In the Business section of last Sunday's New York Times, it was revealed that some independent bookstores are turning to services like Kickstarter and Indiegogo for crowdfunding in order to sustain themselves in these difficult economic times. It's a fascinating concept, and one that presages to be one of the future ways that the non-megaliths manage to survive, as we know many of them are doing.
Follow me below the Great Orange bookplate for details.
We know all too well (and I know that I contribute to the problem) that Amazon's prices and the well-stocked Barnes & Noble stores have contributed to the decline of the independent bookstore, where the provision of service means the store can't match Amazon and its size means it can't stock as many books as B&N. Unless you're the Strand in New York or Powell's in Portland, Oregon, you're not going to compete with the behemoths on their level. But we also know that in the communities we live in there are still independent bookstores that thrive on the business supplied by the community.
And communities CARE about their bookstores. Some crowdsourcing case studies:
In San Francisco, a campaign for Adobe Books successfully raised $60,000 on Indiegogo.com in March after the store faced a rent increase and nearly went out of business.
In Asheville, N.C., the Spellbound Children’s Bookshop collected more than $5,000 when it appealed to customers for help moving to a new location.
In the Flatiron district of Manhattan, Books of Wonder raised more than $50,000 in an online campaign last fall after the recession and other losses depleted its financial resources.
Web sites like Indiegogo and Kickstarter, originally made for the public financing of creative projects, have simplified the logistics of raising money, and bookstores facing financial distress are seizing the opportunity. They can set up a Web page explaining what their fund-raising goal is, why they are asking for it and what the deadline is. Donors pitch in as little as $5 or $10 with a few clicks and a credit card number.
Peter Glassman, who owns Books of Wonder, said he turned to a fund-raising campaign only as a last resort.
“I thought, given the financial strains we’re under at the moment, perhaps this is the way to prevent us from getting into a really desperate situation,” Mr. Glassman said.
He said it was the first time in 30 years that he was willing to admit that the store needed help.
“You never tell people your problems,” he said. “The worst you say is, ‘Business is a little tight.’ ”
This nice couple, Muir Hughes and her husband, Josh Mills, raised more than $35,000 through Indiegogo to buy The Bookstore in Chico, Calif. It can be done! Mills reported that most of the funds came in small donations of $25 or less, and that the community held fundraisers of all kinds to help augment the Indiegogo contributions. I should mention That there is a branch of the California State University System in Chico, and, further, it is one of only three CSUs to house an American Studies department, so we should not be too terribly surprised that this worked.
Whither the independent bookstore?
The American Booksellers Association, a trade group, says the number of bookstores it represents has grown slightly in the last several years, despite an overall drop in the last decade — they currently have 1,632 members, down from about 2,400 members in 2002.
And these 1,632 stores are mostly in good shape. Daniel Goldin, the owner of the Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee, told the
Times:
I think it’s an indication of the emotional connection that many customers have with their bookstores. Every customer who buys a book at an independent could do it in a different way, a cheaper way. A lot of customers position us in their head like the nonprofits they support, like a humane society or a park.
So, since we have these attachments to bookstores, and since we live in the 21st Century where there are lots of newfangled ways to raise money, why not crowdsource the way we do here when we want to give someone who is suffering a quilt or when we help someone in need? My question for today is, "Do you have a bookstore that you would donate to like the nonprofits you support if they asked?" If you do, identify the store in the comments and explain why, and I'll probably ask you to write about the store at a later date.