to talk with all of you.

1) Laura Martin, a comics-veteran (experienced enough to have her own Wikipedia page), she has worked for both DC and Marvel.

2) Cat Staggs

3) Rachelle Rosenberg

4) Sara Richard

5) Rhiannon Owens

6) Amy Mebberson draws adorable Disney characters.

7) Gina Kirlew is affiliated with BLAM!--Atlanta Female Comic Book Creators' Group.

8) Elaine Corvidae, author of Riven Sol. We talked about the need for older women in comics (as creators AND characters), and she proudly showed me her newest 47-year-old heroine. SPECIAL MENTION! :)

9) I briefly panicked that I didn't know who this was... I sifted through the mountain of colorful, illustrated business cards I brought home with me and lo and behold... there she was! Laura Truxillo has business cards with her likeness drawn thereon, looking exactly like the photo below, even including the hat... in fact, her blog is subtitled "the girl with the hat." Quite Truxillogical, indeed.

10) Sarah 'Pickles' Dill

11) Danielle Soloud

12) I am 99% sure this is Brittany Michel, one of the Snow by Night team, who gave me a very nice button with "Snow by Night" on it, for my infamous con hat. I know I wrote her name down somewhere! (sigh)

13) Bridgit Scheide

14) and 15) The enormous Stylin Online enclave, where a multitude of t-shirts representing every possible permutation of pop-culture is well-represented... this is where I got my Speed Racer t-shirt (as well as my much-admired Reservoir Dogs shirt from years gone by).

16) Old movie poster; there were about two zillion on display.

17) He insists on attending every single con, even though he is SO unfriendly he barely says a word to anyone. And so BOSSY!

18) through 28) Fans having fun.

29) John Bintz, creator of Dawn's Dictionary Drama... who was sweet enough to visit DEAR AIR last year and therefore earned himself a special citation. HI JOHN!

30) A CRY-BABY t-shirt I woulda bought if I was still a teenager; subtitled GOOD GIRLS WANT HIM BAD, BAD GIRLS WANT HIM WORSE!

Ah, ain't it the truth.

31) I gotta genuine nerdy thrill from recognizing these two medical professionals! I've even mentioned them on DEAD AIR before (comments in thread here)... they are from the old Twilight Zone episode, The Eye of the Beholder.

32) A shout-out for local store Planet Comics from Anderson, SC.

33) Fellas busy working on the Comic Geek Speak podcast.

34) Yes, there is always SOMEONE upset about the con. The guy with this sign solemnly picketed outside the Charlotte Convention Center whilst accompanied by a very well-behaved dalmation wearing a little red firefighter hat that said, "Fire Dept"--get it? (Hellfire, Fire Dept? Cute, huh?)

Admit you are impressed that Catholics get listed on the sign in THREE DIFFERENT CATEGORIES. Just so you know!

I admit, I miss the rapture signs from our last con experience...


And now, beaming up. Hope your weekend was as good!

~*~

The Closing of The Open Book

It is with a heavy heart that I report on the loss of The Open Book, the first place I ever worked here in South Carolina. It's the oldest independent bookstore in the area, and ever since the arrival of Barnes and Noble, its days have been numbered.

I am always amazed when the heavily-Republican upstate prefers big business retailers over small businesses, all while bleating the patriotic, pro-capitalist mantra small business is the future of America. Somehow, that never actually translates into trying to SAVE those small businesses by, you know, patronizing them to keep them from going out of business.

At least once a day I hear the phrase, "I can get that cheaper at Walmart." (I fight back the urge to reply, well yeah, if you wanna burn in hell for all eternity!) But it is telling that I can first remember hearing "I can get that cheaper at Walmart," while working at the Open Book. The volume in question was of course some mega-billion-seller by Stephen King or Danielle Steele. We thought, well, they still have to come to us for the offbeat and hard-to-obtain stuff.

That was in 1989, and well before the internet. As you know, that is no longer true.

And unfortunately, you can still get it cheaper at the Walmart.

Greenville's Open Book closing its doors
Customers say a community will vanish with independent retailer
By Jeanne Brooks • Staff writer, Greenville News
January 25, 2010

A card with the news went out to about 1,000 of the store’s best customers over the past year. After four decades in business in Greenville, The Open Book is closing.

Park McKnight, a customer in the store Saturday, said once the doors shut for good, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

The independent bookstore first opened in August 1971, in what was then the Bell Tower Shopping Center, now County Square, long before the era of large national chain bookstores, big box retailers selling books at deeply discounted prices, or online book sales.

Tom Gower at age 48 left a successful corporate job to become a bookstore owner. He went on to make the Gower name “synonymous with local bookselling,” as a Greenville Piedmont story put it in 1987.

The Open Book has remained a locally owned family business to this day. At one point, there were three stores in Greenville and a branch in Clemson. Earlier, for a couple or so years, there was also a branch in Anderson.

Gower’s wife, Elizabeth, and three of their four children — Margaret, Tommy and Grier — worked in the stores alongside their parents. One son, Roger, became a doctor instead.

In 1978, the family opened an Open Book in what was then McAlister Mall, now University Center. Managing it fell to Margaret. She hired Duff Bruce to help, and the two married in 1984.

Through the decades, the bookstore attracted and kept devoted customers like Anne Howson and her husband, Art.

“We have relied on Duff for at least 25 years to make recommendations” about what to read, Howson said Saturday.

Every Christmas, Howson’s husband would call for suggestions for the five or six books he always gives his wife. When he came to the store later, Bruce would have a list ready.

Howson said she was sad to learn the bookstore is closing, “but not at all surprised. I know what a struggle this has been (to keep it going). It’s been a labor of love for them.”

For her, “It’s more than just a business closing its doors.” A sense of community will be lost. The Open Book hasn’t been the kind of place to hurry in and out of. “You walk around,” she said, browse the shelves, and talk books and ideas with the owners and staff.

The Open Book’s various stores were consolidated in 1993 into a single bookstore with a café, which the Bruces now own, in a 12,000-square-foot building at 110 S. Pleasantburg Drive.

Books-A-Million, on Laurens Road, “was already here,” Bruce recalled. “And we knew Barnes & Noble was looking.”

Barnes & Noble opened a 29,000-square-foot store on Haywood Road the following year.

But The Open Book held its own for a while. For one thing, “Greenville was growing at the time,” Margaret Bruce said. She has since come to think, “We probably weren’t getting the new people on the Eastside.”

The year the Open Book consolidated, in 1993, there were about 4,700 independent bookstores in the United States, according to the American Booksellers Association, The New York Times reported. By 2007, there were about 2,500.

The plight of the independents was portrayed in the 1998 film, “You’ve Got Mail.”

The independent bookstore The Happy Bookseller in Columbia, founded in 1974, closed in 2008.

But the Bruces said a combination of factors beyond large chain bookstores, some of which are also feeling pressure, have made it tough for independents. For example, some big-box retailers and online booksellers discount books to below cost, Bruce said.

The Bruces started thinking about what to do two years ago. “We both look at the sales every day,” he said.

They considered different options like going smaller. “But we were just tired,” Margaret Bruce said. “We’ve been doing this a long time.” They decided last summer to stay open through Christmas, then close.

They expect to lock the doors for the final time in about a month. There will be much they miss. They will miss the customers, many of whom have become good friends, they said.

And for Bruce, “There’s really nothing quite like handing somebody a book that you think they might like.”

His wife, who has worked in one or another of The Open Book stores most of her life, starting when she was 15, has always enjoyed looking at what sold the day before and reordering.

Once retired, they both intend to read more. Margaret Bruce also wants to do volunteer work.

Also “Margaret has never been to Europe,” Bruce said. “I haven’t been in 30 years.” So maybe they’ll go.

One thing for sure, “We won’t miss worrying about selling enough books,” she said.

At left: From the children's book department, The Cow Jumps over the Moon.

When the store closes, the book clubs, writers groups and nonprofit boards that meet in The Open Book’s back room will have to find another place.

Some schools will have to seek another advertiser for their yearbooks and another donor. A small pool of local businesses, such as office suppliers, will be in need another client.

And local starting-out authors, as Nicholas Sparks was at one time, will have to look for another spot willing to host a signing for someone not yet widely known.

Howson, a librarian as well as a longtime customer, said, “It goes beyond economics. It makes me sad to think that to save a few dollars we give up so much more.”

The Bruces worked on the language of the card they sent out. Margaret Bruce wanted to make sure it didn’t sound “too weepy.” At the end they put, “We will miss you all and hope you continue to shop local. It matters!”

My deepest and most heartfelt novenas go out to everyone at the Open Book, past and present... it always hurts when a dream dies.

*all photos from my Flickr account.