Booksellers: Matchmakers for the Mind

by John Kremer on Sunday, July 24th, 2011 | Comments Off

The following is excerpted from some CNN comments made by Richard Nash, publisher of Red Lemonade:

64 million Americans read five hours a week or more, 16 million Americans report they have engaged in creative writing, and more than 2 million titles went on sale in the U.S. last year.

With all that supply and demand, we need matchmakers, people with expertise, knowledge, and intuition to connect people with books, to offer help in choosing what to read….

Bookstores can and should be sites for this conversation. Increasingly, the good ones are places where people seeking deeper engagement with their culture and society choose to congregate. They are offering language classes, reading groups, singles nights, writing workshops, self-publishing solutions….

We may think of bookstore clerks as just underpaid drones, but the reality is that most people who work in bookstores do so because they love reading and writing.

I believe that Borders employees past and present can become part of an emerging system of supporting writing and reading, whether in new bookstores or new online ventures, operating as the matchmakers of the book ecosystem.

That’s the one thing I’ve always loved about the people working in bookstores. Most of them love books. Several years ago I met one of those unsung heroes at the Borders in Hollywood. She worked with local teachers to bring more books to children in the community. She loved books.

As I’ve said before, I will miss Borders. Too many good bookstores are going to disappear. So sad.

John Kremer

John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books as well as webmaster at http://www.bookmarket.com, http://www.bestsellerlaunchformula.com, and http://www.tenmillioneyeballs.com.

Note: We are always working to keep the bookstore listings up to date. If you find any new information on any bookstore, please email details to johnfkremer@gmail.com. Thanks.

Top 700 Independent Bookstores Data Files — This list started out as 500, then 600, then 700, and now over 750 top general interest bookstores. It includes names of the book buyers and event coordinators, address, phone, fax, email, website, and other information about each bookstore.

You will be able to download six different formats (your choice of one or all) as well as an information sheet to let you know what is contained in the various data files. Data file download, $40.00. If you find any errors in any listing, we guarantee to hunt down the error and correct it for you immediately.