Writers & Bookstores
High praise for independent bookstores
I know it’s hard to believe, but I’ve never met a writer who doesn’t heap high praise on independent bookstores. Buyers and browsers love them too, for their devoted entrepreneurial spirit, the creative displays, occasional whimsy, thoughtful selections, and often for the quiet ambience, like being in a historic part of town where the architecture may be old, but the paint is fresh, the windows are squeaky clean, and the scent of books supercedes the tantalizing bakery down the street.
That’s the sort of ambience I’ve been running into lately while carrying out distribution duty for my latest hiking guides. It’s nice to be able to do that work myself, partly because my audience is mostly local or regional here in Northwest Washington State. I don’t need national distributors, nor do I need to place books in stores I can’t easily drive to. Sad but true, the most avid hikers in Nebraska are not clamouring for books on the North Cascades, Chuckanut Mountains or the shores of the Salish Sea in the quaintly bookstores of Omaha.
So I get to visit a lot of cool bookstores in WA, and even speak at a few, including of course the imitatable Village Books here in Bellingham. But let this short piece also serve as a shout-out to several other great indies that are now carrying my books—in no particular order except for the first, Artisans Books and Coffee in Everett. I’ll be there this coming Sunday (June 8) at 5:00 pm sharing stories from the trail. Yes, I really did catch my boots on fire once, eight miles from the car. And, since I’ve walked all of the hundreds of trails I write about, I’ll have plenty of how-to, where-to stuff to share as well, from the Salish Sea to the high peaks of the Cascades.
Artisans Books & Coffee (Everett)
Book Rack (Oak Harbor)
Kingfisher Bookstore (Coupeville)
Moonraker Bookstore (Langley)
Kiss the Sky Books (Sultan)
As both a writer and a consumer, I’d be a miserable old dottard without these wonderful bookstores to quietly carouse.
By the way, if you can’t make Everett, I’ll also be talking up a storm at the Camano Island Library on Thursday June 12th at 5:00 pm. Two days later on Saturday the 14th (pre-Father’s Day) I’ll be signing books at the Camano Commons gift shop. And in mid-July I expect to be sharing more stories from the wild at Kingfisher in Coupeville.
You can always find my books here as well.