Comments on: Another Quaker bookstore bites the dust

By: Martin Kelley

Martin Kelley — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:05:12 +0000

@Lucy: Thanks for pasting the QUIP minute here. Google and Yahoo searches show that this is the first time that any QUIP members have put this online. You shouldn’t have to be a member of the Quaker bureaucracy to be able to see this minute. The last year-plus has made me realize just how purposefully opaque Quakers institutions are in public, as most critical information passes by gossip. Then again, who cares?

By: Lucy Duncan

Lucy Duncan — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:29:04 +0000

Dear Martin,
Glad to see you are taking notice of these changes. QUIP did approve a minute (see below) regarding the changes in Quaker publishing in the Quaker world last year that we have distributed, but better on the UK side of the pond than on this side. Thanks for this opportunity to give it wider readership. Of course QUIP is concerned, but we do see a shifting from institutional publishing to self-publishing and there is a lot of that going on.
One encouraging note is that sales from QuakerBooks of FGC are better than ever. I actually credit this to the website and our e‑mail newsletters — both Book Musings (http://www.quakerbooks.org/musings/)and Angelina Conti’s very fine Author Interviews (http://www.quakerbooks.org/interviews/). Our very large annual catalog has helped as well, though that is expensive to do, another service to Friends. Of course, the sad piece of this is that some of the increase in our sales are a result of the closing of other Quaker outlets. I do agree that Barclay Press’s website is exemplary and we hope to emulate and learn from some of their wonderful ideas, as well as offering more compelling opportunities for paritipation from our site’s users.
Lucy Duncan, prinipally speaking as co-clerk of QUIP (www.quaker.org/quip)
Here’s the minute from our annual meeting, 2007.
07–23 Changes in Quaker publishing
The topic was introduced by hearing read our minute 06–11.
Since then further changes have happened in the United States. Friends United Meeting now distributes only its own productions, online and by mail order. Their walk-in bookstore has closed. This further shrinkage in US Quaker bookstores strengthens our concerns about the reductions in publication and distribution programmes around the world. We noted that distribution is just as important as publishing – if one cannot sell a book, why publish it?
Ministry which is income producing is now often measured by whether it pays for itself. But Friends are perfectly willing to pay for other sorts of ministry without the need to realise a monetary gain.
From the publishing point of view Peter Daniels told us that the position of Britain Yearly Meeting publications committee is uncertain at present and there is a moratorium on projects in the pipeline. Quaker Life is reorganising its committees and a review of publishing is going on at present.
Publishing is at its heart about intellectual and financial risk-taking, nurturing a ministry of writing and spotting ideas that might catch fire.
As members of Quakers Uniting in Publication (QUIP) we feel it important to stress that being publishers of truth is a key part of who Quakers are. We urge those who discern priorities and make financial decisions to remember that the ministry of publishing is as essential to our work as Friends as it has always been. While we welcome new forms of communication that support the work of Friends, spiritual formation also requires books old and new.
We ask the clerks to ensure that this minute is distributed widely and appropriately.

By: Allison

Allison — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 02:28:32 +0000

Hmm, interesting. I was just telling my special friend about a new fantasy I came up with, to open up a bookstore that was both a store and a nonprofit to encourage literacy, wholism, and cultural awareness. It even has a name for it, the name of my new blog in the making, Rainbow Friends — Bookstore, Cafe, and Cultural Hub. I wonder if the problem with these books is that the niche is too small and homogenous to be sustainable? My dream is to be a writer, and one that would encourage people to be happier and healthier, with a Quaker universalist message, like my hero Walt Whitman.

By: Jim Rose

Jim Rose — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:34:46 +0000

It is well to keep the distinction between bookselling and book publishing clear. Facing competition from Amazon and other online booksellers, Quaker bookstores certainly have an upstream battle. I’m not sure but they have to redesign themselves from an ‘down-the-street’ bookstore paradigm to service organizations like quakerbooks and AFSC have done.
What is more remarkable is that Pendle Hill has chosen to abandon book publishing. They still publish the invaluable pamphlet series, but have decided not to pursue larger works. This in an age where ‘print-on-demand’ services like LightningSource make publication truly inexpensive.
The Quaker Universalist Fellowship has now published two collections of essays on Quaker Universalism using this technology and while we are not focused on making a profit we are delighted to have our titles picked up and sold on Amazon as well as quakerbooks.com and universalistfriends.org
There are other individuals and organizations which are using this technology as well: Quaker publishing is not dead and I would encourage Quaker authors to forge ahead and say what they can!

By: Martin Kelley

Martin Kelley — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 18:20:16 +0000

@DavidinLA: I knew there were hopes of keeping the AFSC bookstore going after Ken Morgan’s death a few years back. I’m glad to see it continues!

By: davidinla

davidinla — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 17:34:39 +0000

The AFSC bookstore is alive and well. (I am a volunteer there.) The store moved last year, along with the regional office, from Pasadena to downtown Los Angeles. We no longer have a walk-in bookshop operation, but we maintain a web site to support online ordering, and we sell books directly at Quaker gatherings and other community events. The URL for the web site is: www.afscstore.org. In my experience, it's impossible to make money selling Quaker books, but enlightened organizations understand the value of disseminating Quaker thought and witness both within and beyond the Quaker community, and they subsidize this activity accordingly.

By: Eileen Flanagan

Eileen Flanagan — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 20:20:14 +0000

Points well taken, Martin, and I do share your concerns about it.

By: Martin Kelley

Martin Kelley — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 19:00:32 +0000

Yes, it’s certainly true that this is a larger trend. I jumped to the web in 1995 after the small activist press I had worked at for six years more-or-less went under as a result of economic pressures: the closing of the independent bookstores that were our bread in butter combined with rising paper costs and a consolidating distribution network that was squeezing out higher discounts.
Quaker publishing has long been a subsidized economy. There simply aren’t enough of us to make a profitable commercial niche. One issue in all this has been serious financial problems at some of the subsidizers (both Friends United Meeting and Pendle Hill have had major budget crises and staff layoffs). The most important trends might not be in publishing but in the long-term finances of some of our big Quaker institutions. Still, I may be biased, but if I were the Quaker Pope, publishing would be the last thing to go.
An internal donor survey or two makes me wonder if publishing has dropped off the priority list of the current donor generation. Twenty years ago these closings would have been a scandal. Older Friends then still remembered Rufus Jones, Thomas Kelly, Howard Brinton and that mid-century period where Friends wrote ambitious books for wide audiences–it’s amazing to see how many classics from that period were originally published by mainstream commercial publishing houses. Today these closings have barely registered in the Quaker world.