In Book Wars, It's Victory or Death:...

In Book Wars, It’s Victory or Death

Strategies for Independent Bookstores

Making a Stand on “Death Ground”

Part 6 of the 36-part “Book Wars” series of articles

by David A. Rozansky, Publisher, Flying Pen Press

April 28, 2009

(Note: This is the 6th article in the “Book Wars” series of articles, a series of articles where the author interprets the strategies taught in The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene, and applies them to the business of the independent bookseller, in the arena of the difficult book trade. The first article in this series can be read at http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977657920.)

This series of articles discusses how war strategies can be applied to the book trade for the benefit of the independent bookseller. In previous articles, I have discussed the Warrior Spirit and the strategies of Defining Your Enemy, Nonrepetition and Presence of Mind. Now I will discuss a critical strategy from Robert Greene’s The 33 Strategies of War—fighting on “Death Ground.”

Anyone who studies strategy is familiar with the concept of “Death Ground.” In war, this is a battlefield where one’s army must win or die, there is no retreat or escape. The most glaring example is the Red Army and the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II.

When faced with the choice of Risking death to face the enemy or Escaping to fight another day, most will elect to escape. But when the choice is Risking death to face the enemy or Surrendering and meeting certain death, the troops fight the enemy with a ferocity that cannot be matched.

Sun Tzu’s timeless classic The Art of War recommended burning bridges behind the army as it advanced, to give us the expression: “Burning your bridges behind you.” He also recommended never to fight an enemy that has no retreat available.

Greene’s interpretation of this policy is that it is important in life to keep trying dangerous things, to put one’s life in jeopardy, much as an adrenaline junky does.

By becoming a thrillseeker and adventurer, the idea is that the adventurer will quickly learn to become resourceful under fire, and that the individual will not experience fear in the face of death.

More practical to the independent bookseller, the advice is to keep putting the business’s livelihood on the line. Perhaps that is a little much for the typical bookseller, but at the same time, it is useful to put the bookstore in jeopardy, to constantly test the waters.

Boeing Aircraft Company is a good example of how to make this work. From the Boeing 707 up to the modern day, Boeing has always bet the farm on its next new aircraft, so expensive were they to design and develop. Rather than borrow money or find ways to share the risk with others, it accepted the consequences of failure, and so all employees—aware that their jobs were always on the line—worked harder to make the planes the best in the world. It has paid off time and again, in an industry where competitors have had the backing of their governments.

When The Tattered Cover Bookstore moved from the chic streets of the Cherry Creek shopping district to the mean and dirty corner of Colfax Ave. and Elizabeth St., there was no doubt to anyone that the store was taking a huge risk. But because it took a risk, the store succeeded.

Here is another story in my area. Quite a few years ago, Borders moved into Boulder on Pearl St., not far from the center of town. Pearl St. is a street full of boutiques, cafes, co-op art galleries and one-of-a-kind independent stores. It is this odd collection of stores, coupled with a tradition of street performers and small flower gardens, that makes this part of Boulder such a tourist attraction. The Boulder Bookstore, a sizable independent bookstore on this street, certainly did not enjoy the competition, and it embarked on a campaign not to just compete with Borders as never before, but to send Borders packing.

Long before the Borders opened, The Boulder Bookstore organized all the independent retailers on the street and created a “shop locally” campaign. Boulder is a highly political, left-leaning community, and vilifying a national chain simply because it was such a large corporation was not difficult.

Pretty soon, every store on Pearl St. was championing the cause of The Boulder Bookstore, because the shop owners all believed that this was also their own livelihoods at stake; if Borders could come in, soon it would be Walmart, Home Depot and the Gap, too. And because the struggle could be cast in the light of soulless corporations versus community interests, the customers stayed away from Borders and flocked to The Boulder Bookstore.

Was The Boulder Bookstore really on Death Ground? Maybe, maybe not. But the citizens of Boulder believed that the community itself was on Death Ground, and that was what mattered. Customers feared for their own livelihoods, and in the end, Borders left because no one was coming in to buy books.

The other aspect of Death Ground is that if you have nowhere to go but forward, then forward you will go. Open a new store next door to the chain bookstore, and you will be the hardest working storekeeper in town. And that extra work will pay off.

Now, it would be foolish to recommend not having contingency plans in your strategy. But if you put yourself into a position where failure to outsell the competition means death to your store, your are more likely to work harder in creating a brilliant strategy and carrying it through to the end, no matter how difficult or messy.

When the going gets tough, the tough…well…they get a whole lot tougher.

This is just one article in David A. Rozansky’s column, Readers, Writers & Royalties, a blog column about the book trade, from writing and publishing, to selling and reading. This series of articles—“Book Wars”—is an interpretation of the strategies listed in Robert Greene’s The 33 Strategies of War, as they apply to the independent bookseller. The next article in this series will address Chain of Command and how it relates to bookselling.

Readers may find archived articles or subscribe to Readers, Writers & Royalties at www.ReadWriteRoyalty.Gather.com. Subscribe to all of Mr. Rozansky’s articles at www.FlyingPenPress.Gather.com.

David A. Rozansky is the publisher of Flying Pen Press. He has been in publishing since 1987, and has more than one million published words under his byline. Flying Pen Press is at http://www.FlyingPenPress.com. He is available for speaking on the subject of writing magazine articles, public relations, marketing and book-length material.

The following books were mentioned in this article:

The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene (Penguin Books, 2007, ISBN 9780143112785, trade ppb, $18.00)

The Art of War by Sun Tzu, translated by Thomas Cleary (Shambhala Press, 2003, ISBN 9781590300541, trade ppb, $24.95)