Friday, I went by my bookstore. I knew it was closing, but I had hoped to catch some final-week deals and walk through there one last time. But alas, they were closed and locked down tight when I got there. I know in many ways, it was just a cold impersonal chain bookstore, but it was more than that. It was my cold impersonal chain bookstore, and sometime in the final week of January 2010, Walden books of Adrian, MI shut its doors. 
For me, this is sort of the end of an era. First, Walden Books was the only new book store in Adrian, MI. Sure it was small, but its employees were semi-permanent, and well read. You could discuss more widely known authors with them, and they were always happy to order some of the less known indie-writers whose work I enjoy. But it’s not only that - I have been shopping at Walden books since I started to buy a lot of my own books back in the 6th grade. Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Star Wars, Star Trek, Koontz, King, Tolkien, Hickman, Brooks, there are just so many authors and series I’ve bought there over the last 18 to 20 years.
In the end, no matter how much personal loss I feel, this is a sad trend of the book industry in general. Adrian Walden Books was only one of multiple locations closed in MI over the past month, as a poor economy and a growing online community is forcing the small local bookstores out of business for good; speeding along the end of book buying as we know it. And, in the end, this is bad for readers and writers and publishers alike.
For the writers, the days of writing a book, selling it to a publisher and gaining a following is nearing its end. Today, most writers must travel, and promote their own works, often times publishing with a small press, or self publish. Keeping up with vast social networks, websites, and blogs (Like this one) takes up more and more of the time they would have once spent writing.
For the large book publishers, with less and less natural venues for their books, they will be forced to spend the majority of their time and resources on the already established authors. In the end, they will miss out on the next big thing, and will eventually go the way of the dinosaurs.
And finally for the readers, the less knowledgeable readers will be left reading whatever Dean Koontz or Nora Roberts book that Wall Mart is running that month. The more knowledgeable reader will be left paying more money to shop online for his or her favorite author, often times making stabs in the dark with new writers because they won’t be able to discuss the writers with their favorite book merchants.
In the end, I understand this is the way things are moving, and I appreciate the small presses out there bringing us great new authors, and the writers getting out there promoting their stuff so I can be exposed to it. But I will miss my little local bookstore.
Even greater than those two things is my sense of loss of the last new bookstore in Adrian, MI. So Adrian, MI a town of about 21,500 people is without a place to buy a book. On top of that, Adrian is the largest city in Lenawee County which has a population of about 100,000 thousand people. So for 100,000 people who may want to read a book, the options are reduced to the internet, the few books Wal-Mart carries, or buying books from used book stores, or visiting libraries, both of which do little to support authors.
In the end, no matter how much personal loss I feel, this is a sad trend of the book industry in general. Adrian Walden Books was only one of multiple locations closed in MI over the past month, as a poor economy and a growing online community is forcing the small local bookstores out of business for good; speeding along the end of book buying as we know it. And, in the end, this is bad for readers and writers and publishers alike.
For the writers, the days of writing a book, selling it to a publisher and gaining a following is nearing its end. Today, most writers must travel, and promote their own works, often times publishing with a small press, or self publish. Keeping up with vast social networks, websites, and blogs (Like this one) takes up more and more of the time they would have once spent writing.
For the large book publishers, with less and less natural venues for their books, they will be forced to spend the majority of their time and resources on the already established authors. In the end, they will miss out on the next big thing, and will eventually go the way of the dinosaurs.
And finally for the readers, the less knowledgeable readers will be left reading whatever Dean Koontz or Nora Roberts book that Wall Mart is running that month. The more knowledgeable reader will be left paying more money to shop online for his or her favorite author, often times making stabs in the dark with new writers because they won’t be able to discuss the writers with their favorite book merchants.
In the end, I understand this is the way things are moving, and I appreciate the small presses out there bringing us great new authors, and the writers getting out there promoting their stuff so I can be exposed to it. But I will miss my little local bookstore.
