The following is an editorial by James McGrath Morris in this month's edition of the Biographer's Craft. McGrath's Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, & Power will be published early next year.
You will have a choice when it comes to buying my new book when it comes out in February. Amazon will sell it to you for $19.79, or you can wander down to your local bookstore and pay $29.99. That 34% price difference is on my mind every time I visit Collected Works, Santa Fe's oldest locally owned independent bookstore and one of the nation's finest bookstores, along with Elliott Bay, Tattered Cover, and Politics & Prose, among others.
What is it we get when we pay full price at an independent bookstore? In the case of Collected Works, the answer is simple: You get Phil.
I'm a nonfiction guy. I spend my days reading and writing the stuff. So when I wander into the fiction section of the store, I'm as lost as a Thunderbird drinker looking at a rack of chardonnays. This is where Phil comes in.
Like a wine steward, he learns of my tastes and guides me to a selection. So far, he is batting 98%. (I wasn't wild about Olive Kitteridge.) When I take into account his services, I think paying full retail price is worth it. Apparently there is a sport profession where batting 30% will earn you millions. Phil's salary seems a small price to pay for what he does. In the scheme of things, it's seems far more socially valuable than hitting a leather-bound ball with a wooden stick.
Paying full price also keeps one of my town's important cultural centers alive. On almost any night, one can find a crowd gathered at Collected Works for an author's reading, a fundraiser, or a community gathering of some sort. Readers meet writers. Writers meet writers. Poets find readers. Readers find poetry. Without such a place, our community would be impoverished.
Yes, I get a little preachy when it comes to the topic of independent bookstores. But, as a friend of mine who recently heard my tirade said to me, "Zealotry in defense of independent bookstores is no sin."