How do booksellers negotiate the tensions between economic success and cultural integrity? Reluctant Capitalists provides a historical analysis.

What got you interested in the subject matter of bookstore economics?

I originally worked for a time as a librarian and became interested in the information industry. When I went into graduate school for sociology, I knew I wanted to research some aspect of the book industry. So much attention in Publishers Weekly and other trade journals had been given to the growth of the chains and the coming of the superstores, but it hadn't been covered in scholarship. The more I looked into it, the more I realized was there.

You underscore the economic principle of rationalization as something that enables superstores to succeed, but which smaller stores seem to resist.

There are ways in which smaller size makes it almost impossible to take advantage of certain aspects of rationalization. For instance, economies of scale: the more units, the cheaper many of your costs are going to be. But there are other aspects, it's true, where there's a more conscious decision not to rationalize the way the chains have, and partly that's because a single owner-operated store has more discretion over how it treats its own business than a larger store, which is responsible to a much larger group of stakeholders.

In describing Book Sense's efforts to rationalize independent bookselling by creating a national branded identity, you discuss the resistance the program met from strong-willed indies.

It's an open question whether Book Sense has worked or not. Certainly the American Booksellers Association has claimed success for the campaign, but I just don't think there's any evidence one way or the other. But I do think a potential problem in emphasizing marketing the way Book Sense has is that the independents are trying to outsmart the chains at their own game. I don't think they have the resources to do it, and perhaps that isn't even the best way to make a primary appeal to consumers, rather than making a philosophical or moral appeal for patronizing independents.

What would that appeal entail?

You see it in some of the campaigns asking customers to patronize independents because of their contributions to the community. I'm sure you're familiar with what was done to keep Kepler's open out in California. In cases like that, emotional and cultural appeal matter a great deal. It cannot simply be an appeal to what is going to benefit the consumer in terms of convenience or immediate gratification.