Just came across this sweet article by someone who works at one of the last big independent bookstores standing about the need to counter the seductive advertising of e-book readers and remind the world that real books are really freaking rad.
His advice:
Publishers should tantalize consumers by evoking books’ sensory pleasures: the smell; the feel in your hands; that crisp, appealing crinkle of a turned page and smooth snap of a dust jacket. Publishers should elicit the joys of “curling up with a book,” the satisfaction of seeing your library on a shelf in your bedroom — the years of your life marked by rows of colorful spines, the pages covered with marginalia.
There’s a lot more to say on the topic, but I will leave you with that image for now and urge you to help keep independent print publishing going by backing the Kickstarter project to fund the printing of my next two zines. This isn’t a charity request — you’ll essentially be pre-ordering these small, and dare I say, viscerally appealing volumes that will look intriguing on your end table and impress everyone on the bus or at the coffeeshop or who catches a glimpse of the top of one of them peeking out of your back pocket.