When Support Your Local Indie Writer Falls Flat

You have to wonder how people succeed these days, especially when it comes to small and/or independent businesses. Take your local independent bookstore. There aren't many of them around any more (for that matter, there aren't many big corporate ones either as we all transition to e-readers and online buying), so you would think that those that are around would extend a hand to their fellow independent writers. After all, we're comrades in arms, so to speak.

Anyway, that's what I thought. See, we have one of those small, independent book stores here in Tampa, and as it turns out, it's within a mile of my house. On their website, they encourage people to support independent bookstores and buy the books of local writers. What they don't say is that applies only to local TRADITIONALLY PUBLISHED writers. Independent writers--meh, not so much.

I approached this bookstore about possibly doing a signing for my book, Lucid, assuring them I would supply the books and all I would ask of them is a place to host it. Their response pretty much tells me why they're a dying breed. "We're not interested is self-published writers." Guess that illustrates why we, the public, aren't all that interested in self-owned bookstores.

Hey, here's a thought: if you're a dying breed, you'd think you'd get off your high-and-mighty horse and practice a little of what you preach because the world is not going to step into a time warp and make you relevant again. Or, you can keep sucking off the teat of the industry that made you irrelevant and ask your spurned public to support your delusions.

Just saying...

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