Constant Reader

Last spring, in an essay about why Amazon.com doesn’t donate to local arts
organizations the way that other large local businesses do, I suggested
that if Amazon didn’t want to give money to a preexisting cause it had
no control over, it could instead bankroll a large Seattle book
festival. I received anonymous e-mails from Amazon employees telling me
to keep it up, but the piece was greeted by stony silence from
the online retailer’s publicity department.

But last week, when I was walking the floor at BookExpo America, someone I’d never met before who was walking in the other
direction shouted my name and grabbed my arm. I turned to see a name
badge that identified the person as an employee of Amazon.com, and I braced myself for a shiv
in the ribs. It was Jon Fine, Amazon’s new director of author and
publisher relations.

Fine wanted to make sure that I’d heard of Amazon’s new
corporate-philanthropy initiative, which he had a hand in
developing. The program, which is naturally focused on writing and
publishing programs, currently donates to local worthies like Clarion
West and 826 Seattle and great national programs like PEN American
Center and Children’s Book Week. It’s a phenomenal start for
Amazon.

Later that day in a presentation, Fine would announce something
equally exciting: Amazon is partnering with BookTour.com to inform book buyers when
their favorite authors are reading in a venue near them. This means
that, in Seattle, Amazon will be sending a whole lot of people to
Elliott Bay Book Company and University Book Store on a regular basis.
This program makes great sense, and it fixes one of the biggest
problems with an online book retailer: connecting authors with readers.
It’s also essentially free targeted advertising for independent
booksellers.

But the show gossip suggested that Fine had a quieter motive for
attending BEA this year: According to the rumor among Seattleites at
the show, he was meeting with Mitch Kaplan, the founder of the very
successful Miami Book Fair, and the heads of the up-and-coming Brooklyn
Book Festival to talk about creating a new book festival here in
Seattle. And he was also talking with local independent booksellers
about selling books at that festival. If Amazon pulls this off, besides
the fact that it would provide national attention for our vibrant and
diverse literary scene, it could possibly be one of the greatest
Scrooge-goes-good stories in Seattle’s history. It might be time to
start rooting for the big guys.