Indie Bookstores Rising: New York Mag Gets Up Close And Personal With New York City's Independents

New York Magazine has a great feature in its Books section today celebrating the independent bookstores of New York City. It consists of six different articles and an introductory piece -- all of which, put together, paint a comprehensive and fascinating portrait of the state of indie bookstore culture in New York today.

The feature focuses specifically on all of the new independents that have popped up in the past few years -- a trend that is due in part to "the local-is-better ethos," the article suggests. One article gives an overview of the newcomers to the bookstore scene, including stores that have relocated to great success.

One of the new stores featured is the Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn (a HuffPost Books favorite), which gave readers a great opportunity to take a look at its books for the year, showing an impressive overall profit of over $11,000. Not all bookstores are struggling to stay alive, the piece suggests.

The piece also features a very fun series of short blurbs from New York City authors like Jonathan Franzen and Jhumpa Lahiri who share their favorite NYC independent bookstores (Logos and Greenlight, respectively).

Other aspects of the feature include the booksellers' recommendations for upcoming titles, a list of niche bookstores, and some examples of how much you can get by selling different books at various used bookstores around the city.

For more about independent bookstores, check out these recent HuffPost Books features:

• Bookstores We Love For Their Spirit Of Independence
• Readers' Picks: Bookstores We Love For Their Spirit Of Independence
• 9 Of The Most Amazing Bookstores In The World

Comments

[Leo Bartel]

09:52 PM on 08/03/2010

Local is better.

[MrWebster]

03:54 PM on 08/03/2010

Oh gosh, another NYC-centric view of bookselling and bookstores. But why complain. The world of writing and publishing has moved beyond that little patch of America.

[thecoffeegod]

02:05 PM on 08/03/2010

Glad to see them coming back from the edge.

[CinNYC]

01:30 PM on 08/03/2010

Sadly, the indies may one day be the maginot line against the e-book blitzkrieg...

[MrWebster]

03:59 PM on 08/03/2010

They don't have to be. For example, a large independent like Powell's in Portland, Oregon (for the geographically challenged, Oregon is north of Hollywood) with their huge huge collection of books (I think the largest in the US--hint to the geographically challenged--NYC is in the US) they could allow people to browser their collection and take a look at a paper book, and buy the ebook version at a lower price, but from Powell's--so Powell's gets the retail end of the sale. Have not idea if they are thinking about that but an idea for independents with loyal customers and a comfortable space.

[bblueskye]

04:23 PM on 08/02/2010

I work for one of the chains, but I'm happy to see the indie stores rising again. The chains don't have much to offer, and the chains are more worried about rewards cards, membership cards, promoting certain titles of little interest to consumers, and the corporate chains are pretending they are concerned for customer satisfaction when they don't really care.