Bookstores

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 […]

While it’s a common refrain that publishing is not a lucrative industry for workers, it is especially true for bookstore workers. Booksellers can make or break a book’s success, are knowledgeable about hundreds of individual products and the industry as a whole, and are a vital part of the publishing ecosystem. But they are often paid minimum wage or not much above, and even experienced booksellers often earn less than what entry-level colleagues in publishing offices make. There seems to be a disconnect between the career and the compensation—booksellers are paid like an hourly gig in what is, for many, […]