News & Events

Waters, Hass, Alarcon, and Barner Among Book of the Year Winners

 

The winners of the 2007 Book of the Year Awards, presented by the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA), have been announced. The awards were voted upon by independent booksellers and honor regional authors whose books were first published in 2007.

Independent booksellers chose from a total of 38 nominated books in seven categories—a complete list of finalists is below. The winners are:

FICTION

Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcon (HarperCollins)

NONFICTION

The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters (Clarkson Potter)

POETRY

Time and Materials by Robert Hass (Ecco)

POET TO WATCH

Disposed by Steve Dickison (Post-Apollo Press)

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

The Wild Girls by Pat Murphy (Viking)

CHILDREN’S ILLUSTRATED

Penguins, Penguins Everywhere by Bob Barner (Chronicle)

REGIONAL TITLE

Historical Atlas of California by Derek Hayes (UC Press)

NCIBA Book of the Year Finalists

FICTION

NONFICTION

POETRY

POET TO WATCH

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

CHILDREN’S ILLUSTRATED (Award to the illustrator)

REGIONAL TITLE

Mary Roach Hits 1000

Mary Roach

Long before she became the best-selling author of Stiff and Spook, Mary Roach attended an event at The Booksmith for Martin Amis. Roach didn’t have much money, so instead of buying a book, she asked the celebrated British novelist to sign his Booksmith author card (#94). That’s all she could afford. Now, some years later, Mary Roach is a successful author—and herself a Booksmith author card.

On April 8th, The Booksmith celebrates a milestone in the annals of literary ephemera. The San Francisco store is hosting Mary Roach, who will be reading from her just published book, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. What makes the occasion a milestone is that Roach’s appearance (her third at the store) places her as the 1000th card.

What’s a Booksmith author card? Modeled after baseball cards, Booksmith cards are promotional items created for most every writer who reads at the Haight Ashbury store. On the front is a picture of the author. On the back is text - information about the writer and their book as well as the time and date of their Booksmith appearance. Most cards are printed in an edition of 200 to 300. A display at the front counter of the store showcases each month’s cards.

From the beginning of the series in 1994, the cards have proven to be a unique method of promoting events. They have also proven popular with authors. For example, shortly after winning the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, novelist Robert Olen Butler (#32) asked to read at the Booksmith so he could become a trading card. As it turns out, Butler collects product cards and other vintage cards of various sorts.

Over the years, a body of trivia has grown up around the cards—and they have developed a small but loyal body of collectors. The very first card featured San Francisco Chronicle journalist Shann Nix. Card number 250 featured futurologist Robert Anton Wilson. Card 500 featured popular vampire novelist Laurell K. Hamilton. And card 750 featured novelist Wesley Stace (aka the singer songwriter John Wesley Harding). Along the way there have been a Nobel Prize winning poet, Czeslaw Milosz (#284), as well as a number of Booker and Pulitzer Prize winners including Kazuo Ishiguro (#395), Michael Ondaatje (#545), and Art Spiegelman (#78, #406 and #705).

The authors who have appeared on the most cards are—as it happens—authors with a local connection: they are Bay Area novelists William T. Vollmann and Jonathan Lethem, Berkeley critic Greil Marcus, Santa Cruz “sexpert” Susie Bright, and San Jose science fiction writer Rudy Rucker. Each have at least 5 cards to their name. Neighborhood resident Daniel Handler has appeared on five cards—twice as the children’s author “Lemony Snicket” (#428 and #804), once as himself (#393), and once each as the McSweeney’s author “The Pope” (#857) and “Snicket Squirrel” (#985).

Only one author included in the series was never scheduled to appear at the store. In 1997, The Booksmith hosted a no-author reading to celebrate the release of Thomas Pynchon’s novel, Mason & Dixon. The store issued a card (#183) of the rarely photographed author using a manipulated image from Pynchon’s college yearbook.

The first husband and wife to appear on the same card were J. Otto Seibold & Vivian Walsh (#101). Other couples making joint events—and appearing on the same card—include Glen David Gold & Alice Sebold (#542) and Ryan Harty & Julie Orringer (#629). Pseudo-anonymously, Daniel Handler and his wife, children’s book author Lisa Brown, appeared as “The Pope” and “Sarah Pinkie Bennett” (#857).

Located in the Haight Ashbury and befitting the store’s alt-culture environs, numerous Beat poets (Allen Ginsberg, #169 and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, #953), science fiction writers (Ray Bradbury, #168 and Harlan Ellison #45, #208, #560), McSweeney’s authors (Dave Eggers, #430, #502, #546 and #697), and rock stars (Marianne Faithful, #64 and Patti Smith, #807) have appeared in the series. The rarest card depicts rock legend Neil Young (#726). Because the musician’s book signing was arranged on just two weeks notice, a card was printed on the fly in a limited edition of 50.

Other celebrities and best selling authors included in the series are novelists Anne Rice (#22) and Tom Robbins (#783), children’s book author Hilary Knight (#338), photographers Richard Avedon (#30) and Annie Leibovitz (#881), 60’s guru Timothy Leary (#67), film director Wes Craven (#326), one-time porn star Xaviera Hollander (#515), and gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson (#199).

An illustrated checklist of the cards—including examples of numerous autographed cards—can be found on the Booksmith website.

Fewer Books, More Potholes: The True Cost of Amazon’s Tax Gimmickry

How many new teachers could you hire in California for $48,000,000 per year—1,000, maybe more? How many police officers or fire-fighters could you employ? How many books could you buy for school libraries—5,000,000? You could get at least that many.

$48,000,000 is the estimated amount of revenue that California loses each year by Amazon.com’s refusal to collect and pay sales taxes in this state. If you consider that Amazon has been thumbing its nose at California tax laws for more than a decade, the amount lost is probably well over half-a-billion dollars. You can point the finger at Amazon for this scandal—and you should—but please save a digit or two for the California Board of Equalization, which is the agency that should be enforcing the law against them. Because of the BOE’s foot-dragging, the rest of us have to cover this revenue shortfall.

Who Gets Hurt?

Lots of people get hurt as a result of the tax holiday that Amazon.com has carved out for itself. Local communities take a big hit, because that’s where most sales tax revenue goes. When you’re talking about loss of sales tax, you’re not talking about some vague government programs—the loss of sales tax means fewer library books and more unfilled potholes.

Local businesses also suffer—and when they suffer, the rest of the community may suffer because of a negative domino-effect. By not collecting sales taxes, Amazon and others like them enjoy at least a 7.5% price advantage when competing for customers. In businesses where competition is fierce and profit margins are low (bookselling, alas, comes to mind) that’s a huge advantage. If such tactics force local stores out of business, the negative domino-effect kicks in: i.e. the community loses all the tax revenue on the local sales that the now-defunct stores no longer collect.

Lower income people also get hurt—this is a sad fact that isn’t often discussed. Because sales tax is a flat rate tax, it is very regressive; lower income people pay a much higher percentage of their income in sales tax than more affluent people. Over the last several decades the sales tax rate has at least doubled, aggravating this disparity.

Amazon’s policies have made a bad situation worse: by not collecting sales tax from their on-line shoppers, they have, in effect, forced everyone else to cover the cost of local government. This hits hardest on lower income people—those who are unable to shop on-line. To be an internet shopper, you need at least four things: (1) a computer, (2) an internet connection, (3) a credit card, and (4) a fixed delivery address. There are many low income people who are without one or all of those, and they are the ones who are ultimately stuck with the bill for sales taxes.

Why Do They Do It?

Not Amazon—we know why they do it: their refusal to collect and pay sales tax gives them a huge competitive advantage.

No, the question is why do non-profit groups that support schools, libraries, parks, and other good causes become “Amazon Associates” and promote sales of Amazon.com products through their websites? Their instincts may be good—they’re trying to raise a little money through the affiliate-fees to support their cause—but the effect is totally self-destructive. Such groups need to think about one fact: each sale that they promote through their website actually harms the cause they are working for. Why? Because the amount they receive in affiliate fees on such sales is actually less than the amount that the community loses in sales tax. Many such organizations exhort their members to make all their purchases through such Amazon links, but the members, thankfully, usually have more sense: they realize that the end result of such behavior would be to force local businesses to close, thus drying up all the sales tax revenues that are essential to their communities.

This is a maddening situation for local businesses. Not only do they collect and pay the sale taxes that their communities rely on, but most of them do hundreds of other things—some financial, some non-financial—to support local activities. In an earlier article (News & Reviews, March-April, 2006), we pointed to studies showing that for every $100 spent with a local retailer about $73 remains in the community—that’s $30 more than the  $43 from a typical chainstore. As great as that disparity is, it’s nothing compared to Amazon.com: every last penny of the $13 billion that they take in leaves the community.

This is an area where local groups can take a stand—they don’t have to wait for the Board of Equalization to get off of its collective posterior and enforce the law against Amazon. If such groups want to raise money through on-line affiliate programs, there are plenty of local businesses that can provide their members with a full on-line sales program that does not denude the community of its sales tax revenue (we have such a program; there are others as well).

How Does Amazon Get Away With It?

It’s simple: Amazon.com claims it is a purely out-of-state business with no local “nexus,” and the Board of Equalization has been too timid to challenge them on it.

California law requires out-of-state companies to collect sales tax if they have “any representative, agent, salesperson, canvasser, independent contractor, or solicitor operating in this state” for the purpose of “selling, delivering, installing, assembling, or the taking of orders . . .” (sec. 6203; Rev & Taxation Code). It doesn’t take much for a company to fit under that law—almost any activity by any kind of agent will create “nexus.” For example, an out-of-state company that solicited book sales to grade school students only through volunteer, unpaid teachers was found by the courts to have a nexus with the state. Likewise, a company that merely received requests for purchases from a small group of independent agents was ruled to have nexus. Nexus is the key: once a company has it, it is liable for sales taxes on all of its sales in the state—not just the ones involving such agents.

How does Amazon.com fit within that legal framework? It bursts the sides of the frame. It’s no exaggeration to say that Amazon.com probably has more “solicitors,” “agents,” and “representatives” in this state than most California-based businesses. Consider the Amazon Associates program mentioned above—there are probably well over 200,000 people and organizations actively soliciting sales for Amazon through websites, meetings, personal contacts and other activities in the state. The in-state activities of these agents are far more extensive than those of other companies that have been required to collect sales tax. In addition, Amazon continues to act from time to time as the on-line sales and distribution service for several local chain stores—you go in to see about videos that your local store has for sale, and you are likely to be directed to Amazon for the purchase. Finally, there is the Amazon Advantage program, in which private individuals arrange to sell merchandise through Amazon. Under that program, thousands of California residents each day deliver merchandise to other California residents using the Amazon system to consummate the sale. What is the difference between the purchase of, say, a power tool sold this way and one sold over the counter at your local hardware store? There is none—except the Amazon sale evades taxation.

The evidence of Amazon.com’s nexus in California is so overwhelming that it’s hard to see how anyone can ignore it. The only reed that their supporters cling to is a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Quill v. North Dakota) in which the Court said that a state could not impose sales tax liability if a company’s “only connection with customers in the [taxing] State is by common carrier or the United States mail.” But the Quill case is a pre-internet decision—as far as the realities of on-line commerce are concerned, it might as well have been written in the Middle Ages. Unlike the relatively small, traditional mail-order company in that case, Amazon.com has a ubiquitous presence that has an impact on almost every aspect of modern commerce. Amazon’s reliance on the Quill case probably wouldn’t withstand the first challenge.

But first, there has to be a challenge—the Board of Equalization is the only agency that can do that. If the BOE is unwilling to force companies like Amazon to collect and pay taxes, it might as well shut down its operation: in the future there may not be any traditional retailers left to do the tax-collecting for them. —W. Petrocelli

New Scam Targets Booksellers

This cautionary tale from John Evans at Diesel, A Bookstore offers a new twist on attempts to scam booksellers. It’s reprinted with permission from Shelf Awareness:

Fishy Cookbook Author’s Story Has Sweet Ending

John Evans, co-owner of Diesel: A Bookstore, with stores in Oakland and Malibu, Calif., related to Shelf Awareness the following cautionary tale for booksellers. It started a week ago Saturday morning when the store received a call from Eric Gower, author of The Breakaway Cook, who was appearing at a multi-author event at Diesel’s Oakland store that afternoon.

“My car has been stolen and I need you to help me,” he told Evans. “I’ve found a rent-a-car company that will rent to me, but I need you to send me $150 by Western Union. I can give you the address and information to send it. I’ll give you $400 when I get up there, for helping me out.”

Evans declined the $400, and Gower said, “Yeah, you don’t need the money.” So Evans asked what happened and where he was, thinking that if he were in the Bay Area, someone from the store could pick him up.

But Gower said he was in Los Angeles, explaining, “I locked my keys in my car, with all of my credit cards, and my computer with all the photos I have of my mother in it. I went to get something to open the car, and when I came back, there was just broken glass and my car was gone with everything in it.” To Evans, he sounded desperate and a bit dramatic, both over the top and honestly anxious. Evans noted: “It sounded strange though, calling us and not someone else, when there was no way to make the event in any case.”

Evans suggested Gower forget traveling to Oakland, but Gower pleaded, “I have two other appointments up there and need to get back today. I’ll bring in $400 tomorrow after I get up there. Let me give you the information for wiring the money.”

Evans told Gower to call back when the events person Gower had been dealing with would be in the store. But Gower did not call back, so Diesel staff set up for the event without space for Gower. Evans continued: “Everything looked great for the event and at start time, in walks Eric! We asked him what happened and he didn’t know what we were talking about.”

Evans called it the “Nigerian author scam, the latest in an endlessly inventive series of attempts to hustle and shakedown unwitting booksellers of their hard-earned cash.”

‘Give a Kid Some Credit’: Green Apple Books Donates $40,000 To Kids . . In Free Books!

Every public school 3rd grader in San Francisco gets to choose $10 in books from our shelves

To celebrate 40 years as one of San Francisco’s most beloved independent bookstores, Green Apple Books is delighted to announce the launch of the Give A Kid Some Credit program, which encourages the next generation of readers. We’re donating $10 in credit to every 3rd grader in San Francisco public schools—that’s almost 4,000 kids who will receive free books in the 2007-2008 school year.

Because we believe that nothing is more important than making sure that every child is ready to read, we’re putting our money where our mouth is through Give A Kid Some Credit. We want the next generation to know the joys of browsing and reading, the way gazillions of book lovers have since Green Apple first opened in 1967.

How does it work? We’ve encouraged our customers to donate their used book trade by matching donations dollar for dollar, and we’ve received generous backing from publishers like Chronicle Books. We’ve worked with the San Francisco School District, the fine folks at Seidel Advertising, and the Mayor’s Office to launch Give A Kid Some Credit, and won’t stop until we’ve given every 3rd grader at San Francisco’s 78 public schools $10 to spend at the store.

Please help spread the word, celebrate reading, and Give a Kid Some Credit!

Kevin Ryan
Owner, Green Apple Books
506 Clement Street
San Francisco, CA 94118
415.387.2272

Dates to Remember

Don’t miss out. Here are some important upcoming events.

Author Events

Below are links to current events calendars of NCIBA member stores. Here you will find some of the most exciting, interesting, stimulating and thought provoking happenings in the region.


Event listings can also be found on:

Also well worth checking out is the Sonoma County Book Festival. To find out who will be appearing at this annual September event, please visit the Festival website.