Bookpeople was an employee-owned and operated book wholesaler and distributor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. It operated from 1969-2003. Bookpeople was one of the major forces behind the renaissance of independent publishing that occurred during this period. The business provided a wide range of hard-to-find titles to bookstores throughout the U.S. and the world. It also played a major role in the development of New Age and radical political publishing and bookselling. It was not related to The Book People, a U.K. publishing concern, or

BookPeople BookPeople is an independent bookstore in Austin, Texas, and the largest bookstore in the state of Texas. It was founded in 1970 and has been voted the best bookstore by the Austin Chronicle every year since 1995 . BookPeople was voted ''Publis ...

, an Austin, Texas bookstore.

History

Don Gerrard started the business in 1969, which afterward was purchased by the employees, who re-formed it into a type of cooperative business. They incorporated in 1971 as the Bookpeople Employee's Association. It was one of the earliest cooperatives in the Bay Area. The business started in Berkeley, moving to nearby

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

in the early 1990s. While being noted for carrying a wide range of controversial books, Bookpeople was also noted for refusing to carry books that were seen by some in the bookselling community as inappropriately sexist or exploitive, such as ''

American Psycho ''American Psycho'' is a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is told in the first person by Patrick Bateman, a serial killer and Manhattan investment banker. Alison Kelly of ''The Observer'' notes that while "some countr ...

''.

Publishing

While often being credited as a publisher, strictly speaking they did not publish under the Bookpeople imprint. They did operate a publishing house,

Wingbow Press Bookpeople was an employee-owned and operated book wholesaler and distributor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. It operated from 1969-2003. Bookpeople was one of the major forces behind the renaissance of independent publishing that occurred du ...

, which published books of local interest, such as early editions of ''Bargain Hunting in the Bay Area'', by Sally Socolich, and books on women's spirituality, divination and ecology.

Exclusive distribution

Bookpeople was able to offer exclusive distribution to many small publishers that were then able to achieve wider distribution to bookstores. By offering bookstores return privileges, the stores were able to try titles from smaller publishers without having to absorb the full cost for unsold titles. Many of these publishers and books would eventually be sold to or become major imprints of larger publishers, or larger publishers in their own right. Some of these titles included '' Mutant Message Down Under'' (a self-published title picked up by HarperCollins after amassing significant sales), ''

The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment Thaddeus Stanley Golas (1924 - 1997) was an American writer active in the self-help, New Age, and psychedelic genres. His most well-known work is ''The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment,'' which he self-published in 1972 and which was later picked ...

'' (picked up for publication by

Bantam Books Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. ...

after 9 years with a small press), and the '' Whole Earth Catalog''; publishers included John Muir Press, and North Atlantic Books.

Wholesaling

The largest section of their business was wholesaling, where they provided nonexclusive sales of books from major trade publishers as well as small presses. Their wholesale catalog was used by booksellers for years as a resource for surveying the state of alternative publishing, as they consistently carried new titles in such burgeoning fields as African American studies, feminism, holistic health, spirituality, gay and lesbian literature (including erotica), in addition to the aforementioned categories.

Legacy

The bookselling world was affected by the loss of Bookpeople, having cultivated relationships with them for over 30 years, and having had staff move into other positions within the bookselling community.

References