Bookstores in florida called books and books. Has coronavirus affected your business . Guest yes, unfortunately it has. We have been holding on as long as we could but it looks like starting tomorrow we will be closing down all six stores in the area, trying to remove our sales online and encourage people to buy at our website. This is happening i believe across the country with independent bookstores everywhere. Like normally happens, the bookstores are representative of what is happening with Small Business. There are many thousands upon thousands of Small Business people suffering the same way we are. Host are you doing this because florida has mandated it or are you seeing such a drop in foot traffic and sales . Guest there are a couple reasons. One, at this point, with the mandates that have come through and guidance from the cdc about people not gathering in places where there are more than a few people we feel it is our responsibility to heal those warnings. Ironically the thing that makes independent bookstores so great, it is a Gathering Place and a place where communities come together, now one of the big liabilities we have in an attempt to help flatten out that curve as they say we are closing our stores. Host what about author eventss . Have you had a lot of cancellations prior to the closing of your stores . Go ahead. Guest we have had 30 or 40 author cancellations starting a couple weeks ago. People were canceling. We had lots of cancellations, some very big name authors, very large turnouts as well as smaller debut authors. It is having an impact across publishing as well. Imagine being a young author, your first book coming out and it comes into the world right now and is a difficult situation for the literary community. Host have you thought about online videos with these authors . Yes. That is something we are exploring as publishers are exploring and we are exploring it. I did a podcast called the literary life and my podcast will continue, i was usually doing it, i will do remote interviews as well. We are going to try to keep everything alive as much as we can and the spirit of the store online through facebook live, instagram, our channel of youtube as well as our website. Host how long do you think you will be closed . Guest really good question. I wish i had the answer to that. What we are announcing, we will reassess every two weeks. Basically march 30 first we are going to look at it and see where we are and if there is a chance to open. I suspect this will impact not only my business and Small Business everywhere for many months to come. We have been open the last week with different business, people dont want to go out and until a vaccine is found there will always be gatherings. Host have you shut down your restaurant or is that shutting down as well . Guest the restaurant is shutting down tonight. That is the one thing the state has mandated, that restaurants will only be open for take out. That is not happening too much. I have friends in the Restaurant Business and people are staying away from that too. People are hunkering down. Guest host booktv has worked with Mitchell Kaplan for years. My guess is you are concerned about the employees of those six stores. Guest that is the key thing and why i stayed open as long as i did, to keep my employees working. Most people, it has been said that most people work paycheck to paycheck and most Small Businesses work revenue data revenue day. So if in fact there is no revenue coming into Small Businesses, there isnt much money to pay employees if nothing is happening. I have kept my employees on as long as they can, we will keep their Health Insurance going, we will protect them as much as we can and we will lobby, the american book situation is lobbying the federal government, starting to bail certain things out, they pay close attention to the Small Businesses and the people they employ, the people on the front line. Host Mitchell Kaplan is cofounder of the Miami Book Fair. Is there any talk yet about the Miami Book Fair not happening in november . Guest now, we have not gotten to that point and i hope we dont have to. There is a modicum of caution or a modicum of work, enough room for people to gather cautiously in a book fair setting. You have been to our book fair. It is so meaningful to the city and the county. We never had to cancel the book fair completely. One year we had a hurricane coming and canceled the street fair but have all the authors there. If we did cancel, it would be the first time in close to 40 years we canceled. Host what is your website if people wish to purchase books, the author interviews or listen to your podcast . Thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell people about books and books. Com, booksandbooks. Com, you can sign up for our newsletter. My podcast is available wherever you listen to podcasts but it is available through literaryhub. Com. You can find it on apple and other things, it is called the literary life with Mitchell Kaplan. It is kind of like a conversation over your backyard fence, a conversation with authors and people in the literary world. Host Mitchell Kaplan, thank you for spending a few minutes with booktv. Weeknights we are featuring booktv programs showcasing what is available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight, books on technology and innovation beginning with john browns make, think, imagine, imagining the future of civilization followed by lori and pratt, linked, when decision intelligence affect data, actions and outcomes for a better world. 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