Search This Blog

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

On Martha's Vineyard rivals combine to sell books



Can you imagine Borders and B&N having a I-help-you-you-help-me relationship? Even when the aim is to serve the reading public better?

It's being done on Martha's Vineyard. As Megan Dooley of the Martha's Vineyard Gazette reports, the two reigning bookstores have "tapped into some old Vineyard magic: a sense of cooperation, community and support."


At the suggestion of a Random House rep, Dawn Braasch (left) of Bunch of Grapes and Susan Mercier of Edgartown Books teamed up to create a big enough crowd to entice Richard Russo to visit the island, appearing Friday at the Katharine Cornell Theatre.

They also work together to serve their customers. Braasch notes, "It's great to be able to say to a customer, if we don't have [a book], 'Let me call Edgartown Books.' My goal is if we don't have it, they will or vice versa. We can't all carry everybody's book, and sometimes you make a judgment call for your store, is it going to sell or not. I think we have different clientele, certainly, in the way that Edgartown is different from Vineyard Haven."

No comments: