Your Indie Bookstore Needs You: Small Business Saturday

On November 30 from 2:00- 5:00 p.m., I and other local writers will be selling books at Bound to Be Read Books in East Atlanta Village as part of Indies First and Small Business Saturday.

Not just our books — any books.

Small Business Saturday is the antidote to Black Friday  that small(er) businesses nationwide have come up with for  this Saturday, in part to remind shoppers that they exist.

And that they really really want to keep on doing so.

Which is where Indies First comes in.

What’s Indies First?  Back in September, author Sherman Alexie wrote an open letter to fellow authors everywhere.  What better time, he asked, for writers to show independent bookstores some love than on Small Business Saturday?  And how better to do it than by “hand-selling” books?

And just where do you come in?

Well, say you’ve got a list of people you’d like to buy literary gifts for this holiday season.  Not just a book, but the perfect book.

How to find?

If you head out to a participating independent bookstore like Bound to Be Read, you’ll get your own writerly personal shopper, so to speak. Throughout the day, writers — me, Laurel Snyder, Collin Kelley, David Fulmer, and Allan Kemp —  will be on hand to help you figure out the perfect book for everybody on your list.  And that’s pretty cool.

If you register your AMEX card here, you’ll get 10.00 back when you spend 10.00 or more at participating businesses, many of which are offering additional discounts and give-aways.  At Bound to Be Read, hardcover new releases are 20% off.  Next door at Urban Cannibals, local foods are 15% off.

It’s hard to remember now, but until very recently, going to bookstores was, for bookish types, a lot like going — well, maybe what it most resembled was going to church.  Bookstores, with their orderly rows of books, their window displays, their solemn hush, were sanctified spaces.

It’s great to be able to buy whatever we want, whenever we want it, at the click of a mouse.  But there’s also something to be said for the actual physical spaces that still exist where writers and readers can come together for a little while.

And that’s why I’ll be at Bound to Be Read Books on Saturday, November 3o, from 2:00 – 5:00.

Come on in!