When Art Burton and Barbara Turner decided it was time to sell Northtown Books, they knew how hard it could be to find a buyer for a small, independent bookstore. After all, they had only been able to purchase the bookstore from its previous owner, Jack Hitt, because he was willing to carry the note. The best way to keep the store alive, they realized, was for them to do the same. On June 1 -- right around the store's 40th anniversary -- longtime employee Dante DiGenova became Northtown's newest owner.
Diesel, A Bookstore is known in both its communities -- Malibu and Oakland, California -- as a great store to visit for reliable, well-suited recommendations. Here are the rules that I, one of Diesel's enthusiastic handsellers, follow:
I read the article in [last] week's Bookselling This Week about the lack of participation in ABACUS. Only 150 stores in the entire country have sent in numbers to ABA for this year's survey.
I am puzzled because ABA is working on our behalf, spending countless dollars for one purpose: To make our stores more profitable. Why is there not a 100 percent participatory rate in this survey? Is everyone making enough money?
Since 2002, ABA Board member Linda Ramsdell of Galaxy Bookshop in Hardwick, Vermont, has been instrumental in rallying booksellers and librarians in the effort to amend Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act.
By Peter Osnos, Senior Fellow for Media at The Century Foundation
The book is an eternal artifact of civilization. Sacred texts. Classics by a crackling fire; a great story; a library lined with the handsome bindings of favorites; a bookstore where browsing is a joy of reminiscence and discovery.
From December 16 to December 18, ABA COO Oren Teicher joined the booksellers at The King's English in Salt Lake City, Utah, for a three-day stint as a frontline bookseller. This is his account of the final, hectic holiday sales days at one of the country's leading independent stores.
For Karen Spengler, owner of I Love a Mystery bookstore, there's no real mystery as to why her town of Mission, Kansas, should rethink the idea of allowing a Borders to open in the suburb of Kansas City: It's all simple economics.
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Since 2002, ABA Board member Linda Ramsdell of Galaxy Bookshop in Hardwick, Vermont, has been instrumental in rallying booksellers and librarians in the effort to amend Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act.