Vox Pop and the Rebel Bookseller

Andrew Laties' Rebel Bookseller is the first book I've seen on bookselling in a long time. When I was opening my store the only book available was "The Manual on Bookselling" offered by the ABA which was completely useless. It is a compilation of essays that offered no real assistance to the realities of the industry. Rebel Bookseller is one hell of a book. I thought I was radical, I hold nothing on Andrew Laties. He preaches an approach for independent booksellers that, well, stunned me. Upon thinking about it, I think the dude is right on point with just about everything.

From the Rebel Bookseller blog post:
"Attacking vs. Being Attacked, and The Causes Of Reading's Decline" —

My argument -- which I probably do not make clearly enough -- is that the lost customers can be captured back from the big corporations ... It may be -- and it IS -- depressing that the "indigenous" independent restaurants or other local businesses -- the longtime existent family firms -- do get smashed, in marketplace after marketplace. It's horrible. But this does NOT prove that the trend toward concentration is irreversible. It simply means that it is the task of another generation to recapture the market from the imperial corporations. I use the word "imperial" in order to highlight the analogy between colonization and chainstore growth. Decolonization DOES happen. Local autonomy CAN be restored. It's a historical process. It's called revolution, or, rebellion ...

Vox Pop is one of the latest bookstores that Andrew Laties has been involved in creating. It's here in Brooklyn so I took some time to go visit it last week. I was impressed. Although the book offerings were slim, the vibe was strong. Actually, it was kick ass. I felt like I was in the presence of the future of bookselling. This small, feisty storefront combines a cafe into the space and offers self-publishing services to anyone who is willing to pay for the printing, music & reading events, and fair trade coffee from Equal Exchange. Hummm, sounds familiar

The gentrification building around the store is evident, though. A Connecticut Muffin is in the process of construction next door and a number of other new looking cafes are near the store in this working-class, racially mixed neighborhood. It is always the way, the little guy does all the creative market building and the chains ride on our coat tales reaping the value of our hard work. Gentrification is one of the major challenges for independent "anything". There is a strong part of the American psyche today to give away their money to the chains. I think the only way to counteract this is with education — we [the merchants, the booksellers, the activists, the concerned citizens] need to somehow wake up the "sleepwalking American consumer" and turn them into informed, alert people.