As you all know, events are widely cancelled and schools are closed. In addition, many bookstores are closing their sales floors to better care for their staff and communities. This will have a lasting affect on the industry we know and love.

We, like you, are trying to figure out the best ways to move forward, to nurture ourselves and our communities, and to make sure that as many of the businesses that make our literary ecosystem so rich are here on the other side of this crisis. Some publishers are pushing back on-sale dates for their books, so the authors have a chance to see the sales they normally would and go on book tour. This is a helpful strategy for those authors. However, many authors have books already out, just coming out, and scheduled to come out that can’t push their dates back. We have to support them as much as we’re able.

On our Facebook page, we offer some ideas for supporting both authors and independent bookstores during this time. If you are in a position to do so, please help them out. Let’s keep books and the places where we discover them vibrant and viable.

When we can all congregate again, we’ll look forward to meeting many of you there, in the stacks at Malaprop’s or Bagatelle or M. Judson or any of the other many wonderful stores we know, listening to people talk about books and sharing in our communal love for the written word.

Take care of yourselves,

Lauren, Caroline, and the team