Dave Eggers: Homework is the key

Supply and demand is an important concept for any business, and it is especially important to independent businesses. Local, smaller scale companies must be different from their mega size competition while still keeping in touch with larger trends. It’s hard, but almost forty years into this bookstore experiment, BookPeople is doing well. Thus far we’ve supplied what Austin has demanded from us, but we haven’t done it alone. We’ve received a lot of help, and no individual in the past ten years has been better for independent bookstores than Dave Eggers.

We’re proud to have him coming to our store this March. How does he help? He takes care of the supply side with a continual flow of unique, experimental, and good publications from his publishing house McSweeney’s. A McSweeney’s book feels different. They are of the highest quality material, and feature the best young writers on the planet. They do a great job, and I have a whole shelf in my house dedicated to McSweeney’s books. But, to be honest, supply isn’t the toughest part of the book business. There are always things to read. The most significant thing Eggers does for the ever-disappearing community bookstore is to create demand. This is the part of my post where I tell you to go away, please check out Eggers’ funny and inspirational TED talk.  In this talk he outlines the birth of his most lasting contribution to the book world, 826 Valencia. 826 Valencia is a tutoring, writing, and publishing outfit whose goal is to assist young people with their writing skills and help them get excited about writing. Reaching out to schools, the center doesn’t tout itself as an alternative to public education, but is an example of the public taking up its responsibility to educate.

Focused on one-on-one teacher student interactions, the non-profit organization is growing like a weed, even taking root here in Austin with the wonderful tutoring center, Austin Bat Cave. Looking at these young kids get excited about writing and literature begs the question that is on all our minds: What’s in this for me? How can I profit from this learning bliss? The answer to the question is that kids who write tend to be kids who read! Some of those readers will buy books from us, and I’m happy about that. But, more importantly, BookPeople tries very hard to be the center of a community bound by books. Through our book fairs, book groups, book talks, and literary day camps we are trying to be part of a larger reading community. We want to be part of a happy city.

In the TED talk linked above Mr. Eggers tells us how to accomplish our goals:

But you know, there’s something about the kids finishing their homework in a given day, getting all this attention—they go home, they’re finished. They don’t stall, they don’t do their homework in front of the TV. They’re allowed to go home at 5:30, enjoy their family, enjoy other hobbies, go outside, play. And that makes a happy family. A bunch of happy families in a neighborhood is a happy community. A bunch of happy communities tied together is a happy city and a happy world. So the key to it all is homework!

There you have it, you know—one-on-one attention. If you see one author event at BookPeople this year, see David Sedaris. But, if you have time to see two events at BookPeople this year, check out Dave Eggers on Wednesday, March 3rd. Oh, and by the way, he writes fabulous books.

–Brian Contine