Five Minutes with Andy Laties
Introduction by Sander Hicks
Andy helped me start Vox Pop, he was a constant companion via email, when Vox Pop was just an idea. I used to get online in a copy shop in New Mexico and spend hours trading wild ideas back and forth with him in Massachusetts, as he worked in his latest independent bookstore. Andy is a 25 year veteran of the independent bookselling. Vox Pop published his memoir and tricks of the trade manual, Rebel Bookseller.
Andy’s got a ton of experience, passion, and anger about where the industry is going right now. He can also be a light-hearted, improvisational performer, as many of us have seen recently in his Children’s Story Hour series.
Soon, in the late Summer issue of the New York Megaphone, we’ll publish his scathing critique of Barnes & Noble. But for now, let’s talk to Andy about how he’s become much more hands on at Vox Pop lately, and what’s going on with him, here.
Sander Hicks: Andy, from May to June, you lead a spike book sales at Vox Pop, they are up 38 percent. How did you do it?
Andy Laties: I changed the displays. The book selection was already quite unique, but the display was poor. I organized categories and faced books out.
SH: What are your future plans for bookselling at Vox Pop?
AL: I'm going to accentuate the uniqueness of our title selection. I want people to find books at Vox Pop that they can find in no other bookstore. I want to sell only books that knock your socks off.
SH: What is special about Vox Pop's market for books on Cortelyou Road?
AL: Late at night, when all the other stores are closed, a dozen people are sitting outside of Vox Pop, just hanging. Vox Pop has elicited a whole style of interaction among a community of neighbors enjoying each others' company. When people feel this way about their community, they are ready to read books that propel them to creative personal and group transformation. That's the market I see, and these are the kinds of books I want to provide.
SH: What are your favorite books?
AL: Saul Alinsky's "Reveille For Radicals" and "Rules For Radicals". Kumarajiva's "The Sutra Of The Lotus Blossom Of Fine Dharma".
SH: Could the support of more independent outlets be a political issue in the presidential campaign? How?
AL: Grassroots nodes for local collaboration are being systematically wiped out across the country. That's the meaning of the collapse of storefront trade bookselling in the 90s, and the collapse of storefront used-bookselling in the 2000s. If we reverse these trends, then free-form autodidactic education will be boosted. It is not an accident that Bill Clinton was elected in the year when independent trade bookselling was at an apex. In 1992 there were 5300 indie bookstore and we controlled 35 percent of the trade bookstore market. That helped create a social atmosphere that helped Clinton get elected. Now there are 1600 indie bookstores with 16 percent of the trade market. We are less important and less influential in presidential politics. So we have to work harder to make our influence significant.
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