Buying In

Who would suffer if we lost our favorite independent bookstores, and especially if we lost Porter Square Books? Not just the staff. Not just the little kids who come to story time. And not even just readers. In some ways, the biggest losers would be local writers.

Here's my story. A year ago, Yale University Press published Spider Silk: Evolution and 400 Million Years of Spinning, Waiting, Snagging, and Mating, which I wrote with my co-author, arachnologist Catherine L. Craig. This is my first book. I'm hardly a big-name author or celebrity. (Have you heard of me? Thought not.) Yale pushed hard to get us reviews in all the popular newspapers and magazines any writer would like to get reviews in. No dice. In the U. S., trying to sell a book by non-celebrities about spiders, evolution, genetics, and proteins--even though there's some bizarre spider sex featured--is tough. And without reviews, reporters and radio programs aren't interested. Publications in England lapped the book up. The Times: "a fascinating and readable account of one of the great, overlooked mysteries of life." The Sunday Telegraph: "full of amusing facts and observations." BBC Wildlife Magazine: "This supremely absorbing book examines one of nature's most extraordinary creations." See, it's not like we were trying to peddle dreck. But U.S. newspapers and magazines have drastically cut back on the column inches they devote to book reviewing over the last decade, some newspapers discarding their separate book review sections altogether. We were just one of tens of thousands of books vying for their attention, and given that very few science books for nonscientists get reviewed anyway (start keeping track; you'll be surprised given that we're supposedly such a technological society), we reconciled ourselves to being essentially invisible, just like lots of other worthy books.

So when I went to ask Ellen Jarrett at PSB whether she would consider giving us a reading spot, I wasn't exactly expecting her to say yes. What was in it for PSB? We had great blurbs, but there weren't any reviews, or interviews, or articles they could cite to generate buzz. But I knew PSB had a history of promoting local authors and also of co-sponsoring events with the Boston Chapter of the National Writers Union, which I've been a member of for about 25 years. I left a book and a flyer with Ellen and went home.

Ellen said yes. I felt like a high school senior hearing I'd just gotten into my first-choice college--the same mix of elation and nervousness. I'd never done a reading before. But we rustled up as many friends for the audience as we could, and it was absolutely exhilarating.

That was our first big break after publication. The PSB reading gave us credibility when I approached other venues less interested in the "local" issue, even though we still weren't getting any stateside reviews. And things began to build slowly from there.

Just recently, nearly a year later, PSB's support of us no-name authors has been vindicated. The Boston Authors Club named Spider Silk a Highly Recommended Book. ForeWord Reviews gave the book its Silver Award in the Nature Category of its Book of the Year Awards. And just last week we found out that we're longlisted for the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books, maybe the premier book award for science books written for nonscientists. But Ellen had no idea any of that would happen. She just knew the book looked interesting and, most important, I was a local writer.

Writing is a tough business. Most of us make very little money from our writing. By giving us reading spots, PSB helps us make a few immediate sales and lay the groundwork for future sales. Readings also help us network with other writers: I talked to Dominique Browning at her PSB reading after she wondered whether it was true that hummingbirds knit spider silk into their nests (it is), and she very nicely mentioned Spider Silk in her widely read blog. Plus, of course, hanging out in Cafe Zing before or after browsing often results in serendipitous conversations with other writers.

PSB does all this for writers, but it's not a charity. It's a business. We penurious writers can get books cheaper from Amazon. I'm glad to sell a copy of Spider Silk anywhere from any outlet, but Amazon doesn't care about me or the local writing community. Because my co-author and I are of a certain age, most of our friends remember when Cambridge was a mecca for book buyers and have mourned the loss of bookstore after bookstore. So they bought Spider Silk from PSB at my reading, even though they could have gotten it cheaper from Amazon. We didn't even have to ask them to do this--they know from experience what eventually happens when you don't buy books locally.

So, fellow local writers, when we go to a reading at PSB, we should buy something, even if it's not the book being featured. No one begrudges buying a ticket when we go to the movies, but for some reason we think spending an hour and a half at a bookstore listening to something we'll never hear anywhere else should be free. We should buy the books we want to own at PSB. And we should tell our local readers why they should buy our book at PSB, even if it costs more. Almost any book you can get from Amazon, including ebooks, you can get from PSB: if it's not on the shelves today, you can order it. I'm sure most of us follow these rules already, but in tough times, for writers AND bookstores, they seem worth repeating.

The future reading you save may be your own.

Our New Website

So you might have noticed our website looks a little different. We decided to change it up to give a cleaner look, make it easier to navigate, and give a little more web space to the most important things in our lives; books. Here’s what’s new.

You can now get to staff picks, our ebooks page, the children’s section, all the other store information, and pretty much everything else from the drop down menus above our snazzy new banner. Right below our banner are three book lists; our staff picks, the IndieBound bestseller list, and our featured ebooks. Our next event is displayed right on the home page, so it’s easy to see what’s happening at the store and the next five events are listed on the left with a link at the bottom to the full calender. You can still sign up for our monthly email newsletter and order gift cards from the homepage.

The homepage also features our Twitter and Facebook feeds and still has the IndieNext List; a list of the 20 best books of the month as selected by independent booksellers around the country.

The biggest difference is that the account login has moved. Now, there is a “Login” link right above the search field on the right side of the page. Just click on that link and you can login or create an account. Then you’ll be taken directly to your account, which makes things a little more convenient if you’re logging in to access your ebooks. You can return to the homepage, use the search field at the top of the page, or navigate the site with the drop down menus.

Let us know what you think of our new online digs. Leave a comment here or send an email to josh@portersquarebooks.com and thank you for all of your support.

Best Read City in America

We’ve always known that Cambridge is a great book city. So in some ways, when Amazon released its list of best-read cities in America, it was nice to see our home at the top. We were sure Cambridge loves books, now we had some data to back it up. But the rankings are based on per capita Amazon sales, meaning that Cambridge buys more books, per capita from Amazon than any other city. Even though Cambridge has great bookstores, Cantabridgians are choosing convenience over culture and price over personality. Knowing how much Cambridge buys from Amazon it’s no wonder the city went from dozens of bookstores to a dwindling handful.

Of course, there are some books that can only be bought online, and in this economy it’s hard to chastise anyone for saving some money. But shopping exclusively at Amazon has consequences beyond a dwindling bookstore culture. Some major studies have shown shopping at locally owned businesses has a much more positive impact on the local economy than shopping at a nationally owned chain. One study concluded that for every $100 spent, a locally owned store will recirculate about $45 in the local economy, whereas a nationally owned chain will only recirculate roughly $13. And a little change in your spending can do a lot of good. Another study found that shifting 10% of your spending to local retailers could create 1600 jobs and generate $137 million in new activity. So if you buy all of your books from Amazon now, simply buying every tenth book from one of the local independents will do wonders for Cambridge.

Furthermore, Amazon does not remit Massachusetts sales tax. Not only does the state lose revenue, Amazon gets a 6.25% discount advantage over physical retailers. And they are fighting hard to preserve this advantage, lobbying to prevent legislation that would require them to remit sales tax and sometimes firing their affiliates in states where such legislation is passed.

Of course, I could talk about the quality of service that you get at independent bookstores, but, most people already seem to know about that. 23% of book-buyers prefer to buy books from indie bookstores and yet indie bookstores account for only 5-10% of book purchases. We call this gap between the percentage of books bought in indie bookstores and the percentage of people who “prefer” to shop in them, the “mindshare gap.” So, I could go through the list of things we do that Amazon can’t, and I certainly can’t miss an opportunity to say that Porter Square Books sells ebooks, quite often for the exact same price as Amazon, but it seems like the point has already been made.

Cambridge is a fantastic city to have a book store in. When Porter Square Books opened almost 7 years ago, we were overwhelmed by the support our community showed. Furthermore, selling books in Cambridge isn’t just an issue of scanning barcodes, we get to have fun intelligent conversations with well-read people about the books we love. Most days, working at Porter Square Books feels less like a job and more like being a member of dozens of rolling book clubs. So to everyone who is already making our job so much fun, thank you for your support. And for those of you great readers who only shop at Amazon, stop in once in awhile. You might like what you find.

Kids Summer Reading Lists

Our kids books experts have put together some great summer reading lists. Stop by the store, check out the display and grab a list. We have lists for three age ranges, K-2nd Grade, 3rd-5th grade and 6th-8th grade. Check out some of the highlights below.

K-2

Bear's Water Picnic, by John Yeoman, Illu. Quentin Blake (Andersen Press) Five forest friends embark on the perfect summer outing, but those noisy frogs won't stop their awrk-awrking. Will the animals find a way to go with the current?

The Big Fat Cow That Goes Kapow!, by Andy Griffiths, Illu. Terry Denton (Feiwel & Friends)
A laugh-out-loud collection of ten, short, easy-to-read stories. Includes characters like “lumpy-head Fred” and “Mike who rides a bike with a very big spike!” ()

3-5

Anna Hibiscus, by Atinuke (Kane Miller)
Anna lives in Africa with her dad’s side of the family. Her mom has told Anna of the snow of her own childhood, and now Anna wants to see it.

Justin Case: School, Drool and Other Daily Disasters, by Rachel Vail, Illu. Matthew Cordell (Feiwel & Friends)
Nothing’s going right for Justin. It’s the beginning of third grade, he has the wrong teacher and he’s lost his favorite stuffed animal. This funny, illustrated diary will appeal to the Wimpy Kid crowd.

6-8

Mockingbird, by Kathryn Erskine (Penguin)
CaitlinAnnSmith has Asperger’s syndrome, and sees the world in black and white. When tragedy strikes her family, however, she is the one who sees the clear path to healing and closure.

Claudette Colvin, by Phillip Hoose (Square Fish)
One year before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on that Montgomery bus, 16-year-old Claudette Colvin did the same, but with very different results. Here is her story.

Interview with Two-Dollar Radio

Two Dollar Radio is a boutique publisher who functions on a no-wasted bullets policy. You won’t find jokebooks or bathroom readers camouflaged in their lists. In the work they publish, they value ambition above all, and believe that none of their books crimp to convention when it comes to storytelling or voice. Ideally, that contributes to a liberating reading experience. Their primary interest lies with what they would characterize as bold literary fiction: subversive, original, and highly creative.

The name has its origins in a San Diego bar, when the bartender/publisher was ignoring a belligerent old man who blurted out, “Don’t mind me, I make more noise than a two-dollar radio.”

Below is an interview with Eric Obenauf, Publisher and Editor in Chief.

Why did you decide to get into publishing?

I studied dramatic writing in college, but the more I learned about the film industry the less I wanted anything to do with it. I got into fiction writing because I believed it was pure – an art produced by one person and in turn consumed by one person – that could provide this incredible personal connection that you feel in the grip of your favorite authors. My wife and I took a road trip to Big Sur and picked up a copy of Andre Schiffrin’s The Business of Books at the Henry Miller Memorial Library, which burst my bubble about the publishing industry. I was definitely inspired enough to act.

What are some of the challenges specific to being a small publisher?

It’s probably most difficult to deal with the long-lead sales seasons that are dictated by the large publishers. As a small press, it’s hard to fork over an advance for a book that won’t earn money for another two years.

In a recent Boston Review article a number of publishers, small and large, talked about the pressure Amazon puts on them. What has your experience with Amazon been like?

Ummm... We don’t have any direct interaction with Amazon as that all takes place through our distributor, but you still feel the squeeze. It’s also knowing how they conduct themselves as a business, as well as the impact they have on our society that is especially disturbing. In the recent past it seemed as though we may have been entering a new age of corporate responsibility, which has proven to be a stupidly optimistic pipe-dream. Clearly change won’t happen thanks to any sort of responsible accounting enacted on our behalf by our state or federal governments (although, big ups to California!), so we try to let people know – visitors to our website, friends, family, acquaintances – about what goes on. As an outfit that sports its idealism on its sleeve, I’m genuinely embarrassed by our interaction with Amazon.

How about some of the advantages to being a small publisher?

Oh man, I love everything about the position we’re in, it makes me giddy. It’s easier to establish credibility with readers and reviewers as a small press because you have a carefully curated list, especially starting out as it’s organized by just one editor. I had this conversation with Gavin Grant of Small Beer at BEA, where at a small press you’re never publishing anything that you would classify as good – it has to be great. And hopefully that passion for your work translates and is evident to readers and booksellers.

There are a lot of restrictions to being a small press, but then that forces you to get creative with your problem solving, which can be really thrilling. A good example of that is Featherproof, who publishes three or so books a year, but they’re super-creative and have things like Storygami, their mini-books, and I’ve heard a really stunning app. That’s how you stand out with little-to-no budget.

There’s also an incredibly strong support group in the indie publishing community. First and foremost, support from indie bookstores, which provides the very backbone of our existence as most of our sales go through them. In starting out, a number of individuals, such as Johnny Temple, Richard Nash, and Pat Walsh, as well as the truly kind people at Consortium (our distributor), have given us invaluable advice.

What’s the most exciting thing about the work that you do? What keeps you getting up and going to the office?

Most days I work from home, so I can’t really avoid it. In all seriousness, it’s immensely gratifying work, especially now that we’re solvent. You can probably sense my enthusiasm from some of my other responses, but I never want to do anything else. Eliza and I tattooed our logo on our wrists, so it’s very much embedded in who we are. And now, one of our authors, Joshua Mohr, tattooed the radio on his arm, as did Emily Pullen, who started working with us. The other night we were walking down our street and my daughter was riding her bike, when out of nowhere she turns to us and says, ‘when I grow up I want to work on Two Dollar Radio,’ and it choked me up.

Did you feel a sense of validation when Grace Krilanovich, author of The Orange Eats Creeps, was named to the 5 under 35, list? What was your reaction to that?

It has been really satisfying to witness such a bold and brave artistic statement being rewarded, and not just by the fringe but by the mainstream. It was all Grace. She wrote the most courageous book that I’ve read in years. Most first novels that are submitted to us read like they’ve been workshopped to death, where they’re formulaic and conventional. It was evident that Grace held herself to her own very high creative standards. Eliza and I spent many summer nights sitting on our front porch talking about the book, peeling back the layers. It has that pull for readers, that you want to talk about it, debate it, tell your friends to read it, and it became apparent early on, even before the book came out that it had a special glow about it.

Steve Erickson’s intro still gives me goosebumps. I think to have a writer of Steve’s stature flattering Grace and her writing in the way that he did definitely piqued interest. There were some places like HTML Giant that started singing its praises very early on that helped it to gather steam. But the ‘5 Under 35’ thing, it wasn’t a committee decision, but one very esteemed writer, Scott Spencer, singling the book out. I’m sure he didn’t make the most obvious choice. And I’m fairly certain he received a cocked eyebrow or two when he proposed going to bat for a book that mentioned slutty teenage hobo vampire junkies in the synopsis. Which is a testament to the power of Grace’s writing.

I like to imagine that in a lot of ways it’s what readers nowadays are seeking. I know I am. I was asked recently by a reporter what the appeal of an artist like Rudy Wurlitzer has for our generation, so this has been on my mind a lot. I don’t think it’s generational in any way but emblematic of where we are as a culture. Rudy and Grace, I believe to be singular. As artists, as writers, they have remained true to their own voice and vision, while also not caving to the commercial demands of the economy. There’s a purity and authenticity to the approach that feels absolutely vital. It’s what we’re lacking with our medication, sleek gadgets, and everything-on-demand. There’s a swagger to it that feels too rare in our lemonade-stand culture of literature. What’s really inspiring to me both as a publisher and a reader is witnessing a new crop of young writers, some of whom I’ve had the good fortune to publish, and others like Joshua Cohen and Blake Butler, who appear beholden solely to themselves. They never compromised their voice in order to be published or to succeed, which marks them in my mind as the torchbearers who will impart a renewed sense of value upon our future literary world.

What does it mean for a book to be “subversive, original, and highly creative?”

Ideally that’s identifiable in some or all of our books.

What are a publisher’s responsibilities to the world of readers?

As someone with a platform in the arts, however limited, I believe you have a responsibility to contribute something to our culture. Which may sound self-righteous, but whatevs. This was actually a big point of Schiffrin’s book, where he talked about corporate publishing becoming homogenized, with five publishers essentially dominating eighty percent of book sales in the country, which is dangerous for any self-proclaimed democracy in addition to being exceptionally boring. It appears to be cyclical, so I’m actually indebted to the corporate takeover which has enabled this incredibly vibrant and fertile time that we’re living in now. It has enabled our very existence and that of countless other indie presses. It’s a new golden age.

Hopefully we’re providing a service for readers that they wouldn’t find elsewhere; that’s our goal and we know it’s not for everybody. Our families, for instance, have gotten pretty good at feigning interest. But the last thing the world needs is a small press releasing books about a boy’s relationship with his dog.

What are you reading now?

We just returned from Book Expo America in New York, so I have a stack that I picked up in stores and at the show that I’m excited about and am reading simultaneously: Bohemian Girl by Terese Svoboda, Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, and The Ask by Sam Lipsyte.

Mobile Optimized and Gift Card for eBooks

Last week Portersquarebooks.com became mobile optimized. This means our website is a lot easier to use on your smartphone. You’ll be able to search for and buy books and ebooks much easier, get a listing of our events, and login to your account to read Google ebooks you’ve already purchased. You can also change back to the regular website if you want to read staff picks, check our childrens section, or explore other parts of our website.


You can also now purchase ebooks with a gift card. Gift cards can be ordered online and over the phone as well as in the store. The American Booksellers Association (they handle the e-commerce part of our website) has been working tirelessly on developing this capacity. It works the same way paying for a regular book with a gift card does. If the amount ends up more than the value of a gift card, you’ll be prompted to enter credit card information. This means you can, finally, share your support for Porter Square Books (and many other indie bookstores around the country) with your friends and family with ereaders.

Environmentally Conscious E-reading

As with the pricing of ebooks, the environmental impact of ebooks and ereading is a lot more complicated than it first appeared. Like many others, I first thought of all those trees that wouldn’t be cut down and all that gas that wouldn’t be used shipping books from publisher to store (and sometimes back again). But as Ted Genoways, in his illuminating essay in the Virginia Quarterly Review argued, there’s a lot more going on environmentally with digital reading devices than just saving trees. Genoways is worth quoting at length:

“But the New York Times recently calculated that the environmental impact of a single e-reader—factoring in the use of minerals, water, and fossil fuels along the manufacturing process—is roughly the same as fifty books. At first that sounds encouraging; after all, even the smallest personal library contains fifty volumes. But the real problems come in lifespan. At present, the average e-reader is used less than two years before it is replaced. That means that the nearly ten million e-readers expected to be in use by next year would have to supplant the sales of 250 million new books—not used or rare editions, 250 million new books—each year just to come out footprint-neutral. Considering the fact that the Association of American Publishers estimates that the combined sales of all books in America (adult books, children’s books, textbooks, and religious works) amounted to fewer than 25 million copies last year, we have already increased the environmental impact of reading by tenfold. Moreover, it takes almost exactly fifty times as much fossil fuel production to power an iPad for the hours it takes to read a book as it would take to read the same book on paper by electric light.”

Here is the full quote from the New York Times article he mentions:

“So, how many volumes do you need to read on your e-reader to break even?
With respect to fossil fuels, water use and mineral consumption, the impact of one e-reader payback equals roughly 40 to 50 books. When it comes to global warming, though, it’s 100 books; with human health consequences, it’s somewhere in between.”

Does this mean we should abandon ereading in order to protect the environment? No, it just means, that, like everything else, if we want to diminish our negative impact on the environment, we need to be conscientious. So if you want to read ebooks, here are some strategies to improve your impact on the environment.

If You’ve Got an Ereader Use it Until It Breaks: Perhaps the biggest source of impact of electronic devices is that we constantly replace them, no matter what condition the old device is in. The numbers quoted above suggest you replace (not just read) at least 100 books with ebooks if you want to be certain to just break even, in terms of negative environmental impact, but really, in terms of global warming we probably want to try for a little more than breaking even. How long that takes depends on how many books you buy, but I imagine for most people, the new device will be out long before they’ve reached the 100 books mark. So don’t buy a new device until your old one breaks. If your old device breaks every year or two, stop buying from that company.

Buy a Used Device: Last year’s model will still read this year’s books and old readers are probably pretty cheap. They might not have all the features of the newest model, but they’ll get the job done.

Buy One Multifunctional Device: With various apps, including Google Ebooks, any tablet can also be an ereader. Furthermore, the new tablet PCs or “convertible tablets” or “netvertibles” can be your computer, iPad, and Nook, all in one device. The fewer devices you buy, the less of a negative environmental you impact you’ll have. And in that vein...

Read Ebooks on a Device You Already Have: If you’ve got an iPad or other tablet, just get the Google Ebooks app, or some other ereader app and away you go. Google ebooks can also be read on any computer, so if you’re already carrying around a laptop or spending a lot of time on your desktop you might as well read ebooks on the computers you have. You could also download Adobe Digital Editions, an ereading software that works with tons of different ebooks providers, including the Google ebooks sold at Porter Square Books.


As with pretty much everything else in our global economy, the ecological impact of ereading isn’t simple. But if you are conscientious about the device you buy and how you use it, ebooks can be an eco-friendly way to read books and support your locally owned independent bookstore.