Probable heresy

[oyceter]

fannishly and I wandered over to Kepler's this weekend, in part to provide both moral and financial support (if you can count my measly $10 as financial support). As you know, Armadillo Bob-san, Kepler's is an independent bookstore in the area that abruptly closed last month and was saved thanks to a grassroots effort. It's now reopened.

I wasn't a frequent patron. I am, however, a frequent patron of Amazon and Borders (there are two of them which are closer than Kepler's). There's another indie bookstore down the street here that I do go to fairly often, and I am a very frequent patron of the local used bookstore(s).

Right around the back of the store was a giant area for posters and flyers, all very cool (I like browsing posters and flyers, never know what you might find), and there was one for California Independent Bookstores. I'm not actually sure if it should be all capitalized or what, but anyhow, they had a column of statistics comparing California indie bookstores with Amazon -- author signings, events, donations to charity, tax dollars -- all of which were supposed to convince me to patronize indie bookstores.

I felt a twinge of guilt. Despite having worked in an indie bookstore and generally wanting to support indie bookstores, I actually very rarely patronize any that aren't either a) used or b) two blocks away. I make my occasional trip to the Really Cool Sci-Fi/Fantasy Bookstore with the Hairless Cat (aka Borderlands) in San Francisco, but that's about it.

So herein is my bit of grumpiness about feeling guilty. I like Borders. I like having giant rows and rows of books. I like having a ginormous selection.

But even more than Border, there is Amazon. I like Amazon. I like Amazon a lot. Amazon remembers my Wishlist and ships me things and gives me random recommendations, most of which don't make sense. I can use Amazon for research. Also -- and this is the most important bit -- Amazon stocks almost any book in print that I want. It can be something that maybe .05% of the population will ever buy, but gorram it, it will be there, and I can get my grubby little hands on it, and no one at the register will look at me funny for buying a romance, YA, manga and the latest McKillip at the same time.

I know that one of the benefits of indie bookstores is supposed to be a greater sense of intimacy and whatnot, but a lot of the general indie bookstores I've been to rarely have that sense. I highly appreciate the fact that most of the general indie bookstores I've been to around here try to give employee recs, but I've never really come away from a general indie bookstore with the sense that I've discovered something that I otherwise would have overlooked. The sci-fi/fantasy section recs tend to be for Robert Jordan and Ender's Game, Ray Bradbury and Ursula K. LeGuin, authors and books that I've read of or heard of or both by the time I graduated from high school.

Plus, I always feel like a bit of an intruder. I'm very sure that a large part of this is because I try very hard to avoid eye contact and not talk to anyone, but another part is that I don't feel like I belong there. I get an immediate sense of warm fuzziness when I go to my (many) local yarn stores, even though no one there knows me personally, and when I go to the farmer's market, but not so much at the general indie bookstore. There is, of course, the warm fuzzy surrounded by books vibe, which is always present, but I feel it should be supplemented by an additional vibe or something...

What generally makes me feel disgruntled is that because general indie bookstores can't stock half as much as a Borders or an Amazon (which is understandable), they stint on genres that I like to read. Usually the selection of sci-fi/fantasy, romance, comics and manga, and other "unserious" reads get short shrift. I realize I am generalizing horribly, but it really gets to me. Especially the lack of romances. Most general indie bookstores that I've ventured into have miniscule romance sections, despite romance being a very high-selling genre.

Plus, when I do get to my little genre sections, I find that they have very few authors that I like. The romance sections invariably have the big names -- Nora Roberts, Amanda Quick/Jayne Ann Krentz, etc -- and almost never have the romance authors that I want to read. Ditto with the sci-fi/fantasy section. Usually it's a little better there, but still, there isn't much depth. The manga/comics section will have the big, serious authors like Gaiman and Moore and Miller, with Tezuka Osamu and some Akira thrown in, but no shoujo. And the crafts section is teeny.

I don't read what the people who run the stores seem to be promoting, my sections are being slighted, how am I supposed to feel like a part of the store?

And I hate that when I walk in there, I feel faintly marginalized. I like romances. I like shoujo manga. I like fantasy and sci-fi that's not necessarily "hard sci-fi" or "dark fantasy." I knit.

I dislike the fact that I get the feeling that anything too "fuzzy" is looked down upon. I'm quite sure the people running these bookstores don't feel like they are doing this (and kudos to them for running the bookstores; just because I feel out of place doesn't mean everyone does); I am quite sure that they promote general fiction written by women and women's studies and the like. But there on the outskirts, in the wild jungle that is genre, I tend to feel that it's still the conventionally masculine that is prized and upheld as art, while anything too cute or crafty or romantic continues to be sneered at. (insert general disclaimer here about fluffy not having to be feminine and vice versa and that I use the terms "masculine" and "feminine" in the stereotypical sense for the purpose of discourse and that usage does not indicate agreement)

I would like to say that this is only the impression that I tend to get from general indie bookstores (my old used bookstore included). The specialty bookstores that I go to (aka, my happy sci-fi/fantasy bookstore and my happy romance bookstore) I adore wholeheartedly and try to support as much as possible. The used bookstore that I used to work at used to not sell romances at all, despite a very large demand for them, and when I was buying, I'd often hear sneers about chick lit and romance. Luckily, the demand for such things has increased the selection so that I can find a good deal of things there. But I hate that attitude.

Anyway, I am done confessing. That's why I don't buy very much from Kepler's or Books Inc. I don't deliberately avoid them and I do actually try to buy things there when I can, but too often, they just never have what I'm looking for.

Comments

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've *ever* been in an indie bookstore with more than one or two manga titles. -_- I don't know how it is everywhere else, but in this neck of the world it seems as if the smaller stores have become less interesting as well as dwindling in number since the big chains started coming in. It's a very bad combination. ;_;

. . . but the real reason to shop at Amazon (IMO), is that it's been known to say "customers who wear clothes also bought _______". (And I so wish I'd gotten a screencap of it. ^^)

Ysabet

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I compromise and buy stuff from independent booksellers on Amazon Marketplace. You can pretty much find whatever you're looking for there at a fraction of the price and will still be supporting Mom and Pop Indie in whatever city they hang their shingle.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. I'm lucky enough to have the University Bookstore, a.k.a. Why Seattle Has No Specialty SF Bookstore, nearby, but I have found other indies to be short on the kinds of things I normally read. If I have money to spare for things I might not like, they're great, because the clerks are always happy to recommend stuff, but that much extra money doesn't come along often.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. Generally, I like to support local businesses, but it's almost impossible to buy manga at indies because I have yet to find a single one with a decent selection. There is one indie comic store that I do my best to patronize, because it really is good and the employees will order stuff and make sensible recommendations, but it's in Santa Barbara. The ones in LA are mostly run by variants of The Comic Guy, the one who hates and/or fears girls.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

So far as I've heard, Amazon and Borders treat their employees pretty decently, as large corporations go. Just being local doesn't make someone more moral any more than it makes them serve your needs well.

I'm torn. I want to buy things on Amazon to help people's ranking. I want to buy things at our local SF specialty stores because I really want them to continue to be in business. And I want to buy things at our local large chain stores so that they don't have a reason to say, "Oh, nobody buys those anyway" and shrink the sections, so that a kid who has never heard of Uncle Hugo's and Dreamhaven can still have some selection in their SF.

Luckily, I buy a lot of books.

Well, maybe that's not luck, strictly speaking.

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

I've had the same (sad) experience with the indie bookstores I've visited. It seems that if it's genre, they aren't interested--and worse, they don't bother to find someone who is educated in the genres to order stuff that's worth having, the cutting edge and small press works that you're less likely to find at Borders.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I live near a bunch of the best independent bookstores in the country, and I never fail to be disappointed by their genre sections. In fact, the one closest to my house doesn't even have a romance section.

Which is all to say--I'm more than willing to patronize independent stores, but if they're not trying to stock what I read, there's only so far I'll go. This also happens to me when I'm trying to buy manga. I would go to the local comic book store, but the B&N across the street invariably has a better selection of the series that I read.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I love Amazon's recommendations. They tend to say "I noticed you've bought Blade of the Immortal volume 8! Could I interest you in volumes 1-7?"

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I don't think I ever get recommendations that sensible from them--I get things like, "as someone who purchased [random vaguely action-oriented anime movie], would you be interested in [even more random Hollywood action movie]?" But then, I usually shop with Amazon.ca, and they seem to be much less organized that the .com side . . . maybe their systems are just ALL run by gerbils.

And this is totally random, but I recently read your posts about visual flow in Furuba, and they were really interesting. ^_^

[oyceter]

I really enjoy specialty indie bookstores and general used bookstores, because the stuff you find there can be so different from the things you normally find, but general indie bookstores seem to stock less of the things I read, so... I don't tend to wander over too often.

[oyceter]

Yeah... though I tend to like browsing used bookstores in person. It's the general indie bookstores for new books that I tend to not find stuff for.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I think if I read more non-genre I would like indie bookstores much more, but they do tend to be short on the things I usually read. Alas.

But the specialty indie stores and used bookstores are awesome!

[oyceter]

Oooo, I hate Comic Guy indie comic stores. We've got a pretty nice one around here (wanna go? We can go on a local bookstore tour... heh), but I still tend to feel a wee bit overwhelmed at times. Also, while the store itself is very nice and the owners are very nice, every time I go, there seems to be a congregation of Comic Guys by the register. I always seem to be the only Asian and the only girl, and it is very odd.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I avoid actual bookstores anymore. I rarely can escape them without seriously gouging my wallet, which just isn't an option at the moment.

; )

[literaticat.livejournal.com]

I work at Books Inc. in the city. I have worked really hard to make sure that my kids, teen, SF & manga sections are varied. Yes, they are small sections (well, kids is huge, but the others are by comparison tiny) but I try to have a wide range of books, including lots of shouju, and including unusual things that people request, in stock at all times. We have a tiny mass market romance section because people don't EVER buy the ones we have - we have a lot of 'chick lit' trade romance. I guarantee you that if people started requesting titles or authors, we would get them in promptly. I have no bias against romance, but the mass market ones just sit there.

As much as I wish we could carry everything, we only have room to consistently carry what sells. BUT we will give anything a chance to sell. My suggestion is that you order or request things that you want from the bookstore. How else can we know that you want it? We can order anything that is in print, and it usually only takes 1 or 2 days to come. If you start requesting things, we will start carrying them. I promise.

I am not saying "don't shop at borders or amazon EVAR" - of course, sometimes that is the best/only option - but I am saying that small stores (like Books Inc) try to be involved in the community. We have great authors visit (hello Tamora Pierce! Scott Westerfeld! RACHEL BROWN!), we do fundraisers for local schools and charities, and we pay taxes in your neighborhood (unlike Amazon). It doesn't bother me at all when people shop at a variety of places. That is cool. I shop at a variety of places, too. What pisses me off is when people take advantage of things that only we provide - and they want us to KEEP providing those things - but then they don't ever support us.

Does that make sense?