In this episode, I chat with Ann Seaton, Co-Executive Director of the California Independent Booksellers Alliance. Anne brings the narrative of indie bookshops to life, highlighting how they serve as cultural hubs in their communities.
Discover the steadfast mission of CALIBA to bolster the diverse fabric of independent bookstores, and learn why your choice of where to buy books can be a powerful statement in sustaining local gems. We also delve into the Mosaic Committee's efforts to foster inclusivity and representation in literature, celebrating BIPOC bookstores and their enriching contributions.
Prepare to be inspired as we uncover the pivotal shifts within the indie bookstore scene and scrutinize the crucial role of forward-thinking millennials in this transformation. It's more than just a conversation; it's an homage to the community pillars that are independent bookshops, and a call to action for listeners to become a part of the story that keeps these cultural cornerstones thriving.
California Independent Booksellers Alliance
The Paris Bookseller, Kerri Maher
American Dirt, Jeanine Cummins
Bel Canto Books, Long Beach, CA
Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm, David M. Masumoto
In this episode, I chat with Ann Seaton, Co-Executive Director of the California Independent Booksellers Alliance. Anne brings the narrative of indie bookshops to life, highlighting how they serve as cultural hubs in their communities.
Discover the steadfast mission of CALIBA to bolster the diverse fabric of independent bookstores, and learn why your choice of where to buy books can be a powerful statement in sustaining local gems. We also delve into the Mosaic Committee's efforts to foster inclusivity and representation in literature, celebrating BIPOC bookstores and their enriching contributions.
Prepare to be inspired as we uncover the pivotal shifts within the indie bookstore scene and scrutinize the crucial role of forward-thinking millennials in this transformation. It's more than just a conversation; it's an homage to the community pillars that are independent bookshops, and a call to action for listeners to become a part of the story that keeps these cultural cornerstones thriving.
California Independent Booksellers Alliance
The Paris Bookseller, Kerri Maher
American Dirt, Jeanine Cummins
Bel Canto Books, Long Beach, CA
Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm, David M. Masumoto
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson Beverly. Welcome to the Bookshop podcast. Each week, I present interviews with independent bookshop owners from around the globe, authors, publishing professionals and specialists in subjects dear to my heart the environment and social justice. To help the show reach more people, please share it with friends and family and on social media, and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. You're listening to episode 243. The California Independent Booksellers Alliance was established in 1981 as a mutual benefit 501C6 non-profit corporation dedicated to supporting, nurturing and promoting independent retail book selling in California. The mission of the California Independent Booksellers Alliance is to promote the vitality, diversity and prosperity of independent bookselling throughout California as essential to the life of their communities. Anne Seaton is co-executive director of Kaliber, the California Independent Booksellers Alliance. Hi, anne, and welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:I'm so happy to be here with you.
Speaker 1:It's good to have you here. Let's begin with learning about you and what drew you to the California Independent Booksellers Alliance.
Speaker 2:Well, sometime in the late 70s I fell into a bookstore and I just couldn't get out.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, that is the best answer I've ever had to that question, and it was just the most marvelous place to be.
Speaker 2:You learn something new every day. You have these great people that come in and talk to you and it's a retail job. But it's not sales the way you think about sales. It's like conversations you have with people and it's just like I said, you learn something new every day. It's really exciting and it's creative and all of those just ticks, all of those boxes you know, at the same time you're attending to business sometimes the hard part in terms of just staffing and cleaning the bathrooms or whatever else you have to do to keep the business going. But in the end of the day, your coworkers, the people came in the stores. They just kept me any other job I had before that six months in. It's like okay, I'm done. But I didn't feel like that. And so I worked in bookstores independent bookstores for 30 plus years.
Speaker 2:I was on the board of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association when this job, the first job I took I was I didn't come in as an executive director, I came in as an administrative assistant. But that seemed like a natural move at that time. And then, when Halvin Crosby left the company a couple years ago, I stepped into this co executive director position. So exciting to learn new things from this side and help support our bookstores. You know, as a bookseller I was going to the conferences and really appreciated all that they provided me as a bookseller something much more local than Winter Institute or, back in the day, bea or Book Expo or whatever it was called at this point. So it was really accessible and really important to me as a bookseller. So I just was excited to continue that for other booksellers.
Speaker 1:What a wonderful bookish life you're having. Yeah, as the co-executive director of Kaliber, can you tell us about the organization's mission and why Kaliber is important for booksellers and the publishing industry?
Speaker 2:We are a nonprofit, a 501c6 nonprofit organization whose mission is to support booksellers, independent bookstores throughout the state with because we recognize them as essential to their community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think now more than ever, we all realize the importance of supporting independent businesses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, just to remind people, you vote with your wallet.
Speaker 1:If you want to keep them here, you go to shop here, yes, and when you support independent businesses and you're not buying online, you're keeping a tax dollars in your community.
Speaker 2:Yep and so many independent booksellers in particular. I know other independent businesses do reach out to support other independent companies in their community, whether it's the local print shop or wherever they source materials. So we pay it forward.
Speaker 1:I was interviewing Valerie Kohler from the Blue Willow Bookshop in Texas recently. She's brilliant, yes she is, and she has a funny sense of humor. Anyway, we're talking about holiday shopping and she said she only shops for gifts within a couple of block radius of her bookshop and if she doesn't find anything then everybody gets books because she supports all of the local businesses next to her in her community and I thought that was wonderful. She's walking the talk, you know, absolutely. Let's get back to Kaleeba. Within Kaleeba are committees of dedicated book sales and sales reps. One committee is the Mosaic Committee, which supports diversity and inclusion. Do booksellers feel supported by publishers in books written by diverse authors and books written for diverse readers?
Speaker 2:I think that's a yes and no. I think there are some publishers that have been better at that than others and I think, due to some recent events fairly recent events about guys matter and that you know American dirt and the conversation around that, no matter what your feelings are about it it brought up a lot of conversations that and frustrations that needed to be discussed and, not being a person of diversity myself, I hesitate to speak for people of diversity but at the same time, I think the fact that these VIPOC career bookstores are popping up all over the place and thank goodness it's so much easier I'm not saying it's like super easy thing to do, but the fact that you can start online, start with pop-ups before you find a location and find your stride has really made it possible for these safe spaces for diverse bookstores to pop up. I did spend some time when Calvin was in the office consulting with Underground Books, the Black Home Bookstore in Sacramento and boy was it a great learning experience and teaching. I mean you just walk through the door and you realize what it means to be seen by people that are not normally seen and you know, I knew it in my head, but then I kind of really felt it in my heart in such a bigger way.
Speaker 2:I'll start tearing up about this, but you know and they were they had a very diverse clientele. They weren't just strictly a black clientele by any stretch of the imagination, but to see these people be able to walk in the door and feel like they belonged, that they were really seeing, was so important. So I would just encourage anybody out there anywhere to step into these different spaces spaces that maybe you don't feel quite aligned with and just feel what it is and ask questions. And you know, ask the staff there. Find a great book recommendation. Take it home and enjoy.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think you're right. With the tragic deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, people had to take notice of the Black Lives Matter movement, and this included publishers, I think all of us. Hopefully, that's what we hope for but publishers were forced to take note of what people wanted, what readers wanted to read and who they wanted to write their stories. Children want and need to see themselves on bookshelves in libraries, school libraries and in bookshops. Something similar happened with Books in Translation, and I wonder if this had something to do with author interviews being conducted via Zoom through indie bookshops. Worldwide Virtual interviews with authors broadened the global perspective on reading and in many ways, brought us together as a reading community, and I think because of this, many of us were curious about reading books from authors in other countries, and the publishing companies listened. We still have a long way to go, but we are seeing more and more diversity in publishing.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, and within publishing companies, getting diverse staff to represent those. To think that that wasn't essential before was crazy. I think one of the things that well, I guess I can speak for me personally is when things like Black Lives Matter or whatever, I needed to start asking myself why, why is this happening? Why is this happening like this? Why is this going on? And then you read and you find out it's fiction, it's nonfiction, it's all of it to get yourself into the shoes of somebody else and their experience, and that's what books do.
Speaker 1:I wholeheartedly believe that reading fiction good fiction helps us to become more empathetic toward others, Because we put ourselves in the point of view of the characters in the book. We feel them, we feel their pain, we feel their joy, and I think it'd be hard to find a better teaching tool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know, whether they grew up rich, whether they grew up poor, whether they grew up poor, whether they grew up urban, all of those things, mirrors and windows, mirrors and windows and doors that's what books provide us?
Speaker 1:Yes, they do. I couldn't agree more. Now, on January 18th 2024, the owner of Roman's book store in Pasadena, joel Sheldon, announced the iconic book store, along with her sister book shops Hastings Ranch and Book Soup, were up for sale. Romans was founded in 1894 and Book Soup was founded in 1975 by Glenn Goldman. How do you see this affecting the indie bookshop industry in Southern California?
Speaker 2:I am excited to see what the next, probably younger, set of booksellers brings to this. For a while there, looking around the room, it seemed like there were a bunch of older booksellers and what's gonna happen, you know and to see these younger booksellers stepping into buying stores, starting stores I think about Lyndon Tree and Los Altos a few years ago, diesel Books and Oakland, which is now East Bay Booksellers Mrs Dalloway's Picklebee's just sold, so it will be interesting to see how those stores play out. I just think it's really exciting. People have to retire, people have to move on and I'm just so excited to see these younger booksellers stepping into these positions. Books Inc I forget how many stores they have this has been turned over to millennials. I mean some of the ownership structure hasn't necessarily changed. I'm not exactly sure how that all works exactly, but the millennials are running the world there and they're doing great things. They have a nonprofit arm to make sure that kids get books and they're doing great work. Is Books Inc only in California? Only in California, the area.
Speaker 1:And I also noticed on your board of directors is Johanna Belfour from Belcanto Books in Longbeach. What a sweetheart. Johanna has been on the show and I've sent authors to her. She is a wonderful champion of diversity in the book world.
Speaker 2:She's incredible and she's so articulate too, and just right on. I'm so glad that we have her as part of our board.
Speaker 1:You're lucky to have her, and you also have Vanessa Martini from Green Apple Books in San Francisco on your board of directors. It was a couple of years ago I spoke with Pete Mulvihill from Green Apple Books and he proudly spoke about his employees being represented by the UFCW Local Five Union. Are you seeing more booksellers joining the UFCW to ensure they receive living wages and health care, and also, how does this affect indie bookshop owners?
Speaker 2:And I know Green Apple has been a union shop for a long time and City Lights just became a union shop as well. When you're thinking about San Francisco Bay Area living, wages and health care and the economics of a bookstore and a margin that books run on, it seems to me there need to be solutions outside of the bookstore societally to make some of these things really come to fruition. But I think what the union has offered these stores is some sort of structure and clarity and guidance and if you've ever run a bookstore, we don't have time to sit around and read all we are running. We are running like our pants are on fire just to keep up with everything and to make sure our customers have what they need and everything.
Speaker 2:And sometimes I think, is this what happened? Just to have time to sit down and really work things out? I don't know or develop that clarity and there's structure also in that and there are pros and cons to all of that in that, oh, you can't talk to directly to your manager, you've got to go through the union for something like that or whatever. But in some of the conversations I've had with bookstores that have gone union a lot of times, they continue with their flexibility that they feel is so important for their employees, regardless. You know somebody needs to shift change, but it's outside of the norm, but they'll do it anyway because that's the way.
Speaker 1:That's the way they are I like what you said about perhaps getting an outside source to work with independent bookshop owners. Let's face it, we want to keep that indie feel within independent bookshops but, on the same note, we want to be able to provide everybody with a living wage and healthcare. It's getting harder and harder, well societal.
Speaker 2:You know, books are the only retail product that has the price printed right on the cover, and so your margins are set, and that really constrains things a lot. And so sometimes there's conversations in the bookselling community about, well, should everything be net priced and we could just price what we need to support our shop? There are conversations about well, do we add? Can we just add it? This is an suggested retail price. Can we just add a dollar or something? Or can we add some sort of search? I mean, hotels certainly have done that, so how do we do that? But then in the greater societal conversation, how do we get affordable living spaces I mean really affordable living spaces or healthcare, or and I think a lot of times we're working toward that childcare talk about childcare, oh my goodness. So there are those other external issues that I don't know that the union or anybody can solve in its entirety. I think there are bigger things involved, some bigger societal things involved that we need to address. I don't have the answers, I have the questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a big conversation with a ton of questions and it needs support from local council members, state and federal organizations Well, we're trying to have it.
Speaker 2:It's one of the things that continues to divide our country in a lot of ways too, so it's a tough conversation, but I feel like labor pains. You'll end up with something beautiful if you can work through it.
Speaker 1:A really good role model to look at for a business which is now a nonprofit is a company like Patagonia. Patagonia has a small school, a little kind of elementary beginning school, on their premises for children of workers and a daycare, so that if there is a mom or a dad who wants to go down and see their newborn for a little while, have lunch beside them, they can. Patagonia Books is a wonderful role model for green publishing for sure. Okay, let's talk about California publishing. Which small and medium publishers do you feel are publishing outstanding authors?
Speaker 2:There's a really great new publisher I'm really excited has come up and she just started last year at Sybilene Press S-I-B-Y-L-L-I-N-E. Vicki Garman has done her catalog. She's like a hugely genius in the marketing area. She had started years ago when she was young. She started Foghorn Press. I don't know if you're familiar with them. They were travel guide press, like when she was 25. And she sold that and she has worked for Copperfield. She worked, she was the contractor for us for a while and she started this press. She publishes women over 50. That's her focus. So fiction, nonfiction keep an eye on Vicki. Other really great small presses there's Taki on Press in San Francisco, creston Books out of San Francisco and Marissa Moss author. Marissa Moss also has this publishing company and she does some really wonderful things.
Speaker 2:For a long time in bookstores I was a children's book buyer. I was in the children's department and so I see these are why some of these things come up for me. There's Blue Dot Press. Kids Press in San Francisco are very concerned about environmental things and do a really wonderful job. Of course we can't forget about City Lights in San Francisco either, or they're wonderful poetry. There's Hay Day Books. Love Hay Day Books and all they do. Obi-kaufman, yay, you know, with his California Field Guides, his various California Field Guides. Who else? Red Hand Press down in Southern California, there, prospect Park down in Southern California. I believe they were bought by Heshet or somebody fairly recently, but they're still a small press and they publish Andy Weinberger's book and he is the owner of read your books in Sonoma and so he has a whole mystery series that is being published out of them. So I just love that. Chronicle books, of course I mean and I'm sure I'm missing a lot of wonderful little publishers out there, presses out there.
Speaker 1:Well, if any of our listeners know of other small and medium presses in California, you can email me at thebookshoppodcast at gmailcom and let me know, and I'll make sure to give them a shout out. And we also have fantastic independent bookshops in California.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and they're all different. I cannot walk past a bookshop because they're all different.
Speaker 1:Well, Anne, we don't want you getting stuck in another bookshop for 40 odd years. Ok, on that note, tell us what you're reading.
Speaker 2:I am just finishing up Lessons by Ian McEwen. It's my book club book for the month, and so that's been interesting. I'm also reading, as I often am, a couple of things at the same time Epitaph for a Peach, an older book by David Masamoto, and that is the because I'm up here in Calusa County. This is the Calusa County Reads book, so I'm visiting this. I remember when this book came out and then how, what a big deal it was. I was really excited that this was picked for this year's County Reads.
Speaker 1:Well, I recently interviewed Kerry Mayer, who wrote the Paris Bookseller, which is one of my favorite books because it is about Sylvia Beach, the original owner of Shakespeare and Company. Sylvia Beach was exceptional and the way Kerry writes about her and what she did for authors let alone James Joyce publishing Ulysses when nobody else would she was a powerhouse. Oh, how fun, and thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate you taking the time out. I know this is a busy time for you and thank you for all you do for independent bookshops in California.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:This has been really delightful You've been listening to my conversation with Anne Seton, co-executive director of the California Independent Booksellers Alliance. To find out more about the bookshop podcast, go to thebookshoppodcastcom and make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to the show. You can also follow me at Mandy Jackson Beverly on X, instagram and Facebook and on YouTube at the Bookshop Podcast. If you have a favorite indie bookshop that you'd like to suggest we have on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you via the contact form at thebookshoppodcastcom. The Bookshop Podcast is written and produced by me, mandy Jackson Beverly, theme music provided by Brian Beverly, executive assistant to Mandy Adrian Otterhan and graphic design by Francis Barala. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.