Taking lessons from independent bookstores

The next time you find yourself leisurely browsing the shelves at your local independent bookstore, ask yourself how that store is still in business. Haven’t those little indie stores faced massive existential threats — multiple times? And yet they persist. Take a good look around, because that little store might just hold some answers about how to succeed in journalism and media in 2025.

Think about the Goliaths that indie bookshops have been up against. The first things that were supposed to kill them were the big-box book chains — think Borders, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and Crown — that rose to prominence in the early 1990s. At its peak, Borders alone had 511 stores across the U.S., each featuring a massive selection and deep discounts. How were small shops supposed to survive the Wal-Martification of bookselling? Then a few years later, in 1994, came Amazon, with a virtually unlimited inventory of books at even more deeply discounted prices, delivered right to your doorstep. Then came ebooks, which made that inventory available instantly at loss-leader levels of discounting.

Each of these advances was heralded as the death of small independent bookstores — and yet the indies are still standing. Better yet, most independent booksellers are stronger now than ever.

So why is that? Because it was never about the size of inventory and the pricing. It isn’t about the transaction. Independent bookstores are about relationships and community.

Customers support bookstores because they love books and the culture of books. They believe books improve their lives, the lives of others in their area, and create connection and a sense of community around the belief that books open you up to the world of different experiences and ideas. Books help us understand and see the fullness, complexity, and value of others. Books are about learning from those ideas and experiences to inspire ourselves to be better and live life more aware and connected to the world and our community. That is what customers are supporting when they patronize their local independent bookstores. They believe in this so much that they’ll go through an inefficient and less convenient buying experience to purchase a book — with little or no discounting on price — to make sure that bookstore is always available to them.

Not buying the potential connection between indie bookstores and the worlds of journalism and media? Then take the paragraph above and every time you see the word “books” substitute it with “journalism,” “podcasting,” or “local news.”

The advances in measurement and understanding of user preference that have come with the digital revolution have brought so many positives, but I think those benefits have blinded us to the less quantifiable emotional connections between what we make, the people we make it for, and to the stewardship of the community of users, viewers, readers, and users that we create.

Conversations about the short and long-term future of media are peppered with CPM, conversation rate, pageviews, monthly uniques, average consumption, and time on site that we don’t see the real connection between us and our audience. This leads us to rarely, if ever, ask: Why are they really here? What problem or need draws them here? And what satisfaction is at the core of why they stay and come back?

In the years since independent booksellers faced all these existential crises, many stopped to think about these questions. The answers led them to stop obsessing about volume, selection, and price — and lean more into relationship building. And it worked: You may have noticed that the one-time inventory and price disrupter Barnes and Noble is surging back and thriving (opening more than 60 new stores this year with plans for even more next year)…by embracing many lessons taken from independent sellers it once wanted to put out of business.

Is this the key to success in journalism and media? Well, I was about to type that it is only one small part, but now, as I write this, I actually do think this is the key. This mindset will lead to other ideas, approaches, and understanding — seeing the customer/consumer as more than a datapoint on a spreadsheet. And when we look at the big successes of 2025 and beyond, we’ll see this point of view reflected in how they approached this moment.

Just like that tiny local bookstore.