Dean Koontz Novels

Independent stores battle for book sales

Sandy Miller checks out some of store owner Laural Bidwell's picks for fiction and non-fiction at The Wild Burro bookstore in Hot Springs on Tuesday, July 26, 2011. "This is the best bookstore around," Miller said. "In the hills or otherwise. She knows the books really well. Most of them she reads and if she hasn't, she at least knows a lot about them." (Kristina Barker/Journal staff)

Chris Romano and Deb Jilka had already made plans to add new books to the shelves along with used books at their Spearfish bookstore, BookTrader & More. But the recent news that Borders in Rapid City is closing, with no other bookstore lined up to take its place, made their decision seem more savvy.

"It's forcing us to actually think a little bigger, and to make the move a little faster," Romano said.

Even with opportunity in the local market, making a living selling books - actual books from an actual bookstore - is a challenge in a world of Amazon.com , e-books and Kindle, not to mention books sold in big-box stores such as Walmart.

There are only a few independent stores in the Black Hills that carry new books, and most are devoted to local and regional titles about travel, local history, Native American culture and nature.

The area's only all-new bookstore, The Wild Burro in Hot Springs, is successful because of the customer service its owner, Laural Bidwell, provides, from hosting a book club to booking local music acts to reading constantly so she'll be able to make informed recommendations for individual readers.

Still, the store doesn't generate enough profit to make a real living, Bidwell said, mentioning the joke that the way to end up with a small fortune in business is to start with a large fortune. She opened the shop 10 years ago with savings after a career as an accountant in Denver.

But there are so many rewards to the business beyond a profit, Bidwell said.

"Most of the people who run independent bookstores in small towns know they're not going to get rich," she said. "They're doing it for love. I make pretty much nothing. I get by and I have fun, and I get to bring my dog to work."

She said independent booksellers rely on "hand selling," or personal recommendations.

"I had a teenage reader who was addicted to Dean Koontz," Bidwell said. "I said, ‘I really want you to read this book. If you hate it, bring it back and we'll get you another one.'"

The girl took the book, Barbara Kingsolver's "The Bean Trees.

Writing a Novel is Like Making a Jigsaw Puzzle - She Writes

I've often said writing a novel is like running a marathon, but I'm beginning to think it's more like making a jigsaw puzzle: The charge of the first draft is to get the pieces all laid out on the table, face-up, so you can see what's there. The trick of subsequent drafts is to get them all fitted together into a picture everyone can see -- trying a piece in this place and that, and fashioning new little pieces for the ones that turn out to be missing from the box.

I agree with Catherine and Pamela on house building and sculpturing. But I would say that writing a novel maybe isn't so much like giving birth as it is like raising a child. I've experienced neither, but novel writing takes a lot of rearing - not only of the novel, but also of yourself. In many ways, the writer mothers the novel, learning from it and also the best way to parent it (or get it to the end result - write it, or raise it, to the best of your ability, then let it go and simmer out there in the world on its own).

--And I'm okay with this being used in your piece. :)

Writing a novel is like meeting yourself. Layers of personality and secret thoughts float to the surface, ones you never knew you had. Sometimes you like your new friend sometimes you don't.

Writing a novel is also like giving birth. Moments of labor and love wrapped together. There's satisfaction in holding the new baby, fresh and clean in your hands. You've worked hard to give these words life and you find your own authorship has been birthed in the process.

Great post, the analogies gave me a chuckle. I identified with many of them. I'm working, slowly and steadily, on my first novel.

I love the sculpture analogy, Pamela. It's a metaphor I've used as well, especially to communicate the idea that you don't have to sit down and write the perfect draft the first time. A sculptor doesn't start at the top of the marble block and make everything perfect to the bottom, and then declare herself done. :-)

And Deborah, maybe if you through in a few chains coming off!

I wrote a novel-like memoir, does that count? For me it was like creating a sculpture. The first draft (really the gathering and ordering of all the information, journal entries, emails, articles, blog posts, etc.) was like the giant hunk of marble. From there I had to chip away, smooth, polish, re-think, get rid of the headpiece I was so attached to that just didn't work, and on and on.

Breathless, A Novel

Odd Thomas

The Husband

The Face, A Novel

Frankenstein: Lost Souls, A Novel