My most recent “Talking Indies” column is about independent bookstores and whether their interests mesh with promoting indie authors. The piece is called “Why Bookstores Aren’t Helping Indie Authors—Yet.” You can read it in the Spring Edition of Talking Writing (find the column link at the end of this entry).
I wanted to post an addendum to my column here because a number of indie authors I heard from after the piece was published have gone on record saying they really don’t care about their book being shelved in bookstores. The basic argument is the rather facile one I began my first draft with: “Why put effort into interacting with small businesses that may see a few score of customers a day when posting to Internet books sites provides you with an entre to billions of potential readers?”
The obvious answer, since most writers have limited time to market and sell their work, is “Yes, why?”
If you think short-term, that’s probably a good answer. But bookstores really are, as Continue reading
He discovers two bananas, soft to the eye, still stem connected, blacking. He thinks about the heat they must be giving off along with their smell. These fermenting fruits can only partially be seen under a flattened, plastic half-and-half bottle lying on its side and an old pack of birthday invitations with a “Where’s Waldo?” motif, never used. An empty clay flowerpot growing a bit of dark green mold is on the corner of the sideboard. He wonders what might have happened if he had just kept everything clean on his own. That sideboard 
