Four years ago this month and just a couple weeks after my second novel, The Wednesday Sisters, released, I learned it would be on the San Francisco Chronicle bestseller list. A couple weeks later, it hit a national list. I often look at these lists and wonder why some books make these lists while other equally good books don’t. I know in my case, there 
were all sorts of reasons why the stars aligned: an incredibly supportive publishing team; an online buzz that started on Library Thing and spread by generous bloggers whose enthusiasm for the book leaves me ever grateful; a small bit of well-placed media exposure; and friends and family who bought and gifted and spread the word.
But – and perhaps you’ve gotten a glimmer of this from the title of this piece – one huge factor in whatever success I’ve found as a writer has been the support of booksellers. The first bestseller list The Wednesday Sisters hit, actually, was not that Chron list, but rather the list at one of my local independent bookstores, Kepler’s Books.
I’m pretty sure that if you walked into Kepler’s and talked to Nancy Salmon in the summer of 2008, you had a hard time walking out without The Wednesday Sisters in hand. It’s clear from the way it took off – first on one of my hometown independent lists, then on the Chronicle list drawn from sales at the area independent stores, and then on my regional NCIBA indie list – that I owe a big thank you to a lot booksellers, first in California, and then elsewhere as well.
Other local stores have been supportive, too. BookPassage, Mrs. Dalloways, A Great Good Place for Books, Capitola Book Cafe, Bookshop West Portal, and Copperfields have hosted me for readings and put my books in that all important front of store space. Books Inc. – a small local chain of wonderful stores – has not only hosted me countless times, but kept The Wednesday Sisters front of store for most of the first four years after it released. And that’s just in the Bay Area!
It’s stores like these which help new voices find an audience.
Even before I was published, though, great things happened to me in bookstores. My Nashville writing group spent many a great afternoon pooring over each other’s words at the cafe in the now sadly defunct Davis Kidd booksellers, where I also once bumped into Ann Patchett in the fiction section – and was treated to a wonderful conversation over a literary bestseller neither of us, it turned out, had cared for.
This month is, perhaps ironically (but I hope promisingly), not only my bestseller anniversary month, but also the week that the store where it started – Kepler’s – closed its doors. It closed once a few years ago expecting never to reopen, but the community rallied then to keep it alive. This time it’s closing is more optimistic, with a new and improved store scheduled to open again in six soon, thanks to Praveen Maydan (who also owns the fabulous Booksmith in San Francisco).
I’ve done the occasional “Boostores Worth Browsing” posts in the past, but you may have noticed I’m doing them in a more concerted way recently – one each week. I’m going to try to keep that pace at least until the November 13 release of My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop (edited by Ronald Rice with illustrations by Leif Parsons and an introduction by Richard Russo), in which more than 75 very swanky authors (well, and me) pay tribute to our favorite bookstores and booksellers. (A portion of the authors’ fees for the essays–including 100% of mine–is being donated to a fund set up by the publisher to support bookseller scholarships to ABA’s Winter Institute, and a portion of the publisher’s revenue is being given to the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.)
Do you have an independent bookstore you love? Please tell me a little about it in the comment section below. And if you are interested in doing a blog post about it, please indicate that as well. I have some author pals who are going to help me spread the word about their favorite stores, but as many bookstores as I’ve been in, I’ve not yet hit them all. - Meg
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Your mention of Kepler’s brings back fond memories of my 15 years in the Bay Area before moving back home to NY. Another great bookstore was A Clean Well-lit Place in Mountain View. You do not mention it which makes me fear it has gone the way of other beloved small bookstores,
My favorite store, Schuler’s, is located here in Lansing. They have several branches (5 altogether), but there is something about that Lansing store that other bookstores just can’t capture. The staff is very friendly and VERY knowledgeable and I’m actually lucky enough to be able to call many of them friends now. Whenever I go in, there is always someone there ready to talk books with me. And I’m not the only one that feels this way about Schuler’s. There is actually a good number of us “regulars” that hang out there all the time. We love our store. They get all the best authors in for discussions and signings (I’ll be talking to the events coordinator about your next book!) and it’s just an all around great place for a book lover to visit.
Back in the day, many moons ago when I lived in Sarasota, FL, there was a fantastic store called The Main Street Bookshop. It was a remainder store, but there was something magical about it. It was 4 stories tall and you could spend all day there looking at the stacks and stacks of books and you inevitable always left with an armful of books. Unfortunately, several years ago they had a mishap with their fire system, and the sprinklers went off and flooded the store, and they were never able to recover from that and had to close shop. I really miss that store.
A Clean Well Lighted Place is indeed no longer lighted at all, Virginia. But the space is now a lovely Books Inc., that carries on the tradition of great readings that ACWLP began.
Hmm. Just reread your comment, Virginia. The only Clean Well Lighted I ever knew was in SF. But there is a Books Inc. in Mountain View, too, so maybe it took over both spaces?
David, am going to email you. I’d love to have you do a post on Schulers – which sounds fabulous.
Kepler’s is also featured in MY BOOKSTORE!
Full disclosure: I’m on the Black Dog & Leventhal team, publishers of MY BOOKSTORE. Work aside, I’m genuinely really excited about this book that celebrates the bookstores you guys love!
I’m so looking forward to the anthology, Sally. And it appears I forgot the link to it in the post, but have added it now.
I have two favorite book stores and visit them every chance I get. One is Lemuria Books (http://www.lemuriabooks.com/index.php) in Jackson, MS. Walking through the doors is like going home. Everyone is excited to see you, offers up wonderful surprises for you, and hates to see you go.
Octavia Books (http://www.octaviabooks.com/), New Orleans, LA, is also a favorite. There are wonderful treasures to be found at Octavia Books. The attention to detail ensures you feel special. The staff is helpful and passionate about books. Their support of local authors is second to none.
Both book stores offer many events and readings by local and touring authors. You should not pass up the opportunity to visit either store.
Meg, my favourite bookshop is The Bookseller Crow in Crystal Palace, London (England).
I’d love to do a guest post about it.
Helen
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