Indie booksellers,
music and art, including works by the preeminent Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo. The bookstore’s unique model allows it to avoid the usual retail trappings: Allá is the rare store without a website.
Garcia Street Books’ innovation proves that even small choices can have big effects. All the store’s book covers face outward, rather than having spines greet browsers. Devine said of the shop’s display technique, “When I come in, I get inspired to read something new and something different that I wouldn’t have picked up.” The element of discoverability is a key feature that sets bookstores apart from online book-buying. To experience the sense of discovery that is one of the great joys of reading itself, physical spaces are incomparable.
For many local bookstores, a significant component of creating a distinction from virtual bookselling spaces comes from hosting events, such as readings and book signings, relating back to the role of bookstores as creative centers. Op.Cit.’s de Bodisco said that events can actually be disruptive for sales, but because they benefit the community and give local and traveling authors exposure and the chance to engage with one another, they are an important thing for stores to do.
Of course, nothing is ever truly certain in business. It would be foolish to ignore the presence of Amazon, which recently rose to the rank of world’s third-most valuable company. But the overall sense among Santa Fe’s bookstore owners is that business is good, and the joys of what they do seem to far outweigh the worries. “I think we’re going to survive and thrive, and I think you’ll see more,” Devine said of independent bookstores. “You do have to have the right community for it.” Expressing what seems to be a universal sentiment among local bookstore owners, Santa Fe’s support for their business model is, she added, “a pretty special thing.”