The following is a reaction I received via email. I actually met this respondent, Deborah Day, during the Sacramento Black Book Festival last month. She is a bookseller, publisher, and author.
Hi Troy,
This is a great article and I will post it on Facebook. You are so right. We as Independent Booksellers can compete against Amazon, when we really look at all the benefits we have to offer our customers. Knowing our market and community needs, can help us greatly provide the best offer, whether it's product, price, selection or delivery to "get the business". And our market footprint should be local, national and international. And since, there are only 80 owned black books stores in the U.S., there is no threatening competition among each other.
My belief is that we need to do all we can to build and protect our markets. If it is our creativity that birthed the book and the business, then we should profit the most from that effort. Yes we can write, illustrate and produce our own books and tell our own stories, but the other important factor is that we must also control the distribution. This is why our Independent Bookstores are so important online and in our communities. We need to keep our eyes on the ball and not loose our grip on this market. It's not just Amazon's dominating presence and practices eroding our market share, but there are other undercurrents online that threaten our businesses that include hate cyber attacks and corruption. Now I am not totally against Amazon, because I buy books from them too, but only if I can't get a book from the publisher or a distributer, and I need a book quickly to complete an order. But, I didn't like it when Amazon started allowing resellers to undersell publishers with the same new or used book. Because, my book, "Mindful Messages", got stolen and bootlegged on Amazon and I lost money. Now I am seeing many black authors, bypassing Amazon and selling their books direct from their own websites. Which can be successfully done with lots of social media.
Like someone said, "We are who we have been waiting for." And when we have the right conscious mind, we will seek each other out to do business with one another. And we will go out of our way if need be, to support one another in sustaining black businesses. And we will recognize the importance of the full circle of exponential economics and it's impact on empowering our communities. And then and only then will it be an ever continuing reality.
Deborah Day
Ashay by the Bay
I'd heard about bootlegging up books for year, but Amazon has really created a major platform for selling knock off products, including books. Debirah said she wanted to sue, but Amazon was not helpful at all.