Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Bookstore Sales Drop 10%, But Half-Hearted, Half-Day Boycott Could Boost April's Numbers


This morning's Publishers Weekly reports that bookstore sales plunged 10.8% in February. While normally this would be cause for concern (especially considering the downward spiral of our current economy), in the heart of this underpaid bookstore employee, hope springs eternal.
Why?
Amazon's recent anti-gay "glitch". While highly offensive and completely inexcusable (well, one would've thought so, anyway), it did cause a momentary knee-jerk reaction among concerned Lefties. In a bold move that hearkened back to the Alabama bus boycotts, Twittering Liberals temporarily abandoned Amazon's ever-changing discounts and computer-generated 'personal recommendations' in favor of long-forgotten brick & mortar bookstores with their rectangular, rainbow window stickers and topical, 'What's Obama Reading?' end-cap displays. Granted, this self-aggrandizing, socio-economic, take-the-power-back stance only lasted until Amazon's spokesman, Drew Herdener, released a boardroom-backed apology excuse wherein he blamed it on a "cataloging error," but hey -- it might've been enough to shrink next month's sales drop to the single digits!
Here's hoping Amazon offends the Far Right next month.