Some catching up

Tue 26 Aug 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

  • sThe disclosure label from New England GreenStart shows that our home power mix (we don’t get to choose for the Paragon Arts Building) is 75% hydroelectric and the rest from biomass (20.9%), solar (3%), and wind (1.2%).
    Hydro has its own impact problems (somewhat less than nuclear [storage, leaks] or coal [mining, pollution]), but seeing the solar part rise from 1% to 3% in the last couple of years is tres tres exciting.
  • The NEA recently announced that applications are open for their 2010 translation grants. Go forth, translate something weird, and query us on it.
  • Download our distributor’s catalog in PDF here and see what’s coming from us, Coffee House, Paul Dry, Manic D, and many more.
  • Gayle Shanks, president of the Am. Booksellers Association, has a thoughtful letter on Chelsea Green’s decision to restrict sales of their new Obama title to Amazon:

One of my core beliefs as a bookseller is that a free society depends on a diverse marketplace of ideas, and that closed markets, exclusive agreements, and tactics designed to achieve a short-term victory at the expense of core values are both short-sighted and counter productive.

We’re in the process of changing out BookSense.com book links over to IndieBound—we hope you’ll always consider buying our books locally (where they will generally be in stock first). Here are the links for The Ant King: Our Local Bookstore | Your Local Bookstore.

Since everyone always votes with their wallet, try this fact on people when they tell you they like to buy online:

  • Spend $100 at a local and $68 of that stays in your community. Spend the same $100 at a national chain, and your community only sees $43

That math means that your local community loses $25 of every $100 spent at chains. Which means $250 of every $1,000; $250,000 of each million dollars. Which is why local shops find it hard to compete when that much income is leaving the area. That $25 ($250, $250,000) pays people to work locally, pays local suppliers, etc. Don’t discount shop people out of jobs in your town.

Listening to someone else’s local music right now on My Old Kentucky Blog: Ben Weaver The Ax in the Oak from one of our fave labels, Bloodshot.