When you tell people you own a bookstore (or in my case, that my husband co-owns a bookstore) you get one of two responses. There are the delighted readers who imagine you live a life of cozy literary bliss, sipping tea and snuggling a cat in a sun-drenched room where bells on the door alert you to the arrival of an occasional customer. These people gush and tell you how wonderful it is that you own a bookstore.

By far the more common response, however, are the people who let out a little puff of a laugh and say something like,A bookstore? Do they still have those?  They think they are being funny.

Yes, they still have those.  And contrary to the bleak narrative of the last decade, more independent bookstores are opening than closing these days.  Sales at indies rose more than 8% in 2012 and 2013.

So yes, Barnes and Noble and The Internet Behemoth Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken have changed the face of publishing and bookselling, but they haven’t wiped the indies off the face of the earth.  And in fact, they’ve inadvertently helped spur and active shop local movement that has boosted certain segments of the bricks-and-mortar market.

And now we have California Bookstore Day to prove it.

Read the story behind California Bookstore Day, a grand notion incubated at the Bay Area’s legendary Green Apple Books, at the Naked Bookseller blog!