Local First Books blog

I see myself living in a world where books are becoming commoditized, rather than valued.  Where capitalism and corporatism serve only the market, and not the mind, driving readers to seek out the lowest price rather than the greatest value.  It is the same challenge that is facing the world of food production and consumption, and the result is the same in both arenas:  We end up with a profusion of low-priced junk food and a paucity of nutritious and wholesome foods.  Just as expensive organic vegetables cannot compete with cheap fast food when eaters look first and last to price without considering the effects it has on their bodies and on the environment, the books that are worth reading, that will enrich your mind and whose purchase will support a healthy and vibrant ecosystem of authorship, cannot compete with cut-rate celebrity books and formulaic pulp paperbacks when readers reach for the cheap, easy, and familiar without considering the effects it has on their minds and on the publishing ecosystem.

I seek to bring light to this dark situation, and to bring awareness to every dollar readers spend on books that each one is a "dollar vote" for a particular outcome within publishing.  I hope to explore and to spread these ideas via this blog, and I'm glad to admit that right now, today, I don't have all the answers.  But I do have a few ideas.

The first of these ideas that I'm attempting to carry out is the idea of "local first."  I've started my own small business, and I plan to try to engage people in my own neighborhood by hand-selling my own books at my local Farmers Market.  I'd like to get more local authors involved, and to get readers thinking about where their books are "grown" and hopefully to encourage them to form relationships with the authors of the books they read, beyond the pages of the books themselves.  So that when readers are thinking about what books to buy (thinking, rather than just digging through the bargain bin and grabbing the book with the shiniest cover) they choose local books first.

The next idea, in parallel to the idea of choosing organic groceries, is to get people to seek out books from independent and small press publishers.  The publishing division of a huge international mega-conglomerate, which has to answer first to shareholders and the bottom-line calculation, is less likely to publish books by unknown authors or to publish books outside of established formulas and genres.  Small presses are much more likely to try new ideas, new authors, experimental formats, and to publish works of literary genius over those of genre formula.  (See featherproof books.)  Small presses are also able to serve niche and genre audiences better books by curating the best writing in their niche rather than merely the writing closest to the formula that sold the most last year.  (See Cargo Cult Press.)  So it's choose local books first, then seek out small press and independently published books.

I want to add one more thing, for now, which is that not everything coming out of the majors is terrible, unreadable, formulaic, and commercial-first.  Big publishing houses publish a lot of books every year, and most of them publish quite a few first-time novelists and quite a few literary works along with the rest.  A lot of authors who got their starts with small presses eventually moved to big publishers.  A lot of really intelligent and thought-provoking writing comes out of pseudo-small-press imprints of the biggest publishers.  Our job, as readers and as book-buyers, is to seek out the mentally nutritious fare and to walk past the junk food of the book world; to resist the delicious lure of the empty calories - most of the time.  As we become conscientious book buyers and thoughtful readers, if the majority of our money goes toward the local, the small press, and the literary, it's safe to buy a little brain candy now and again. We all have our vices and our indiscretions.  All things in moderation.

So as a starting place, these are the guidelines for readers and book buyers that I think will help save publishing:  Choose local books first, then seek out small press and independently published books, and always try to make conscientious decisions about what your dollars are telling publishers you want more of.

Your thoughts are welcome in the comments section, below.