My thoughts on the current trend of large bookstore closings!

Large bookstores were once small bookstores who helped large publishers get their books to readers. When technology changed and made it easier and less costly to publish, along came small publishers. Large bookstores refused to acknowledge the change. Large publishers were fine with this. It limited the competition. Large bookstores weren't about to bite the hand that has fed them so long. But I'll bet they never expected that same hand to actually starve them to death and then come back looking for the scraps. Funny how that worked out. And I don't mean funny ha-ha either. :(

For those of you who say that technology ruined the publishing industry, you couldn't be more wrong. Technology has leveled the playing field and so to all those large bookstores who are collapsing under their unwillingness to embrace small and self published authors and to all large publishers who can't figure out which way to turn now, I have only this to say and you should just be glad you can't hear me sing it. . .

Welcome to the Jungle!

You can have anything you want but you better not take it from me.

Why are large chain bookstores going under?

*******
Note: facts suggest that Christian chain bookstores are going under for a completely different reason than the one given here since they weren't around during the depression. I may blog about that later.
*******

As with anything, there are many opinions out there but I tend to gravitate to finding the facts. Not that it will keep things from happening the way they're happening but at least, armed with the facts, I can help others understand should they want to.

Many businesses seem to be failing in light of the internet or the ability for others to provide something digitally and quicker than the brick-and-mortar store. And while I'll agree with this theory in part I do not feel it is the primary reason for the demise of larger bookstores.

Does it matter what I think? No, not really but if you read on you'll at least know why I feel the way I do and perhaps you'll sleep better tonight.

Here's an excerpt I've posted before from an article I link to quite frequently. Since it is in an on-line encyclopedia it is unbiased and can't readily be pulled or changed due to my linking to it. I only point this out because many articles I find on the internet now lead to dead links having been moved all together. While I say that I'm not worried about this link going anywhere, I've copied it none-the-less. It has valuable information in it. Here's the link and here's the excerpt:

"The Great Depression of the 1930s hit the book publishing industry as hard as it hit every other sector of the American economy. Booksellers at that time were mostly small local businesses, and to help them survive the economic hardships of the depression, Simon and Schuster invented a system allowing booksellers to return unsold copies of books for credit against future purchases."

(Warning long sentence coming up. Read with caution.) I typically use the above excerpt to point to the reason why once-smaller-now-larger bookstores don't give a poop about small pubbed authors while pointing out that it is this return policy that bites small press in the butt so that they have to make books non-returnable just to keep once-smaller-now-larger bookstores from taking them down which as a result keeps once-smaller-now-larger bookstores from ordering small press books because they can't return them whenever they darn well please causing small press to eat the print cost of their book because AS WE ALL KNOW, no POD publisher wants to pay for shipping of the returned-from-the-bookstore books to be sent back to them. (long sentence over.)

Today I will use the excerpt to point to a much different issue. If large publishers cared so much back in the depression that one of them, Simon & Schuster and subsequently the others for sheer survival--broke protocol and created a return policy that would help the bookstore more than the publisher, then why aren't they acting today? These are THEIR bookstores. The same ones from the depression.

Where is the call to arms? I don't see it? The larger chain bookstores of today are the once-small bookstores of yeasteryear. Where are these wonderfully gracious publishers?

Many still point to ebooks as being the demise of the brick-and-mortar bookstores. I say "nay-nay." I say that if larger chain bookstores embraced and worked with small press (afterall there are more of us than them) the same way they work with larger publishers or at least offer us something as lucrative, they most likely wouldn't be in the shape they're in today.

I'm certain that large publishers (starting with Simon & Shuster) meant well by offering the hang-by-the-neck-until-dead (for small press anyway) return policy but after reading the above excerpt, one has to wonder at their motive. Okay, maybe not everyone but I certainly do.

Small press publishers might help but it's difficult to do this when the door is shut and locked to their presence. I'll not mention the insults that are heaped upon small press when they actually attempt to ask for the type of agreement larger bookstores share with larger publishers. Ooops.

I hate to see this happen as I hate to see any large entity go down but it's their own fault . . . in my opinion.

Oh and since small press books are swatted down at every turn, here's the best place to go to find Black Bed Sheet Books recently published edition of Never Ceese

Buy Never Ceese here!

Hey, if I didn't tell you, how would you know?

Richard the Vampire Makes the Big Time!

Yes, I just learned that along with Never Ceese being mentioned on the TV Tropes site, my vampire Richard is mentioned as well. The only disappointing part of it all is that due to readers of targeted "Christian" fiction labeling my work Christian at every turn those on the this site assume my stories are targeted Christian fiction as well. So very sad. But nevertheless, Richard is mentioned in the same breath with Anne Rices' Lestat and ummm . . . Bunicula!!! LOL

Here's the Link.

But if you don't want to dig to find it, here's the excerpt.

Richard, a vampire in Sue Dent's Christian werewolves-and-vampires novel Never Ceese needs blood to survive, but copes with it in a novel way — he tells a sob story to people on the Internet about his mother needing blood transfusions and gets donations to live on. He still occasionally craves blood from a living animal, but can cool his urges by draining blood from livestock. One of the biggest weaknesses of vampires focused on in the book is that vampirism is a "curse" that prevents a vampire from interacting with, speaking of, or even thinking of anything holy — not just crosses, but Bible verses, God himself, churches, etc. Richard, with help of a mentor, can fight against it enough that he can manage to quote John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world..."), but still has to go through quite a bit of pain to do it.


Awww, they know who I am. How sweet! But for the record this is not a Christian werewolf-vampire novel. The lable "Christian" anything in fiction points to a targeted market that I don't write for. It's general market horror with a underlying Christian theme. Please do not apply any success it has to those who claim the broader label "Christian" to identify their targeted work. They won't allow their authors to write about vampires or werewolves of lore and in fact turned my books down because I wrote about them. Gotta love it.

Curious?

What do twisted horror writer (and practicing witch) Andrea Dean Van Scoyoc and Saintly horror writer Sue Dent, whose writings have been approved for distribution to the Christian market, have in common? Well, just wait and you'll find out. *and whistle the "Odd Couple" theme while you're waiting.* If you don't know the "Odd Couple" theme . . . well . . . google it.