The Current Weather in Suttons Bay

Suttons Bay Resident to Complete 350-mile Walk to Benefit Local Project

Successful Suttons Bay Art Walk
Fall Finale

Suttons Bay Merchants, Artists and Leelanau County Wineries

Suttons Bay Parks & Recreation- Herman Property Acquisition

Greater Suttons Bay Area Park and Recreation Fund

Recreation without Borders

Independent booksellers fight chains with community and character

http://tcdailyplanet.net/node/8687

By Taylor Cisco, III, TC Daily Planet

The right to buy what you want from where you want to buy it is as American as apple pie, baseball and reality television. As the retail landscape becomes dominated by the uniform outlines of strip malls, outlet stores, big box chains and global conglomerates, there is a longing for the quaint storefront of the neighborhood Mom and Pop shop. The private movie house, the barbershop, and the corner coffeehouse are endangered species in a dying ecosystem. The last vestiges of independent American business are on the run. The most at risk of them all is arguably one of the most important: the independent book store.

--- For decades, the struggle independent bookstores have faced competing against corporate booksellers_and more recently, online merchants_has been an arduous, uphill battle against a resilient opponent with seemingly endless resources. Midway through our current holiday season, this year is looking to be no different. In fact, the retail challenge looks to be worse than ever for our hometown proprietors.

Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.com dominate the market offering sweeping discounts, multimedia merchandise, coffee, snacks and other non-literary goods. Just as shopping malls have threatened main street storefronts, the corporate booksellers may soon render our beloved independents obsolete.

The going has been extremely tough for independent book stores all over the country. Along both coasts, well known independents have folded, unable to maintain a large enough market share to keep their doors open. Here in the Twin Cities, the prognosis is no different, though there are a few indies looking to give the big guys a run for their money.

Having opened its doors nearly forty years ago, Amazon Bookstore Cooperative is the oldest independent feminist bookstore in North America. In the 1990s, the Amazon Bookstore Cooperative filed a suit against Amazon.com for trademark infringement. The outcome of the case saw the indie shop_which had been in business for thirty years_signing over the rights to their own name, then licensing it back from the corporate website.

Megan Kocher, co-owner and buyer for the Amazon Bookstore Cooperative, is cheerful and optimistic about the current state of the market. When asked about the impact this holiday season is having on smaller shops like hers, Megan diplomatically replied, "It's hard to say how directly, but we certainly do feel it." Like many other independent shops, the Amazon Bookstore Cooperative has incentives that are often hard to find at the chain stores_such as supplying hard-to-find niche materials and a truly personal shopping experience.

On the other side of the river, in the Summit-University neighborhood, Garrison Keillor's Common Good Books has been fairly successful in its first year of business. The store has carved out quite a following, offering titles by local authors as well as titles by those who regularly top bestseller lists.

At Common Good Books, the holiday shopping environment was warm and social. It seemed as if people filled every inch of the space, browsing the shelves and selecting gifts for friends and family. When asked why they picked Common Good instead of Borders or Barnes & Noble, patrons' answers were always the same: customer service that is well above average, a unique selection, and a neighborhood focus. Not a single customer mentioned the celebrity of the owner.

One-stop shopping is great in terms of consolidating our increasingly hectic downtime, in which what is supposed to be a time to relax and regroup is most often a time of constant running. However, we cannot blame the large chains for the downfall of the independent store. A company is only as strong as its consumer base and we, the local patrons, have neglected our local shops. The Amazon Bookstore Cooperative has been around for almost half a century, continuing the tradition pioneered by the Shakespeare & Co. bookshop in bohemian Paris and the City Lights Bookstore of Beat-Generation San Francisco. Is there any doubt that our culture has been enriched by the works of D.H. Lawrence, Sylvia Beach, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg? All of them owe their careers to the independent book store.

In this age of instant information and quick results, practically everything is available with the touch of a button. But as retail chains grow larger, and neighborhoods become shopping districts, it is more than just the Mom and Pop shops that feel it. When we sacrifice quality for speed and community for convenience, it affects us all. In order to keep local shops in business, the solution is simple: patronize them.

--- Taylor Cisco, III (tciscoiii@gmail.com) is a newswriter, producer, and political essayist. A Chicago native, he currently resides in St. Louis Park with his wife Kara and their cat Zelda.

Suttons Bay Stores



Local Suttons Bay Stores
- including information on where to buy books in Suttons Bay

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Some Amazon Bestsellers

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Saving the Family Cottage: A Guide to Succession Planning for Your Cottage, Cabin, Camp or Vacation Home

by Stuart J. Hollander, with a Foreword by Deborah Wyatt Fellows, Publisher, Traverse the Magazine - $19.95 US



Buy Saving the Family Cottage Today!

The late Stuart Hollander has written the first "attorney authored" book for the vacation home owner. This book describes the problems inherent to shared cottage ownership and the concerns of parents who wish to pass it on. After a careful analysis of the pros and cons of different shared ownership arrangement, the author outlines his preferred method to help families preserve this valuable asset for generations to come. Using the stories from families he has worked with and clear graphic illustrations for the legal concepts involved, the book is reader friendly and informative.

Although Hollander uses the term "cottage," the principles of his book apply to any property that a family wants to retain, whether it is an Adirondack camp, an Upper Midwest cabin, a Western ranch, or an ocean, lake, or riverfront home. Written for the vacation home owner but with information that also will be useful to attorneys and financial planners, the book engages the reader with stories of cottage "wars" and planning gone awry. Narrative examples and easy-to-follow graphics illustrate the more technical aspects of succession planning for a vacation home. The book makes a complex problem understandable and offers methods to help keep a second home in the family for generations.


Bestsellers

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Read, Read, Read!
Guide and Teach a Child or a Friend about the Known Excitement and Known Satisfaction of Reading and Books!

Thanks to an email I received this morning from Bill Burns of Long Island, New York, I was directed to a recorded broadcast of National Public Radio's "On the Media" segment which today featured books:

"From Oprah's Book Club to the Google Library Project, the way we buy, search, read and even discuss books is changing. And so we begin with a look at some of the forces now tugging at the industry."

Listen to the whole show or individual segments at:

http://www.onthemedia.org/episodes/2007/11/23/segments/89336

Some interesting insights also gleaned by Nick Cvetkovic included these statistics:

11 percent of ALL book sales in the US come from Amazon
and
a mere 40 percent from brick and mortar book stores.

These statisitics help shed light on the fabric of many communities and the demise of local independent booksellers. A community's obvious lack of support is reflected by their buying habits. As an independent it is truly hard to compete with chains and online selling venues in most markets. However, knowing, understanding, and embracing that dynamic selling opportunity makes all the sense in the world for a business owner to put their inventory in front of the buying public, whether they be online or physically in your store.

One terrific point made was how the above trend will actually turn around and put the independent bookseller back into a coveted position because of their abilities to know and understand the books (inventory items) they are selling on the front tables when you enter their stores. Those books are placed there because the bookseller has a personal knowledge of the contents - and they were not paid to put those items in front of the public. I'll let you in on a little bookselling secret, people do not find books, books actually find people. The next time you have the chance be sure to read The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley. Morley's protagonist describes perfectly the prescriptive nature of books and readers.



The realization that only 30% of the buying public ever ventures into a bookstore was one of determining reasons as to why, after nine years, I moved Known Books out of the high-rent retail blocks of the resort community of Suttons Bay and decreased most retail hours of operation.

Known Books' customers, and any book lover looking for a good book will always find a location where they are comfortable buying books. This is another reason why I decided to stock our local grocery store in Suttons Bay, Hansen Foods, with new releases, the bestsellers and local and topical books - also, because this is the store which gets all the traffic in town, seven days a week. I am a firm believer that books need to be made available, always.

The down side of course, as a bookseller, is not always being available to help customers with their selections, to talk about what is new, what the story line is about, to share the excitement which can only come when you find those literary nuggets. The bookseller is the crucial element which can never be replaced by online buying and selling. It is the one thing that the whole internet community cannot take away from you, the book lover!



Soon, Suttons Bay will be enhanced with a new bookstore. Earlier this summer Peter Makin approached me about moving Known Books back on main street. He was correct with his observation that Suttons Bay truly needed to have a bookstore on main street. He wanted me to move back to my previous high-rent location next to The Silvertree Deli. I must honestly admit that the sugar plums danced viciously in my head and I got excited about doing a bookselling venture with Peter (he is actually a delightful ole chap). Imagine how deeply my heart sank when he decided that he wanted to go it alone, to build something of his own, to open his own bookstore, with his own "not Known" identity in Suttons Bay. So long story short, and much to my continuing surprise Peter will be occupying the retail location where I'd been planning for the past year or so to reopen Known Books (you know - top of the waiting list and all - I really need to find out how *that* happened!).

This addition to Suttons Bay is vital. I encourage all to support this new store because a bookstore should survive, it should be healthy. The mere presence of a bookstore is a visual reminder to all to keep buying books, to keep reading. A bookstore is a wonderful symbol to a child that books matter, a terrific reminder of the validity of the printed word, of the book. A bookstore is the ultimate celebration of the book as a product; the author, the design, the paper and the way the ink displays those words as you flip through those pages. A bookstore contains the crucial element essential to our society: a bookseller, a person who cares enough to surround themselves with books for you. And that aspect alone is worth the effort, struggle, long hours, and financial risk to open the doors of an independent bookstore - especially in a small resort community like Suttons Bay!

So as you go through Suttons Bay and see his sign rejoice in knowing he will be there. And don't worry, Known Books is still in Suttons Bay selling books as usual! We are still in the lower level of the Millside Building overlooking the shores of Suttons Bay, maybe not as visible as we were when we were next to The Silvertree Deli, but nonetheless, still in Suttons Bay celebrating books, and book selling. Welcome Peter to this wonderful world of book selling, to being a "book seller". Being a bookseller is the ultimate way of life and living. And regardless of how many books we move around the country via the mail from internet book sales, a bookseller is an element that even the internet cannot remove from a community - I know Peter will be "brilliant, simply brilliant!"

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Known Amazon Bestsellers

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Known Books for Booksellers and Peter Makin of Brilliant Books

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Links to Books about Michigan & Books about Suttons Bay & Leelanau County and the "Leelanau Peninsula Lifestyle Mindset"!

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Three Sizzling Northern Michigan Romantic Thrillers!

The Covenant Field

Hot off the Presses!
It was nearly noon Iowa time when we finally crossed the Mississippi River and into the rolling, corn-stubbled hills of America's breadbasket. Michigan's congested midriff was far in the rear view mirror, now only the land Lewis and Clark dubbed, 'the great green sea' tread beneath my wheels.

It was in those weed-covered hills I made a horrible discovery one blustery November afternoon...

When Judge Deborah Noyes was murdered on the steps of a southern Michigan courthouse, journalists Derrick Twitchell and Colleen Beyer plunged headlong into the story.

They discovered that Her Honor was a linchpin in a 30-year-old mystery and a nightmare that would scar the state forever.

With each luscious detail, with every candied caveat, the two reporters realize their passion for a good story is trumped only by the fire simmering between them.

Chris Zimmerman's much anticipated third novel, The Covenant Field, visits southern Michigan's most-storied landmarks....and lurid past.

Order your signed and numbered first edition of The Covenant Field.

The Secret-Keeper

A mystery gleaned from the shores of Hemingway's Walloon Lake . . .
An adventure woven from the love notes of the dearly departed . . .
A deliciously clever tale of revenge, of forgiveness, of letting go . . . and of love that refuses to die.
By the time he realized that his wife's killer was in his grasp, it was too late.

By the time he ran for help, they chased him from Hemingway's Walloon Lake to the sultry sands of the Caribbean.

Snubbed by the authorities, scorned by his patients, he turns to the woman of his future with ties to his past.

They all had a secret to tell; they all had a secret to keep.

And he had to discover what it was.

Destined to become of your favorite reads, Chris Zimmerman's second work "The Secret-Keeper" takes you on a rollercoaster ride of suspense.

Intentional Acts

On a grizzly, wind-swept afternoon, three men duck hunted a jagged point off Lake Superior.

One man had a secret, some scars, and a score to settle. Another had revenge on his mind and a lover at home. The last man was dearly hated but a leader in the business world.

Only two men made it to shore. Find out what happened.