Find Your Bookstore Contest!

It's been a couple of years since I updated my database of independent bookstores. When I created the list in 2007, there were 579 appropriate, viable bookstores on it.

Today there are 505. That's pretty awful, but when you consider the impact of the economy in the last three years, it's not nearly as bad as it could have been. Considering that overall, only half of new small businesses survive their first five years, it's pretty damned good. I'm happy to see that a lot of bookstores that had eschewed the internet now have web sites. And web sites of their own, not just listings in Booksense. You would think that, say, an independent bookseller on the Upper East Side of Manhattan would know that it should have a web site, but apparently bookstores are among the last to join us here on our intertubes.

Here's the thing: I'm betting there are a lot of good, viable bookstores that haven't made my list yet. There are 1200+ booksellers in the American Booksellers' Association, and many of them would be appropriate for my database. I use this database to market my books, to consider locations for book signings when traveling, etc.

So here's my contest! Enter by posting here about an independent bookstore in your area. That means no Borders, Barnes and Noble, Waldenbooks, Books-a-Million, etc. Those guys have book buyers who are far too in love with the Twilight and Harry Potter knockoffs for us small-press folk to bother with. They think you only want Nora Roberts and John Grisham forever and ever amen. I'm betting the indie bookstores know better.

Also please leave out bookstores that are solely for genres I don't write, like children's books, Christian/inspirational or nonfiction; bookstores that only sell used books; and bookstores that are going out of business. I'll take mystery bookstores because some of my stuff could be considered mystery, like the vampire stories.

I need the following info:
• Name of store
• Street address including ZIP
• Web site (if any)
• Owner's name (if you have it)
• Phone number (ditto)

Each store you give me gets you one entry in the contest! Prizes include free books (by me and by other people), gift certificates to LiteraryUnderworld.com, and the grand prize... being killed in a story. Muahahaha.

And you indie bookstores... hang in there, okay? We need you!