This just in, from Roy Blount of The Authors Guild (of which I’m a proud member). I’ll add that all this is especially true for your local independent bookstores, so if you love, go buy books! Even if you aren’t a writer, it’s still a good idea – and tell them an Author’s Guild member sent you!
I’ve been talking to booksellers lately who report that times are hard. And local booksellers aren’t known for vast reserves of capital, so a serious dip in sales can be devastating. Booksellers don’t lose enough money, however, to receive congressional attention. A government bailout isn’t in the cards.
We don’t want bookstores to die. Authors need them, and so do neighborhoods. So let’s mount a book-buying splurge. Get your friends together, go to your local bookstore and have a book-buying party. Buy the rest of your Christmas presents, but that’s just for starters. Clear out the mysteries, wrap up the histories, beam up the science fiction! Round up the westerns, go crazy for self-help, say yes to the university press books! Get a load of those coffee-table books, fatten up on slim volumes of verse, and take a chance on romance!
There will be birthdays in the next twelve months; books keep well; they’re easy to wrap: buy those books now. Buy replacements for any books looking raggedy on your shelves. Stockpile children’s books as gifts for friends who look like they may eventually give birth. Hold off on the flat-screen TV and the GPS (they’ll be cheaper after Christmas) and buy many, many books. Then tell the grateful booksellers, who by this time will be hanging onto your legs begging you to stay and live with their cat in the stockroom: “Got to move on, folks. Got some books to write now. You see…we’re the Authors Guild.”
Enjoy the holidays.
Roy Blount Jr.
President
Authors Guild
I always try to support local bookstores, but it’s getting harder as chain stores wedge out the smaller, long established ones. Anyway, I just wanted to say I listen to “Wait, Wait,… Don’t tell me.” on NPR Saturdays and can hear Roy’s voice in my head reading the letter. He has that unique voice that pours and sticks to your memory.