Why independent bookstores matter

Having a curated selection also allows the staff to have a much deeper knowledge of the books the store carries, which makes it easier for them to make personalized recommendations to shoppers who visit this store. Naturally, this establishes personal connections and further reinforces the idea of a local reader community. Successful independent bookstores are more than just a place to go buy a book; they also facilitate events and a local culture that brings the community together.

This can include book club meetings, author meet and greets, and other events, or simply the addition of a comfortable space for book lovers to read, discuss books, or maybe enjoy a cup of coffee.

Independent bookstores are also good for authors. Many new and self-published authors turn to their local indie booksellers for support with organizing events and even stocking their books—two things that are not nearly as easy with large, chain retailers.

Independent bookstores were seeing a steady upward trend in both sales and the number of stores operating. The Covid pandemic threatened to undue much of that progress in , with many independent bookstores forced to close their doors, at least temporarily due to lockdown orders, or in some unfortunate cases, permanently, due to the financial damage caused by the lockdowns. At the same time, though, many indie booksellers turned to online sales platforms, which helped them to survive and forced them to evolve in the process , while platforms like Bookshop.

Read more about the effects of Covid on the publishing industry. It may be too early to judge the future of independent bookstores after such a rollercoaster year, but the success stories do offer hope. The easiest and most direct way to support independent booksellers is to patronize your local bookstore.

Not sure where yours is? Use this tool from IndieBound to find the indie bookstores closest to you. Award-winning author Joy Castro discusses how her free webinar series, Writing Brilliant Essays, is a marriage between pre-COVID classroom practices and the incorporation of what she learned when education went virtual.

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A friend, a Chicago Public Schools reading specialist and bookstore colleague, used to browse with a promising young student at 57th Street Books, helping her develop a lifelong love of reading. If you talk to people in Hyde Park, it seems everyone has a similar story. Community matters in this place. Bookstores — places that nurture learning and discussion, champion diverse voices and ideas, celebrate language, treasure knowledge and connect the past with our chaotic present to show us how we might go forward — are more needed than ever.

We must do everything we can to support them now, before it is too late because they are hubs of building what Martin Luther King Jr. Submit a letter, of no more than words, to the editor here or email letters chicagotribune.

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