I don't have a lot of time, but this week's suggsted topic is near and dear to my heart.  I have spent long hours of my life in independent bookstores, browsing shelves, piling and unpiling musty old volumes in search of treasure.  That was how I learned to love books - how I cam to collect them.  The bookstore is a magic place...I wrote  a story about that once.

Now they serve a purpose that is also of personal importance.  Locally, we have two bookstores.  They are both independent, and they both carry my books.  They arrange book signings.  One has, literally, piles of an expensive limited edition of one of my novels.  Why?  Because they are intersted. They are involved with their customers, their readers and the authors who supply them.  They know their books - know what is good, what is not, what is valuable...they care in ways that even the best employees of chain stores never will.

If I make it into a chain store, it's because I sold to NYC ... or managed some sort of deal with one local chain.  Sure, my books show up on their websites for order on line...so do everyone's, including the self-published, the crap, and the long-forgotten.  I can get a signing at a chain store, but the red tape is often huge just to get copies of my books into stock in the one store where I'll appear.  The connection between the author, the books, and the bookstore owners is lost.

 We need to support the stores that are left.  One such establishment, just down the street from me, is Carolina Moon Books.

The other is Pager After Page.

Both take online orders.  Carolina Moon has some wonderful antique volumes about North Carolina, books about Catfish Hunter, and much more.  Pager After Page has a large selection of books by local and regional authors, best-sellers, and more.  Both have my books - hard to find editions I would love to see them sell - supporting them in return.

If you have a local independent bookstore...give them a few minutes of your time.  Browse, see what they have...get to know them.  That kind of relationship with your bookseller is something that is becomeing all too rare...and in my mind, it is something to be treasured.  Help keep it from slipping away.  Buy independent.

-DNW