Our reporting on compensation in different segments of the publishing industry continues with independent bookstores, where low pay seems like a foregone conclusion. Though indies have grown and diversified in recent years, sustaining workers—and in some cases, the stores themselves—is an ongoing challenge. Some stores, such as Tattered Cover in Denver and Powell’s in Portland, OR, are essentially corporations or mini-chains with multiple locations and HR departments, while others, such as Astoria Bookshop in Queens, have one storefront and fewer than 10 employees, including the owner. The growing unionization of individual bookstores around the country has helped secure pay and […]
