Independent bookstores (including us) are getting yelled at because they don't want to carry a book they consider hateful, so let's talk about that

There are something like ten million books in print, and only ten thousand books on our shelves. Curation is literally what we do.

There are many factors that go into deciding which books to stock. Those include demand in our market, the personal interests of our booksellers, and causes we want to champion.

Another easy way to whittle 10,000,000 down to 10,000 is to avoid books we consider hateful.

Deciding what to stock by avoiding what we consider hateful is, of course, a political decision. Bookselling is a political business. You won't find us denying that.

We're not forcing anybody to support us; if you disagree with us, feel free to shop somewhere else.

Only one store has ever attempted to carry absolutely every book, and much of that store's book selection is a wasteland of conspiracy theories, bad bootlegs, and self-published misinformation. If Amazon is interested in selling that stuff, fine. We certainly aren't.

A store's decision to not carry a book has nothing to do with free speech. Our decision to not feature or stock a book we consider hateful does not eliminate the book, the book contract, or the author's right to say the things in the book. Free speech is a government question.

That said, if many bookstores decide not to carry a title because they consider it hateful, perhaps that puts pressure on publishers not to give big platforms and lots of money to people who endanger marginalized communities. We consider this pressure important work.

Again, we reiterate: "not giving money and platforms to ideas that endanger marginalized communities" does not mean "censorship."

Trying not to amplify ideas we consider hateful is called consequences, not censorship.

I have many jobs as a bookstore owner. One of them is to do what I can to create a safe working environment for the booksellers at my store. One way to do that is to not ask these booksellers to deal with books they consider hateful.

Why should anyone be forced to deal with/publicize/amplify/talk about/sell a book whose author would try to erase them or people they love?

Every time this comes up people try to "gotcha" small bookstores by looking up offensive titles on their website.

Folks, independent bookstore websites list every book in Ingram Book Company's wholesaler database, not every book on their shelves.

The fact that our website automatically syncs to Ingram's database has literally saved our business during the pandemic; it gave us a running start in digitizing our business. We're fine because of this.

The downside is that folks can try this kind of thing as a gotcha attempt.

Curation is what we do. Sometimes we curate because we really love a book and are so excited about it that we want to share it with you. Sometimes we curate because a book and its author are trying to erase marginalized communities. It's all part of our bookselling work.