Saving Bookstores, One Author at a Time

By Bob Hughes - Nov 17 , 2011

Authors to the rescue.

The bestselling novelist Ann Patchett has opened a bookstore in Nashville. The author of such novels as Bel Canto and State of Wonder is the force behind Parnassus Books. With bookstores closing in her area, as in many others around the country, she didn’t want her neighborhood to be barren of the kind of place man consider essential to civilized communities.

The author is working with a partner who has credentials as a book distributor and publishing executive, so this isn’t a vanity project.

With so many readers buying books online, and stopping by bookstores only to browse, it’s little wonder that bookstores are in danger. Many bookstores offer community events, cafes and paid readings, and they sell merchandise other than books just to scrape by. Some folks joke that bookstores are no longer simply bookstores, but so what? When is a book just a book these days? If a retail giant such as Barnes & Noble is devoting so much floor space to creating in-store boutiques for its Nook, then small retailers must adapt to compete against online giants and new consumer buying patterns.

It’s great that Patchett is so committed to her community and to the nature of bookstores in enriching a town. She is not naïve about the prospects of her bookstore’s success. She is acting not only on her own behalf – she is an author, after all – but also for others, who would surely miss the civilizing effects that a bookstore has. This author is engaged in something that speaks to our current society, when community action takes precedence over individual aggrandizement.

Commerce is a tricky area to navigate, and during our recessionary age, with spending tight, it takes more than wishful thinking to create a successful business. A small town in upstate New York recently banded together to create its own department store, to save its citizens having to travel 50 miles to obtain necessary goods. The town worked together to make something happen. It thought of the greater good.

Authors are solitary. They need to be to write. But they’re also increasingly part of the larger world, as Patchett’s actions have proved. And as more authors take to the internet to create their books online, and to sell them, they they’re finding that working with their audience of readers, thanks to their platform-building, can extend beyond the digital universe and into the real world.