Bookstore Tourism by Larry Portzline

There is no cover so I took a screenshot
of the first page XD

I first heard of this when, well I forgot when. I just know that recently, I was googling and ended up stumbling upon the concept of Bookstore tourism. Needless to say, I was very intrigued by the concept. And thankfully, the founder of this concept Larry Portzline, has a free ebook primer about Bookstore Tourism. You can download it for free here

The book is divided into five parts - a history of the concept, an explanation, a book industry primer, a "how-to" guide and a suggestion of great towns to tour. It's a rather short book (104 pages in pdf format), but full of lots of interesting and useful information.

Simply put, Bookstore tourism is when you go around town visiting different and unique indie bookstores rather than the normal tourist destinations. It's aimed at the bibliophile (like me) and is supposed to help support the indie bookstores by bringing them customers.

One of my favourite parts of the book was the examples of successful and unique indie bookstores. It proves that the idea of selling physical books isn't outdated, and like any business, a USP (Unique Selling Point) is needed.

The book is interesting and simple. The suggestions given are also really practical and can be put into practice. Personally, I can see this happening in Singapore as we do have a few indie bookshops that should be more well-known - such as Littered With Books. But as yet, I can't think of how to use this idea in Japan. But that's because so far, I've only been shopping at BookOff and I haven't seen any unique stores yet.

For some reason, I'm very very inspired after reading this. I want to organise something like this when I grow up (or when I find some indie bookstores in Japan). From the author's personal experience, this sounds really fun, and doesn't need to be a full-time commitment. And personally, if it's going to let me buy more books, I'm all for this concept!

So, who's interested?