WHAT HAPPENS TO WRITERS WHEN MAJOR BOOKSTORES GO BUST

From today's email came this missive from Josuha Bodwell, President of Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance (MWPA). As a writer trying to get that first publisher book, the news about Borders is pretty devastating. Are we all doomed to write only for e-books and Amazon.con?
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HELLO ALL,

As I drove to Bangor earlier this week (the MWPA is co-sponsoring the Bangor Book Festival in October!), I listened to the radio squawk news of the pending Borders bankruptcy. The news made me cringe at the thought of how many small presses, publishers, and therefore writers would lose their hard earned dollars.

Later in the week, Publisher’s Weekly put numbers to how much Borders owes:

“Publishers are on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars led by Penguin Group (USA), which is owed $41.1 million, followed by Hachette at $36.9 million, Simon & Schuster at $33.8 million, Random House at $33.5 million, and HarperCollins at $25.8 million.”

The trickle-down effect of these losses—if in fact these publishers are not paid back by Borders—could have a serious impact on authors and writers hoping to be published—I don’t think devastating is too strong a word.

Then I came upon this other headline in Publisher’s Weekly: “Bookstore Sales Fell 1.4% in 2010.” An ominous tone?
Well, I was surprised to read the story and find that total bookstore sales equaled $16.50 billion in 2010. Billion. That could hardly be considered bad news, right?

Out of curiosity, I did a little research and found that 2010’s annual movie ticket sales totaled $10.65 billion—about $6 billion less than 2010’s bookstore sales. Pretty interesting, ay?

Wouldn’t conventional wisdom have us believe that far more people go see movies than read books today? I mean, aren’t we inundated with pundits bemoaning the death of books and reading? Well, this news about bookstore sales figures made me think of my favorite line in the book Freakanomics: “Conventional wisdom is often wrong.”

I was buoyed by the bookstore sales figures. And I hope you are, too. We know that things in the book business are changing. And quickly. But beyond that, very little can be assumed. So let’s keep faith, okay?

In the meantime: buy local.