“Amazon doesn’t work as well for writers who are just starting out. Without name recognition and high-profile reviews, it’s hard for a customer to know where to point and click. That means the big names keep on selling, but fewer and fewer new voices are able to break through.
“Authors need a good bookstore: It’s a place to give a reading (Parnassus hosts about 250 author events a year), and a place where customers can browse, picking a book up because of the title or the cover or the staff-recommendation signs that paper the shelves. Our goal is to promote writers, writing, culture and community, which, I like to think, is aiming a little higher than free two-day shipping.”
—excerpted from author (and bookstore owner) Ann Patchett’s Wall Street Journal article “The Antidote to Algorithms: A Real Bookstore” (also posted here)
Photo: MacLeod’s Books, Vancouver, Canada (Procsilas Moscas)
