"How Did This Book Get Into My Hands" with Paul Yamazaki

I couldn't agree with you more about the generosity in the industry.

People help one another and support one another.

It is a real hallmark of the industry.

Can you talk about how bookselling has changed, how things have changed for the independent bookseller? There was a time when people thought independent bookselling is doomed.

And now we've seen this incredible resurgence of independent booksellers.

Well,

I think...

It might be easier to go from what has stayed the same, and it is that generosity and the commitment from people to foster the next generation.

And that's both on a person-to-person basis, but the American Booksellers Association deserves a lot of credit, both the staff and boards, creating environments where that can happen beyond a local or regional level, that you can now have a national conversation through the Winner Institute every year to work with younger booksellers to have a chance to interact with them.

I think one of the most important things that ABA has helped do is to be very conscious about raising class in the book business and as much as they can as a trade association, create a platform where it becomes viable for a bookseller of color or of various diverse backgrounds who are thinking about opening a bookstore and many times in communities that

really hadn't seen much independent bookstore activity and to give a strong

foundation of what's possible here, what the economic challenges are.

And so that's the other thing that hasn't changed.

The economic challenges in the book business and particularly in independent book selling, the margins are so thin that any economic economic analysis.

The returns are so little.

Other types of returns, you can't calculate.

I feel so fortunate that I've spent my lifetime as a bookseller and being part of this larger literary and book community that we're all part of.

We keep coming back to the word generosity.

If you hadn't stepped in at the point that you did, taking on PGW and Consortium, it's hard to say where the book industry would be at right now.

So I can say from City Lights' point of view, 43% of our sales are a combination of independent presses and university presses.

And 80% of our total sales are backlist.

And so the Grove, New Direction, Gray Wolf, Milkweed, Copper Canyon, they're all part of the PGW Consortium Ecology, are critical to not just independent bookstores, but how... develop curiosity of readers.

And so that circles back to that thing of why independents are sustainable.

I'm not going to use the word thriving, but we have found a basis to be sustainable and make it possible for younger book people to even opened their own bookstores and that it is that backlist that feeds the curiosity of so many different readers in the process of discovery.

Whether you're going into a big bookstore like McNally Jackson or something much smaller like Three Lives, all those places are wonderful portals to discovery.

I couldn't agree with you more about the generosity in the industry.

People help one another and support one another.

It is a real hallmark of the industry.

Can you talk about how bookselling has changed, how things have changed for the independent bookseller? There was a time when people thought independent bookselling is doomed.

And now we've seen this incredible resurgence of independent booksellers.

Well,

I think...

It might be easier to go from what has stayed the same, and it is that generosity and the commitment from people to foster the next generation.

And that's both on a person-to-person basis, but the American Booksellers Association deserves a lot of credit, both the staff and boards, creating environments where that can happen beyond a local or regional level, that you can now have a national conversation through the Winner Institute every year to work with younger booksellers to have a chance to interact with them.

I think one of the most important things that ABA has helped do is to be very conscious about raising class in the book business and as much as they can as a trade association, create a platform where it becomes viable for a bookseller of color or of various diverse backgrounds who are thinking about opening a bookstore and many times in communities that

really hadn't seen much independent bookstore activity and to give a strong

foundation of what's possible here, what the economic challenges are.

And so that's the other thing that hasn't changed.

The economic challenges in the book business and particularly in independent book selling, the margins are so thin that any economic economic analysis.

The returns are so little.

Other types of returns, you can't calculate.

I feel so fortunate that I've spent my lifetime as a bookseller and being part of this larger literary and book community that we're all part of.

We keep coming back to the word generosity.

If you hadn't stepped in at the point that you did, taking on PGW and Consortium, it's hard to say where the book industry would be at right now.

So I can say from City Lights' point of view, 43% of our sales are a combination of independent presses and university presses.

And 80% of our total sales are backlist.

And so the Grove, New Direction, Gray Wolf, Milkweed, Copper Canyon, they're all part of the PGW Consortium Ecology, are critical to not just independent bookstores, but how... develop curiosity of readers.

And so that circles back to that thing of why independents are sustainable.

I'm not going to use the word thriving, but we have found a basis to be sustainable and make it possible for younger book people to even opened their own bookstores and that it is that backlist that feeds the curiosity of so many different readers in the process of discovery.

Whether you're going into a big bookstore like McNally Jackson or something much smaller like Three Lives, all those places are wonderful portals to discovery.