And since he's always a helpful fellow, Passive Guy also has a link to this neat article about indie bookstores actually (gasp!) working with self-published authors, instead of boycotting their books!

And by golly, it turns out that carrying books by local authors regardless of publisher helps distinguish the store from places like Amazon! The writers' friends and families love you, and you can get a lot of free publicity and even win awards.

Even better, according to Heather Lyon, who owns Lyon Books in Chico, California, "For self-published books, there isn’t the pressure to compete on price, so Amazon isn’t much of an issue."

Lyon goes on to say:

I’m on a soapbox about this, because I know a lot of bookstore owners and managers don’t like to work with self-published authors. I think they’re missing out on the big picture ... and profits. Once you embrace it, it’s really not difficult.

Where do the profits come in? Most of the time these books are sold on consignment, so there's no cost to the bookstore other than staff time. In addition, some of these bookstores are basically selling promotional services to authors--you pay to have an event at the store, or you pay to be included in a large newspaper ad.

There's just so many better ways of dealing with the changes in publishing than trying to slavishly copy Amazon or being some boycotting reactionary.