Publishing Talks: Interview with Jeff Deutsch of Seminary Co-op Bookstores

WritersCast

Publishing Talks began as a series of conversations with book industry professionals and others involved in media and technology, mostly talking about the future of publishing, books, and culture. I’ve spent time talking with people in the book industry about how publishing is evolving in the context of technology, culture, and economics.

Some time back, this series broadened to include conversations that go beyond the future of publishing. In an effort to document the literary world, I’ve talked with a variety of editors, publishers and others who have been innovators and leaders in independent publishing in the past and into the present.

These conversations have been inspirational to me on many levels. I have gotten to speak with visionaries and entrepreneurs, as well as editors and publishers who have influenced and changed contemporary literature and culture. I’ve also had the opportunity to speak with a number of friends and colleagues I have met over the many years I have been in the book business.

This week’s podcast is one I am really excited about. Jeff Deutsch is the director of Chicago’s Seminary Co-op Bookstores, which calls itself the first not-for-profit bookstore in the United States whose mission is devoted to bookselling (there are other nonprofit bookstores of course, generally components of literary centers, like Beyond Baroque in Venice, California, Woodland Pattern in Milwaukee, and Writers and Books in Rochester, NY are examples).

Last spring I read a report of a Book Industry Study Group panel that included Jeff, and what he talked about immediately caught my attention. Deutsch was reported to have said that the model of bookselling we’ve inherited needs to be rethought: just facilitating more sales, more efficiently, is not the way for bookstores to survive. A bookstore that actually means something to readers will need to carry a deep backlist and to spend time helping readers discover new voices, new texts.

During that panel Deutsch said, “The publishing world and distributors—what you value is not our ability to sell books,” because independent bookstores can never sell in the same volume as Amazon. “Yet we all know how important bookstores are,” he said. As publishers and booksellers once knew, developing readerships for books and authors takes time and devotion that have been boiled out of the entire process now.

Jane Friedman’s outstanding book industry newsletter Hot Sheet compared Jeff’s approach to the Slow Food movement (I think that idea makes sense – I wrote a manifesto for publishers a few years ago on the idea of Slow Publishing, but never developed it enough to publish). Nina Barrett, owner of Bookends & Beginnings in Illinois (which has filed a lawsuit against Amazon), also on the BISG panel said “I think it’s like Alice Waters talking for decades about a sustainable food ecosystem and ultimately revolutionizing the food industry that way. That’s the point we’re at.”

As Jane pointed out, “independent booksellers will lose every time if they base their worth on the mere transactional value of selling books. His stance—that bookselling has a deeper meaning and cultural value—is indeed how boutique and online retailers outside of the Amazon ecosystem are positioning themselves for success.”

Deutsch also said, “We should figure out models that support the work that we’re trying to do, not shoehorn this other model of retail that is really just about buying and selling and not about culture….We all have vocational awe, but couldn’t we have vocational awe and still make a decent living?”

This conceptual framework resonates with me and I think is worthy of much more discussion. Why shouldn’t there be a nonprofit bookselling sector to promote literary and other noncommercial books and authors, just as there is a nonprofit theater? Why should we continuously try to fit a crucially important culture activity into a commercial model, and always fail?

I hope that hearing Jeff talk about this concept will help stimulate further discussion and concrete action. Please feel free to comment and if you are interested in helping, please be in touch.

Connect to the Seminary Co-op Bookstores website here.

Before joining the Co-op Deutsch was the director of stores for the Stanford Bookstore Group and prior to that managed the Cal Student Store at the University of California, Berkeley.

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