Rebel Bookseller: Why Indie Bookstores Represent Everything You Want to Fight for from Free Speech to Buying Local to Building Communities

Rebel Bookseller: Why Indie Bookstores Represent Everything You Want to Fight for from Free Speech to Buying Local to Building Communities

Rebel Bookseller: Why Indie Bookstores Represent Everything You Want to Fight for from Free Speech to Buying Local to Building Communities

Rebel Bookseller: Why Indie Bookstores Represent Everything You Want to Fight for from Free Speech to Buying Local to Building Communities

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Overview

The revival of independent bookselling has already begun and is one of the amazing stories of our times. Bookseller Andy Laties wrote the first edition of Rebel Bookseller six years ago, hoping it would spark a movement. Now, with this second edition, Laties’s book can be a rallying cry for everyone who wants to better understand how the rise of the big bookstore chains led irrevocably to their decline, and how even in the face of electronic readers from three of America’s largest and most successful companies—Apple, Amazon, and Google—the movement to support locally owned independent stores, especially bookstores, is on the rise. From the mid-1980s to the present, Andy Laties has been an independent bookseller, starting out in Chicago, teaching along the way at the American Booksellers Association, and finally running the bookshop at the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts. His innovations were adapted by Barnes & Noble, Zany Brainy, and scores of independent stores. In Rebel Bookseller, Laties tells how he got started, how he kept going, and why he believes independent bookselling has a great future. He alternates his narrative with short anecdotes, interludes between the chapters that give his credo as a bookseller. Along the way, he explains the growth of the chains, and throws in a treasure trove of tips for anyone who is considering opening up a bookstore. Rebel Bookseller is a must read for those in the book biz, a testament to the ingeniousness of one man man’s story of making a life out of his passionate commitment to books and bookselling.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781609801397
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Publication date: 07/19/2011
Pages: 336
Product dimensions: 5.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

ANDREW LATIES co-founded Children’s Bookstore, Children’s Bookfair Company, Children’s Museum Store, Povertyfighters.com, and Eric Carle Museum Bookshop, and Vox Pop. He shared the 1987 Lucile Micheels Pannell Award for bringing children and books together.

ED MORROW is co-founder of Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont, and has served as president of both the New England and the American Booksellers Associations. 

BILL AYERS is distinguished professor at University of Illinois, founder of Small Schools Workshop and Center for Youth and Society, and author of fifteen books on teaching and children’s rights.

Table of Contents

Rebel Booksellers: Foreword Edward Morrow 11

Introduction to the Second Edition 21

Prelude: Meet the Author 35

1st Rant Death Energy 41

Chapter 1 Breaking the Ice 45

2nd Rant Thousands of Bosses 47

Chapter 2 Opening Minds 51

3rd Rant Steal this Technique 61

Chapter 3 Becoming the Bookstore 65

4th Rant Damned Benchmarks 81

Chapter 4 Holding onto Shorts 87

5th Rant Make It Up 111

Chapter 5 Symbiotic Solution 117

6th Rant He Who Cannot, Teaches 131

Chapter 6 Trading Places 133

7th Rant Puke Apotheosis 141

Chapter 7 The Conquest of Chicago 145

8th Rant What's Selling 157

Chapter 8 Debtors' Prison 163

9th Rant Publish, Perish 187

Chapter 9 Paying the Price 199

10th Rant Selling High 211

Chapter 10 Giveback Time 217

Chapter 11 Amazon Attack 225

An Appreciation of Rebel Booksellers: Afterword Bill Ayers 239

Appendix: Showcasing Your Store 245

Acknowledgments 267

Notes and Sources 271

Bibliography 315

Index 323

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