Bookstores Can Be Saved is the title of a book that Bookazine’s Ron Rice purchased at Bienville Books and gifted to me at the SIBA Trade Show. Published in 1952 and subtitled: 14 Proposals Answering the Question: “What Is Wrong With The Bookstores” and written by Adolph Kroch, Honorary Life Member of American Booksellers Association and author of A Great Bookstore in Action, this book is a reminder that what goes around comes around.Â
The fourteen proposals are fascinating and I will share them with you. As to how far we have come in achieving the proposals or not, I will leave up to you but here goes:
1. Formulate and define the terms Bookseller, Publisher, Jobber, and their respective functions.
2. Establish a National Board, consisting of experienced booksellers and publishers, with powers to act.
3. Raise the minimum discount allowed booksellers to 50% plus 2% for cash and F.O.B. destination.
4. Raise retail prices to permit increased discounts.
5. Abolish return privileges to compensate for increased discounts, with certain exceptions to the rule.
6. Clarify discounts to libraries and institutions.
7. Define relations of book clubs to bookstores. Support price maintenance regulations.
8. Regulate the time element of reprints, cheap editions and reminders.
9. Sponsor bookselling schools.
10. Encourage higher wages to attract a better quality of assistants.
11. Establish uniform accounting and billing systems.
12. Establish wholesale Book Centers for filling special orders and small orders.
13. Verify localities in need of bookstores and assist qualified booksellers in establishing new outlets there.
14. Booksellers and publishers to set aside 1/2 of 1% of their volume of business to promote campaigns to encourage book buying, to publicize bookstores and to finance the operations of the National Board.
