Chain Bookstores going under?

One can only hope.

I made a comment recently along that line and of course many replied that I must be insane to wish that such a thing would happen. I did express concern about employees who would lose jobs but they should easily be able to find work at Independent bookstores that would flourish in the aftermath.

To understand my thinking one must understand the facts surrounding the publishing industry. Once upon a time all there was in the world were large publishing houses. Bookstores were a way for these houses to get their very large number of books to the public. Large publishers also used these chain bookstores to help warehouse all the books they had to print. You see, back in the day it was expensive to print books and publishers had to print A LOT of books at a time to justify the cost.

Come around to today and what we have are tons of Small QUALITY Publishing houses. There are Independent bookstores who showcase these talents but as you well know they are few and far between. Clearly, these small publishing houses would do much better IF they could get into these chain bookstores but that just isn't happening. Chain bookstores are more or less owned by large publishing houses and why would large publishing houses do anything to benefit their competition (or threat thereof.)

And that is why I could care less whether chain bookstores survive. They don't support small press authors and their attempts are feeble at best. Sort of like letting a cat participate in a dog show. They won't ever come around because they are pretty much in existence for the large publishing houses anyway (remember that used to be all there was.)

So let them go under. Independent bookstores are quite capable of filling the gaps left. You also have to keep in mind that a lot of best-selling authors have left the gravy train line (because the gravy was too thin) to self-publish. These authors can't even get into the chain stores so you readers are actually missing out on more quality fiction than you'd think you'd lose if chain bookstores fell under the weight of not supporting ALL quality fiction.

Of course you don't have to agree with me. I don't expect you to. Just like folks to understand why I don't care if chain bookstores meet their demise. It won't hurt my book sales at all or any other small press publisher.

Large publishers aren't the only ones in the game anymore. Not by a long shot.

Christian Chain Bookstores going under?

Well, since we're on a roll, the same logic applies here. Christian Chain Bookstores are even worse. Not only were they created to support ONLY publishers who pay a fee to belong to CBA or the Christian Booksellers Association, an Association formed to make sure all books put out by member publishers met strict and specific evangelical guidelines decided by them, they also say nay, nay to ANY other publisher large or small who isn't a paying member.

And yet their books find their way into chain bookstores due to the fact that larger publishers added CBA houses as imprints. So they get a double whammy from me. Can't wait to see these guys go because I've given up on them ever coming around. It would be an easy fix for them too. All chain Christian bookstores would have to do would be to state what kind of bookstore they are or allow all publishers who provide work that doesn't offend Christian readers of all faiths or at least most to come in. They've made no move to do either. So bye-bye to them. And yep, there are Independent Christian bookstores that treat all books by all publishers equally, affiliated or not. ;)