Rebel Bookseller: Why Indie Businesses Represent Everything You Want To Fight For From Free Speech To Buying Local To Building Communities

by Andrew Laties, Bill Ayers (Afterword), Ed Morrow (Introduction)

The revival of independent bookselling has already begun and is one of the amazing stories of our times. Bookseller Andy Laties wrote the first edition of Rebel Bookseller six years ago, hoping it would spark a movement. Now, with this second edition, Laties’s book can be a rallying cry for everyone who wants to better understand how the rise of the big bookstore chains led irrevocably to their decline, and how even in the face of electronic readers from three of America’s largest and most successful companies—Apple, Amazon, and Google—the movement to support locally owned independent stores, especially bookstores, is on the rise. From the mid-1980s to the present, Andy Laties has been an independent bookseller, starting out in Chicago, teaching along the way at the American Booksellers Association, and finally running the bookshop at the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts. His innovations were adapted by Barnes & Noble, Zany Brainy, and scores of independent stores. In Rebel Bookseller, Laties tells how he got started, how he kept going, and why he believes independent bookselling has a great future. He alternates his narrative with short anecdotes, interludes between the chapters that give his credo as a bookseller. Along the way, he explains the growth of the chains, and throws in a treasure trove of tips for anyone who is considering opening up a bookstore. Rebel Bookseller is a must read for those in the book biz, a testament to the ingeniousness of one man man’s story of making a life out of his passionate commitment to books and bookselling.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Books About Books

336 pages, Paperback

First published July 19, 2011

About the author

ANDREW LATIES co-founded Easton Book Festival, Book & Puppet Company, Vox Pop, The Children’s Bookstore, Chicago Children’s Museum Store, and The Eric Carle Museum Bookstore. He shared the 1987 Women’s National Book Association’s Pannell Award for bringing children and books together. His Rebel Bookseller: Why Indie Businesses Represent Everything You Want to Fight For—From Free Speech to Buying Local to Building Communities won the 2006 Independent Publisher Award and is available in a second edition from Seven Stories Press.

Reviews

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Number five book for 2011

I loved this book!! I have been a bookseller for 22+ years and it is not just a job to me, it is my career! I remember when Big&Nasty came to our town & killed our wonderful indie store. People had no idea what they had lost until it was gone. I remember when I worked for Borders after this(I know I know-but you have to make choices sometimes-work for a chain store or don't work at a bookstore at all. My soul couldn't handle being away from books) and people would come in asking for donations for various things like Boy Scouts or other non-profits. Well, Border's branch stores have no control over this and I would tell them to contact corporate to see if they would be willing to help them out knowing damn well they wouldn't. What I really wanted to do was scream at them that if they hadn't stopped shopping at the wonderful indie store we used to have who did all kinds of things for the community there would have been a source for their donations. We lost a store that did story times,book clubs,fund raisers, local authors and many other things for the community. The money came from the community and stayed in the community.

Shop local-Support your indie stores-keep your tax dollars in your community.

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading is an inherently liberal exercise. That’s not to say that only liberals read, but the fact is expanding your mind is a liberal activity. Anyone who notes the eclectic nature of the books I review will notice that not many of them are from current bestseller lists. In fact, many of them are from smaller presses, and, if possible, are purchased from independent bookstores. Andrew Laties’ Rebel Bookseller, published by Seven Stories Press, is a very wise book. I met the author at a local bookstore he runs, and I knew right away that I need to read his book.

These days it can feel like a crime to confess liberal values such as support for your local community, fighting against big corporations, and speaking out for what you believe in. The subtitle for Laties’ book will give you a solid idea of where he’s coming from: Why Indie Businesses Represent Everything You Want to Fight for—From Free Speech to Buying Local to Building Communities. The author stands behind what he writes. He has founded and organized the Easton Book Festival in the Lehigh Valley, about an hour north of Philadelphia. He gives back to the community, and this book is full of sage business advice.

This volume is an important reminder of why the convenience of Amazon, or Barnes and Noble (which started out as an independent bookstore), comes at such a high cost. As Amazon demonstrated with a dispute with Hatchett (one of the “Big Five”) a couple years back, they can decide what you can read. The local indie, on the other hand, may cost a little more but it is giving back in the form of quality of life. I grew up in a town with no bookstores. Prior to the internet, it was a struggle to find literature at all. This book, published by indie publisher Seven Stories, is the one resource you must have if you ever want to, or dream about, opening a bookstore. I wrote about it on my blog as well (Sects and Violence in the Ancient World).

[Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are three things going on in this book.

1) There's Andy Laties' memoir of his education and experience in the book selling biz, which is entertainingly told but not of any independent interest (I would never have heard of him without this book). Seems like a nice guy, if a bit hyper.

2) There's his analysis of that experience, shaped into guidelines for running your own independent bookstore. This includes parts of the historical context (the rise and fall of chains, the metastasis of B&N, the economic deformations of publishing) which are essential to understanding the present moment. This part is generally great—inspiring, empowering even—although from time to time it's clear that Laties' experience is really with specialty bookstores (children's and museum stores), rather than general independents, which don't have the benefit of a clearly pre-defined market.

3) There's what's promised in the subtitle, which is hardly in the book at all, not even in Bill Ayers' afterword. Laties is opposed to the corporate model of publishing and bookselling—Random House and Barnes & Noble, and now Amazon—but that doesn't make him a rebel. There's no discussion of truly small presses (the kind without corporate distribution), alternative economic models, or a bookstore's community role other than hosting events which attract consumers. There are enticing hints, particularly Laties' tale of touring the east coast's great lefty bookstores (Bluestockings, Wooden Shoe, Red Emma's) for Seth Tobocman's Understanding the Crash—but that chapter mainly discusses the rise of Amazon and the difficulty of sidestepping its marketing automatons.

As inspiration for opening a bookstore, Rebel Bookseller is great. As a book itself, particularly in the politics promised on its cover, it's a bit disappointing.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had some really interesting history and analysis and outside-the-box thinking about indie bookstores and the landscape that we now inhabit and how it got that way.

It helped me to articulate the reason I am a bookseller: "to help make life more bearable for as many people as possible through books and community." Whether it's depressing fiction that makes life feel rich or makes you feel less alone, or humor that makes you laugh, or self help or health or finance books that provide practical assistance, or nonfiction that helps you know more about the world. And Laties brought home the idea that, in this movement, our INTERDEPENDENCE is as important as our independence.

My critiques are that it felt a little insider baseball (even for this insider), and while I found it interesting, I'm curious whether those not involved with bookselling crave the detailed history he provides. Furthermore, I think the subtitle is misleading. I wanted more about those aspects of being involved in the community, and it really felt more about his specific stores and about specific events in the 80s and 90s. I think it might have more appeal for general readers if it was true to the subtitle and looked at stories of the ways that indie booksellers have been on the frontlines of THOSE struggles (free speech, buying local, building community) as well. That's what I want to see in Rebel Bookseller 3.0!

[Angel Ackerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m surprised it took me so long to finish this book, because I did get drawn deeply into it. I have read Laties’ other books first— all of his books are strongly memoir-oriented— and this one definitely has the same voice as his other works.

He compiles a lot of wisdom and technique with personal anecdotes. In many ways, reading the book is Laties having a conversation about bookselling with a friend.

As a journalist, I respect and agree with many of his ideas about interacting with the community and working with the media.

The book offers a lot of material for all of us to ponder, from the nature of small business today to how all businesses can contribute to communities.

In light of the recent lawsuit examining the merger of Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House, and some of the claims the big publishers have made about the impossibilities of the current book marketplace, ideas like those in Rebel Bookseller really address the need of independent booksellers to stay not only relevant but aware of their communities’ unique needs.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I grabbed Rebel Bookseller while traveling. I was excited to read it, but didn’t have a chance and finally got to it around 9 months later. I’ve struggled to explain how I feel about this book—in the end, I’ve come to realize that parts of this book are fascinating and well written, but they are spread throughout and are not more than 25% of the work. The rest of the time, the subject matter is largely unfocused, repetitive and uninteresting. As the author himself notes, he’s been accused of being a bitter man by publishers, and having mental problems by his wife. Both show in this book. It seemed to be several different things for several different audiences. The title and front cover pulled me in, promising a book about why indie booksellers fight for free speech, communities and apple pies, or some such. I’d love to read such a book, but I never encountered it in Rebel Bookseller. The back of the book promises a history of problems in the publishing and bookselling industry for the past few decades. This sort of comes through in the book, but generally is so technical that it is boring unless you’re a bookseller or so accusatory you get tired of hearing how the man is out to get everyone, and how every indie store is targeted.

The book has two sets of parallel chapters—chapters titled Chapter 1, etc and chapters titled 1st Rant, etc. The rants were generally excellent reading, and having finished the book, I wish he had simply put the rants together and published them as some sort of long form essay or something. They were insightful, fresh, and provided a good look into the bookselling industry for people like me—who frequent bookstores, understand the basics of both bookselling and publishing, and have always had an academic sort of interest in finding out more. Each took an idea (they weren’t so much rants as passionate speeches) and explained something booksellers should do or know. However every 2 or 3 page rant was followed by a much longer chapter. The chapters were partly memoir of Andrew Laties’ life as a bookseller (to use the term loosely), and partly tale of how independent booksellers survived some turbulent years in the industry. I’ve never heard of Laties, but I’m also not in the business. Reading this book, it seems he either had every major idea in bookselling over the past two decades, or was willing to take credit for all of them. Based on the explanations of very simple bookstore business concepts—such as the ability to return books to printers—and the content of the rants, it seemed as if this book was targeted towards non-bookstore owners with an interest in bookstore management. Yet the volume of technical detail, most of it rather boring for anyone other than someone in the business. While I’m sure details of trade group presentation you gave two decades ago are thrilling to you, it seemed rather like the person who won’t shut up at a cocktail party to me. I understand you wrote a really witty script for your presentation in a small group session. Excerpting sections of it (and why were you keeping it for 20 years?) isn’t required. Moreover, while Laties story was interesting at times, the information about how he grew his store was very much geared towards him setting up a niche children’s educational bookstore at a specific moment in the industry that then failed, and had him set up another store as a gift store in a museum where less than 20% of the inventory is books, and ending managing someone else’s bookstore after that failed. It almost seemed the perfect bookstore owner trajectory in reverse. I can’t imagine how most of his story would be useful as anything other than a case study today—certainly not for people actually setting up a store today. Finally, I found the tone of the book very off putting, as if he wanted you to sympathize with what he went through and root for him to succeed, but would turn and be vindictive and gleeful any time anything happened to anyone else. He seemed to have an axe to grind with nearly everyone he’s ever encountered professionally—including customers. Apparently they’re at fault for not spending great sums of money at independent bookstores, and for buying books and messing up the displays and shelves. At the same time. Throughout this work Laties repeatedly chronicles business failures—but rather than present them as lessons learned and educational opportunities, he instead uses them to blame nearly everyone else. It is never his fault, he is brilliant, but the man is out to get him. The writing is confusing, and he haphazardly refers to names and dates in such a way you feel like you’re expected to know who people are or what was happening in his life at the time without being provided any other information. My favorite part comes toward the end when he starts telling you stories about people coming up to him and saying how he changed their life in a strangely tacked on chapter that jumps 8 years into the future and was obviously stuck in for the ‘revised and updated edition’. I was waiting for a hand to emerge with a collection plate. You can see why I’m disappointed in this book. I really wanted to enjoy it, and I pushed through it in hopes that some of the chapters would be good, but it was just poorly done.

In short—I can’t think of a situation in which I’d recommend it. It isn’t focused, it seems to have several radically different audiences in mind, and the tone will likely put you off. I’d say if you’re really interested, borrow a copy and read just the rants. They’re good at least.

[Kris Dersch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was surprisingly delightful. I don't know what I expected but it was better than that. An interesting insight into bookselling as a business and the book as a commodity. Aimed at booksellers but for sure inspiring to any booklover, librarian, book reviewer, promoter, or influencer. I love the passion, I love the structure (rant followed by chapter,) plus it's a quick and easy read.

[Tommyq · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning & end of the book seemed to be rather informative for people who want to create an actual bookstore with a physical store front.

The middle I seemed more anecdotal.


I plan on creating my own used bookstore, although I plan to have it all alone with a similar approach to better world books. But picked up a few helpful tips!

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laties recounts his succession of stores and projects over the years, interlaced with rants and pertinent advice for indie booksellers and small businesses ("So you're thinking of opening a bookstore. Are you crazy?"). My favorite quip is his calling librarians the "mild-mannered, militant soul mates" of rebel booksellers.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I

[Esmé J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rebel Bookseller was given to me when I started working at an indie bookstore. It packs in a lot of great information about the book industry, and is engagingly written.

[Audra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wildly helpful.

[Chase Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very inspiring if you are currently (or considering becoming) a bookseller! Great read.

[Kristina Mosley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is becoming my thing. I'm grateful for this book

[Courtney Llewellyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just not what I thought it was going to be.

[Georgette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book made me even more glad to be part of a bookstore movement that is still standing and fighting-the independent bookstore- aka indies. Andrew tells of the history of corporate bookstores vs. the independents. He tells the truth about Amazon.com, how publishers screw each other over as well as bookstores, how the printed word(Publishers Weekly) and the Internet word(Amazon) can turn on a book that has been hyped(that's a particularly alarming story toward the end of the book). His language is so stark, it's refreshing. Others have-errorenously-I may add, called him cynical and bitter(again, I believe, Publishers Weekly). It is what it is, and Andrew calls everyone out, and I am so glad I read this book. I cannot say how nice it is to have your passion re-ignited for the independent movement, but it was starting to wane, and then this book has completely re-charged my batteries. Laties also has chapters between the actual story of his bookselling career- with credos that all indies should take to heart and exercise. Another great part of the book. I loved this book. If you work in the book world, this should be required reading.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is well-written and interesting...if you want to open an independent bookstore or other retail space. I did not find the first 4 chapters to be difficult at all - not a slog, fairly interesting - but after that point, I felt I could give the VA Festival of the Book Program Director the information she needed to decide whether or not to invite the author to the festival. Any slight inclination I may ever have had to open a bookstore (which have never been serious dreams, by the way) would have been squashed by this book, which makes it extremely evident that you must be insane, wealthy, and tirelessly devoted to your job to make a success of an independent retail business. I am none of those things. If you seriously want to open a bookstore or other retail store, though, I'd encourage you to spend some quality time with this book.

[Chad Post · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure this book completely lives up to its subtitled hype . . . Interesting, but I'm not totally down for 280 pages of "can do!" attitude without a bit of irony. And Laties prose can be a bit overblown and annoying at time . . . Still, it's an interesting perspective on indie bookselling, and if it inspires someone to start a store, or buy books from an indie store, well, then, that's fantastic.

(Also weird that Laties is from Rochester. Not that you'd recognize the city from his description in the book in which this town is an indie store mecca with three separate bookstores, including one dedicated to children's titles. Now, we have nothing but a few sterile B&N stores.)

[Mary Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting account of an insider's view of how the massive corporate booksellers have changed how books are sold. Laties' writing can be awkward at times, but that is more than compensated by the fascinating experiences as an independent bookseller he writes about. The book is a combination of "how to" (or how NOT to) sell books, based on his many years in the field, and the role of publishers and large corporate booksellers in the industry. Laties is community-minded and drives home the importance of supporting independent retailers--it affects not only individuals, but the community as a whole.

[Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got to see Andrew Laties talk about "Rebel Bookseller" a few months ago.

This book definitely stirred the flames of my wanting to open my own bookstore. I'm pretty sure that's a common fantasy for any lover of books. And, for anyone who's even just entertaining the idea of doing so, this is a must read.

Andrew Laties is refreshingly honest about the struggles of running a business and the problems with the publishing industry. But, he also offers plenty of advice and promotes a sense of camaraderie between the independent booksellers that it's hard not to want to get involved and be a rebel.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ironically, I picked this book up ( recently republished) the week Borders announced they were going out of business. If you have ever sold books, you will relate to many things he says in this book. He owned a children's bookstore in Chicago and then went on to own the gift shop at the Children's Museum at Navy Pier. Much insight into the book industry. He is a little full of himself, but I think with good reason. Although I worked for Borders forever, I certainly agree that they were the evil empire and independents are the way to go...

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrew Laties’ Rebel Bookseller: Why Indie Businesses Represent Everything You Want to Fight for—from Free Speech to Buying Local to Building Communities (Seven Stories Press, 2011) should be required reading in every book-publishing and retail-business program in North America. The veteran retailer injects much-needed energy into a beleaguered industry.

More here: http://museinkca.wordpress.com/2012/1...

[Josh Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a fascinating behind the scenes look at a booksellers life (mostly during the late eighties/early nineties) however, the best part of this read was the "rants" that broke up the chapters. Laties is brilliant. Anyone who has ever worked in a bookstore or wants to opens store should read this!

[Meli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. I wish it had focused more on the selling of actual books and less on events and sidelines, because books is what I'm most interested in. Books is the heart of bookselling for me. But this taught me a lot about how the book industry works, filled in some gaps in my knowledge. It was good.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andrew did a magnificent job, mapping out the journey in which one need be prepared for, if he so chooses to become an indie bookseller. This read was power packed with a ton of useful material, experiences, do's, don't's and so much more. I'm looking forward to getting organized and getting busy. This book will be one of my go to's for all things indie. Thank you Andrew!

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moderately useful reading for a bookseller, in some of the history and intricacies of the business as well as a few useful strategies. I wish the "rebel" aspect were even more emphasized, though...much of the book felt like niche non-fiction rather than activist manifesto.

[Dee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andy Laties is something special, that rare thing.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have noticed that small business owners often have huge chips on their shoulders and are consumed by their businesses. This book does little to dispel my assumption.

[Amber Leigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

It changed the way that I saw and understood how books were sold.

[Arianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very inspiring. There is much to think about....