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05/07/2005: "Making Book on the Freedom to Read"

The demise of Altamont Books (the local retail bookshop here in town) is not just the end of a bookshop, but also a hallmark in a disturbing trend: the loss of the freedom to read!

The late Hunter S. Thompson said, "No one is stealing our freedoms. We're dealing them away." Ironically, this is also what's happening to our choice of bookstores. Every time a person buys a book online, or from a superstore, that's less money that goes to an independent bookshop. As chain-bookstores dominate more of the market, publishers rely more on the chain stores' sales to dictate what is worthy of printing. In effect, a de facto censorship is slowly rising, as superstores refuse to order books which don't measure up to their standards; publishers won't publish anything they think won't make them money.

Alarmist thinking, you say? Not really. From what I've heard, author Frank McCourt initially couldn't get a publisher for his book, Angela's Ashes (later awarded the Pulitzer Prize). As an unknown writer, no publisher wanted to take a chance; they had no data on him. So, he published it at his own expense and started selling it through independent bookstores. Only when it had attracted a following of its own did publishers decide to buck their own system and offer him a contract. But how many other worthy authors will have the resources to do the same? And even if they can, how can they sell them if there are no independent bookshops to market them in?

Granted, I don't have the same dilemma that Altamont did. As a seller of used & rare books, my market is different. But as the last remaining independent bookseller in Livermore, my responsibilities have increased substantially. Still, I will continue to offer quality books to the public, as I have for the last twelve years.

But the reading public also has a responsibility: to help maintain their own freedom of choice. And only by "giving their custom" (the origin of the word, 'customer') in shopping to independents, do they exercise that freedom. Unless of course, they feel good about dealing away this freedom.