That’s part of what’s included in the price. The argument we make to our customers is you got the experience of seeing all these other books you may not have seen elsewhere and you got to spend a lovely afternoon with your best friend walking around town. But I have to charge this price because that’s what’s going to keep me in business. Deb and I were standing where the bookstore should have been, but wasnt. Evanston is a great Chicago suburb and we have been hanging out there for years and years. First stop was BOOKENDS & BEGINNINGS, in Evanston, IL. They’re using this book-they don’t care about who wrote it, they don’t care about who’s buying it. Deb and I went on our bookstore hunt again today. Bookends & Beginnings 5 4 reviews 3 of 16 Shopping in Evanston Speciality & Gift Shops Open now 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM Visit website Call Email Write a review About Suggested duration 1-2 hours Suggest edits to improve what we show. Then Amazon says, “Let’s sell this book for $14 instead of $24.99, and then everyone’s going to sign up for Prime.” They can lose money because they financed themselves through venture capital. When we sell a book at a certain price, what’s left, after paying the publisher, is what enables a sustainable bookselling industry. The lawsuit seeks damages and I think that’s appropriate because every local bookstore has been damaged by Amazon’s practices. Bookends & Beginnings 4. What are you hoping will come out of the lawsuit? All the people who own and work in bookstores are here because we love books and we would love for our industry not to be disabled by a huge company that is devaluing what we’re doing. Nobody is in this industry to make $170 billion except for one person, and he’s not really in our industry anyway. I don’t speak for every store in the country, but I am someone who is getting damaged and I’m willing to say Amazon is the reason and is the cause. He invited me because he thought we are exactly the kind of store this lawsuit is trying to help, and I think that’s true. One of the lead attorneys lives in Evanston and shops at our store. They bring the firepower to make this a significant lawsuit. When people talk about this as a David and Goliath thing, it’s not like it’s “Nina out there swinging the club at Amazon,” it’s these attorneys who will be. Part of it is trust in these particular attorneys. What made you decide to join the lawsuit? We were able to get $50,000 and that went a long way in us being able to reopen in July for walk-ins. We launched a GoFundMe quite early on because I felt we needed that reserve of money to make sure we were going to be able to get through it. I felt really strongly about hanging on to my staff that was my major priority because the pandemic wasn’t their fault. The process of applying for a PPP loan was nightmarish, and in the first round we didn’t get one. For the first weeks, I was in a constant state of panic. Best of Chicago 2022: Sports & RecreationĪs small business owners, we knew a lot of devastation was coming, so I assumed it was coming for me too.
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