Rebel Bookseller ─ Why IndieBusinesses Represent Everything You Want to Fight for - from Free Speech to Buying Local to Building Communities

"The revival of independent bookselling has already begun and is one of the amazing stories of our times. Bookseller Andy Laties wrote the first edition of Rebel Bookseller six years ago, hoping it would spark a movement. Now, with this second edition, Laties's book can be a rallying cry for everyone who wants to better understand how the rise of the big bookstore chains led irrevocably to their decline, and how even in the face of electronic readers from three of America's largest and most successful companies--Apple, Amazon, and Google--the movement to support locally owned independent stores, especially bookstores, is on the rise. From the mid-1980s to the present, Andy Laties has been an independent bookseller, starting out in Chicago, teaching alongthe way at the American Booksellers Association, and finally running the bookshop at the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts. His innovations were adapted by Barnes & Noble, Zany Brainy, and scores of independent stores. In Rebel Bookseller, Laties tells how he got started, how he kept going, and why he believes independent bookselling has a great future. He alternates his narrative with short anecdotes, interludes between the chapters that give his credo as a bookseller. Along the way, he explains the growth of the chains, and throws in a treasure trove of tips for anyone who is considering opening up a bookstore. Rebel Bookseller is a must read for those in the book biz, a testament to the ingeniousness of one man man's story of making a life out of his passionate commitment to books and bookselling"--

ANDREW LATIES co-founded Children’s Bookstore, Children’s Bookfair Company, Children’s Museum Store, Povertyfighters.com, and Eric Carle Museum Bookshop, and created the film, Art of Selling Children’s Books. He shared the 1987 Lucile Micheels Pannell Award for bringing children and books together. ED MORROW is co-founder of Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont, and has served as president of both the New England and the American Booksellers Associations.?BILL AYERS is distinguished professor at University of Illinois, founder of Small Schools Workshop and Center for Youth and Society, and author of fifteen books on teaching and children’s rights.