spine visible. The only place where they don’t charge you for your magazinesis if it’s in the magazine rack with only the top of the magazine visible.And, remember, they still get forty percent of the cover price of everybook they sell, and about that percentage for every magazine they sell.That’s a lot of money. That’s part of the reason why they’re the biggestbookseller in the US, and that’s part of the reason why they bug me.I don’t mean to pick on only Barnes & Noble here. Most of the chainbookstores do it. They’re smaller chains, though, and have to charge less.For example, you can pay two grand a month for placement near the cashregister at B. Dalton; or $2,300 to get near the cash register at Hastings(unless it’s Christmas time, when it’s $3,450); or seven grand at Borders;or between five and eight grand at Waldenbooks (depending on whetheryou want to be on the top, middle, orbottom pocket; it gets gradually lessexpensive as you go down). All ofthese chains have placement deals foryour books, too.There are other problems with thechain bookstores beyond this. Forinstance, they do all of their orderingthrough a regional buyer who bases hisorders largely on factors like the advertisingbudget of various titles. So if youwant your local Barnes & Noble tocarry a specific book by an independentpress that doesn’t spend a lot ofmoney on advertising, you have to convincethe manager of your local store toconvince the buyer who orders for yourlocal store to carry the book. Chancesare, they’ll order a single copy for you,but the store will rarely carry multiplecopies, no matter how convincing youare. And I can tell you this from myown personal experiences dealing withBarnes & Noble: when the employee atthe Merritt Island Barnes & Noble toldCindy that they’d carry my book if Ijust brought in some copies, he waslying.Regardless, since all the ordering isdone through a regional manager, allthe Barnes & Nobles in your area haveessentially the same books. If you’relooking for a book and your local store doesn’t have it, it usually doesn’tdo you any good to go to the Barnes & Noble in the next town overbecause the same person did the ordering for both stores. Compare this to,say, 33 1/3 Bookstore in Los Angeles, where Frank, the owner, does hisown ordering. First off, he will carry multiple copies of a book if you askhim to (and if he likes the book). Not only that, but if you go into his storeoften enough, he’ll know what you like because he’ll know you personally.He may think about you when he orders other books. The next timeyou go into the store, Frank probably will say to you, “You’ve got tocheck this out.” And he’ll base his recommendation on what he knowsabout you personally instead of basing it on what book has the highestadvertising budget.Another problem with these chain bookstores is that Barnes & Nobleand Borders combined have a near monopoly on the bookselling industryin the United States. Barnes & Noble also owns B. Dalton, Doubleday,and Scribners. Borders is owned by the Borders Group, which also ownsWaldenbooks (incidentally, the Borders Group is owned by K Mart). In1998, a group of independent bookstores sued Borders and Barnes &Noble for violating anti-trust laws. The independent bookstores claimedthat the majors were using their size and power to hold secret meetingswith publishers that would allow the big chain bookstores to get specialdeals not available to independents and thereby run independents out ofbusiness. (This practice is illegal according to the Robinson-Patman Actof 1936.) Exactly what those deals were never came to light because, in2000, Borders and Barnes & Noble settled out of court rather than allowingtheir private business practices to become public. They each paid$2.35 million dollars to the group to settle the case. Now, I don’t knowwhat these private business practices were, and I don’t want to get into allthe particulars of the case here. I do know that independent bookstoreshave been steadily losing money over the past decade, while Barnes &Noble has gotten huge and has had to be stopped from making some othervery illegal moves towards gaining a monopoly – like trying to buy thelargest book and magazine distributor in the US, Ingram Book Group. Ialso know that Amazon.com runs Borders’s online bookstore, though Idon’t know what that means about a partnership between the two companies.It’s all pretty vague and secretive, but any time you have somethingthat has this many earmarks of a monopoly – especially if it relates tobooks – you should be a little bit worried.The way they act is a good way to run a business.It’s just a bad way to run a society.More and more – as TV, radio, andnewspapers are all merging into a fewlarge conglomerations in the US – independentlypublished books are becomingthe most reliable source of informationabout politics and social issues. So, whentwo big chain bookstores are running allof the independent bookstores out oftown, and the chain bookstores tend toignore independent publishers, there’scause for concern. As long as independentbookstores like Powell’s in Portlandand Quimby’s in Chicago and 33 1/3 inLA exist, independent publishers do havehope. And there are enough good independentbookstores in major US cities tokeep small publishers alive. The realproblem lies outside the borders of majorUS cities. It lies in places like MerrittIsland, where, if you drive down StateRoad 3, you won’t find House of Booksanymore, because Barnes & Noble (andpeople like Cindy, who won’t shop anywhereelse) ran them out of business.But I don’t want to focus on thesepoints too much. Like I said, I’m not callingfor a boycott of Barnes & Noble orchain bookstores or anything like that.Objectively speaking, Barnes & Nobleisn’t really that bad. They have encourageda lot more people to read. They docarry a lot of books. And even if most ofthose books are empty, pulp novels or self-help drivel or books on how thepolitical left has ruined America, there are enough books in stock so thatyou can still find something good to read. Fifteen years ago, it was reallyhard to find Jim Thompson novels anywhere. Now I can walk into anyBarnes & Noble and pick one up. They carry all my favorite old crimenovelists: Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and even the two goodnovels that Elmore Leonard wrote. I got my copy of A People’s History ofthe United States at a Barnes & Noble. They stock all the classics. All ofmy favorite Beat writers, from Kerouac to Gary Snyder to Gregory Corso,are on the shelves of just about any Barnes & Noble. I can say the samething about the second largest bookstore chain, Borders. So they’re notwithout their good points.Waldenbooks and Books-A-Million are probably worse, just becausetheir selection focuses so strongly on mass market paperbacks and booksthat are completely devoid of any kind of complex thought. But that’s mypersonal bias.My point, though, is that chain bookstores aren’t completely evil.Really, they’re not evil at all. They’re just greedy. Some of their practicesare illegal, sure, but if the point of a corporation is to make as muchmoney as possible, they are sticking to the point. I’ll concede that. Theway they act is a good way to run a business. It’s just a bad way to run asociety. That’s what I want you to think about the next time you have achoice between buying a book or magazine at an independent store orbuying one at a big chain store. Because the greed of the big chainstakes us forever closer to having a culture that’s sold to us instead ofhaving a culture that we create ourselves. And that is evil.–Sean Carswell 29SEAN CARSWELL
MADDYSHIFTLESS WHEN IDLEI am really making fun of myself. What else is new?Attention everyone! Since my computer wasstolen over Christmas break (Attention to thief:you owe me $1,600.), I must change course!This time around, it’s an all-stupid-drawingscolumn, poking some fun at my favorite topic –punks! Take no offense, you silly hardcore boyor girl. As a cross between the intellectualpunk, the pop punk and the hobo punk, I amreally making fun of myself. What else is new?Anyway, collect all five punk rock tradingcards… uh, right now! –MaddyP.S. If you’re gonna write to me, email first:cerealcore@hotmail.com. My address will havechanged by the time you read this. I’m movingback to the Midwest in three days. Punk!38
Change language