{"id":1583,"date":"2012-06-01T12:01:11","date_gmt":"2012-06-01T20:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=1583"},"modified":"2012-06-01T12:04:37","modified_gmt":"2012-06-01T20:04:37","slug":"supporting-community-bookstores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=1583","title":{"rendered":"Supporting Community Bookstores"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that the world championship match is over, the confetti has been cleaned up and things are getting back to normal, I want to tell you about a non-chess topic that is close to my heart.<\/p>\n

One of Santa Cruz County’s independent booksellers, the Capitola Book Caf\u00e9<\/a>, has just launched a fund-raising campaign called Survive & Thrive<\/a>. Not to put too fine a point on it, they are in danger of going out of business. That’s the “survive” part. But at the same time, they also want to reorganize their business into a for-profit part (the store) and a non-profit part called Books Belong, which will sponsor workshops, classes and cultural programs. That’s the “thrive” part. It’s exactly what a community needs, and exactly what a bookstore makes a perfect venue for.<\/p>\n

Some of you may know that Kepler’s Books<\/a> in Menlo Park, another cultural icon in the San Francisco Bay Area, is using a similar model to revive its business, which actually did close briefly<\/a> in 2005. You can click here<\/a> to read about their Kepler’s 2020 project. It’s no accident that these long-established, well-run community bookstores are having trouble now. They can’t compete with Amazon.com … a big company that does absolutely nothing to contribute to communities. You might say, “Well, tough luck, the economy is changing, and you’ve got to adapt to it.” In fact, Kepler’s and Capitola Book Caf\u00e9 are trying to adapt. But at the same time, they’re competing on a very unfair playing field, where Amazon.com is sometimes selling<\/em> books for less than the independent stores can even get<\/em> them.<\/p>\n

This fund-raising campaign won’t change that, but what it will do is enable the bookstore to apply for grants with its new non-profit arm. It’s only fair that they should be able to do that, as a cultural resource for the community.<\/p>\n

I’ve given money to the Capitola Book Caf\u00e9’s campaign, and I hope that some of you (no matter how far away you may be) will consider doing the same. For me, it boiled down to the following reasons:<\/p>\n