Here’s a message from the owner which can be found on their website:

Beginning today, August 4th, and leading through a weekend fundraising event August 15th-August 17th, I am opening myself to your assistance. It doesn’t matter how small your contribution is–with enough help it will all add up in the end. If you want to offer $25, $50, $100, $200, anything at all, it can help. My greatest hope is to not only save our bookstore now, but to offer in return for your help some sense of benefit when we are once again stabilized.

The fact is that Wordsmiths Books is, as an idea and in execution, a great bookstore and it can be so much more given the chance. We are not fighting declining sales, nor are we fighting customer apathy, or even a lagging book market. We are fighting only the debt created by starting in the wrong location. Despite the depths of our need, despite the fact that it leaves me no alternative but to seek your help, we still see the opportunity that lies before us here, on the Square and in the welcoming home of Decatur. We wish to have the opportunity to survive here, to grow and continue to bring to you the same level of entertainment and literary merit that you have come to expect from us. We just need help to get there. We need your help to survive today. If you are willing to help, you can call the store at (404) 378-7166, you can stop by or you can visit www.wordsmithsbooks.com and click on the Donation button on our home page. If you prefer to utilize the mail, then our address is: 545 N. McDonough Street, Decatur Georgia 30030.

There are questions that you have, I am sure. Please ask them. Email me at zach@wordsmithsbook.com, call the store (404-378-7166) or stop by. I am not averse to discussing the matter on any level to anybody. Simply put, we–the entire Wordsmiths Books family–are at your mercy. I will be blogging daily (or as close to daily as is possible) with updates and further information. Again, no amount is too small. We want nothing more than the opportunity to continue to be the bookstore we have been all along. Your help is greatly appreciated and will not be forgotten.

Click here to visit Access Atlanta and read what others are saying about this benefit.

Click here or here for other blogs’ opinions on what Wordsmith has done for the literary community.

So, what are your thoughts?  Do book lovers consider bookstores to be like all those other retail places?  Do bookstores deserve fund raising “benefits” to help pay their bills?  The government just bailed out big mortgage banks when they got in trouble!  Should we help bail out our local bookstores?  Post your thoughts here!

Normally, I would have posted this link in the POD Diary section since I came across it while working on marketing for my own book, but it was just too good not to post here on the main page.

Check out this newspage.com link which is a small directory for Independent Bookstores in the U.S. and Canada.  It’s divided by state, and although some of the addresses are incomplete, it’s a great start to finding stores in your area to call upon during a book promotion!  Booksense.com, which I did mention in the POD Diary, is now called Indie Bound. They’ve just made a ton of improvements to their site and it is much more user friendly!

Today’s indie bookstore highlight goes out to a favorite of mine in my old stomping grounds of Memphis, Tennessee.  Burkes Books was established in 1875. When I lived in Memphis, they were in a nice big building with lots of windows right up close to Poplar Avenue.  John Grisham loved to sign there (and still does), and I can still remember driving by the day Anne Rice was there and seeing a line of people outside that wrapped around the block.

They had some hard times recently, but downsized to a quaint shop in the hip Cooper Young district in the Midtown area.  If you are thinking about Memphis, get down there in September for the arts and crafts Cooper Young Festival, visit all those cool shops and restaurants, and then head over to Burkes and buy a book!  They have a fantastic collection of new and old, and a lot of signed first editions up for grabs.

So, what’s coming in July for the LLBR site?  I’ve got six more reviews lined up as promised for my summer reading spectacular, and lost more to tackle in the POD Diary as I continue to market my new book like crazy.  Join me on this self-publishing roller coaster and let’s see what happens!