Michelle would like to encourage you to buy her books at
your local bookshops.
See
below for her reasons:
To find your local UK bookshop click here:
in the UK then click here:
then click here:
INDEPENDENT BOOKSHOPS
I recently came
across an article by Doug McLean, Not In
Chains, in the Spring 2006 edition of The
Author.
In it he puts the arguments for supporting our independent
bookshops beautifully, pointing out that the more dominant
the chains become, selling books below the price most
independents can buy them, in pile-'em high-sell'em-cheap
loads, the more detrimental it will be to our national
literature and…
…the responsibility for what stocks the nation's
bookshops will be in the hands of a few head office buyers
who, by nature, are far removed from the eventual customer.
There will be little room to experiment with new authors,
and small independent publishers and the public will see but
a fraction of the wide variety of books that existed when
independent bookshops were plentiful.
The book-reading public is becoming more aware that independent bookshops are places where they can interact with the staff, who often know, or take the trouble to learn their names and their favourite choices in reading. The independent, as second nature, holds knowledge of its customers that supermarkets and chains spend hundreds of thousands of pounds attempting to capture electronically.
At last year's Cheltenham Festival of Literature, Alan Bennet, to enthusiastic applause, urged his 1,000 strong audience to return to independent bookshops.
Mc Lean goes on to say that the independent bookshops need more Alan Bennets and others of influence to educate the public on the real cultural value of independent booksellers, not least as guardians of English literature. The Arts Council, large publishers, independent publishers, authors, librarians, printers, educators, and indeed everybody have a vested interest in promoting the survival of the independent bookshop.
And he ends his article.
'Survival? Let's make that word revival.'
Doug McLean owns an independent bookshop in Gloucestershire, the Forest bookshop which he started in 1976. Like many other surviving independents he has also developed a thriving niche, specialising in sign language and deaf issues.
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