Saturday, April 16, 2011

What if a bookstore stocked only one title?

Author Opens ‘Monobookist Bookstore’
By Jason Boog on Galley Cat, April 15, 2011

To celebrate the launch of his new book about the Phoenix Mars mission, author Andrew Kessler constructed a “monobookist bookstore”–a temporary shop stocked with more than 3,000 copies of Martian Summer.

We caught up with Kessler to find out more about Ed’s Martian Book, a bookstore located at 547 Hudson Street in New York City. He explained: “Since we wanted to make a big serious statement about the future of books we had to get the timing just right. Ed and I waited for the Borders’ bankruptcy proceedings to begin and religious tension to mount across the globe. And when that all finally happened, we knew the timing would be perfect for a new kind of monobookist bookstore.”

He continued: “And we were right. The was only one thing to do build the first store around the Martian Summer book launch. It took a small army. Most of the army consisted of (and was led by) one of the most talented scenic designers on the Planet, Jorie DeFreitas. Don’t go building any new-fangled spaces without her.”

Kessler also explained how he assembled his ambitious project: “I dipped into the old savings a bit to make this whole project happen–but who wouldn’t to live on a NASA mission and then make a giant art project about it to tell the world!? I live the frugal life to make these moments happen. But I’d be very nervous to tell others to spend their hard-earned money on art projects (although I secretly want them to).”

He added: “But even with all that, I got a lot of people to donate time, real estate and good will. I never thought that I could really pull this off. The space on Hudson was in transition and the moment was right, so we jumped on it.”

Kessler concluded: “The thing that I did do was ask for favors (lots of favors) from almost everyone I’d ever met. This was a massive effort. And people rallyed to help me. I have very nice friends. Loads of people helped me unload book boxes, stock the shelves, design logos and even keep the store open. It was a massive team effort to pull it together. But it was well worth it.”

He added some simple advice for authors interested in following in his footsteps: “You’re going to hear a lot of people say, ‘Wow, that will never work.’ They’ll be right, of course, but if you love books and you should do it anyway. ”

1 comment:

transpress nz said...

This has been done before, including in NZ. A good use for a temporarily vacant store, but for a publisher it would be too tempting to fill the store with other titles from the list.