Amazon knows what you’ve read, what you’ve bought, what you looked at while scrolling through social media. An independent bookshop, by contrast, is perhaps the only place where a book can still surprise you: does that function have economic value, or is it a cultural battle fought “at a loss”?
Independent bookshops fight exactly this challenge every day: the fight against the standardization imposed by algorithms and against a model that tends to always recommend what has already been bought, searched for, or liked by similar users. Amazon knows our consumption habits and suggests books based on data and statistics; an independent bookshop, on the other hand, still tries to create an encounter with the unexpected, with a title you would never have searched for but that may turn out to be the right one. Our value isn’t the algorithm, but the human relationship: the booksellers’ personalized recommendations, first-hand knowledge of our readers, everyday conversation. We try to listen constantly to the people who come into the shop, to gather their feedback and evolve together with them, never standing still.
It’s a tough battle, because we’re up against a giant with vastly greater resources. Even so, we keep believing in it. In our case the challenge is even harder, because on our shelves we carry exclusively books from independent publishers: a deliberate choice, born of the desire to give space to voices, publishing projects, and catalogs that often stay outside the major commercial circuits.
In Italy, small publishers produce often extraordinary titles that vanish from the shelves within a few months, with no widespread distribution, no press office, no promotional budget. The independent bookshop is often the only physical place where these books can be found. Is this system holding up, or are we keeping alive an ecosystem that institutions, large-scale retail, and readers themselves are slowly abandoning, perhaps without even realizing it?
Our vision is exactly that: to give space to the books that in chain bookstores often end up getting lost. Many small and medium-sized publishers put out work of great quality, real discoveries that, without strong distribution or promotional support, risk staying invisible. That’s why we chose to devote our shelves to independent publishing: to give readers the chance to come across catalogs, authors, and projects they would hardly find anywhere else.
In Italy, one of the main problems is distribution: the market is heavily concentrated, and for smaller players it’s very hard to reach the main distribution channels. This doesn’t only penalize micro-publishers; it also puts many regional distributors in difficulty, several of which have shut down in recent years.
Readers are often not fully aware of these mechanisms. They walk into chain bookstores and, quite reasonably, buy the title they know, the one they’ve heard about or that is most heavily promoted. Behind that book, however, lies a complex system of distribution, visibility, and market access that can determine the success or the invisibility of a work regardless of its quality.
In our own small way we try to do our part: not only by offering independent books, but also by making readers aware of what happens behind the scenes in publishing. When a reader discovers a small publisher or chooses a book that would otherwise have stayed invisible, they aren’t simply making a purchase: they’re helping to keep diversity alive and to support a cultural system that would otherwise risk becoming ever more uniform.
Casoretto-NoLo is a neighborhood undergoing rapid transformation, with a distinct social identity: young professionals, creatives, middle-income families, a cultural sensibility. Is there a risk that an independent bookshop, instead of broadening the reader’s horizons, ends up mirroring their already-formed tastes, becoming a mirror rather than a window?
It’s a real risk, and I think every independent bookshop has to be aware of it. When you build a very devoted community, it’s natural for shared tastes, interests, and sensibilities to develop. If you limited yourself to following only what the public already looks for, you’d end up becoming a mirror of its tastes.
We, however, try to interpret our role differently. We certainly listen to our readers and build much of our selection around their needs, but at the same time we feel a responsibility to offer something that goes beyond expectations. A bookshop should also be a place of discovery, able to put into someone’s hands a book they would never have thought of reading. Many of the titles we recommend don’t come from bestseller lists or advertising campaigns, but from the ongoing search for little-known catalogs and authors. In that sense we try to be a window more than a mirror: to start from readers’ tastes in order to lead them toward new territory.
I think the value of an independent bookshop lies precisely in this balance: knowing your community well without becoming a mere echo of it. If all we managed to do was confirm what readers already know and already love, we would lose an important part of our cultural role.
Incipit23 regularly hosts book launches and encounters with authors, building a direct relationship with the community. Contemporary African literature — the kind that doesn’t go through the big publishing groups, that hasn’t won the Booker, that hasn’t been picked up by the large chains — how does it circulate in your catalog? What is the real obstacle (if there is one): distribution, translation, or the fact that the average Italian reader still struggles to imagine Africa as a place novels come from, and not just reportage?
In the shop we have a section devoted to contemporary African literature, which we find extremely interesting and rich, even if it’s still little known to the Italian public. For that very reason, people tend not to choose it on their own as often as they pick other, more “familiar” catalogs, but we actively try to give it space through personal recommendation.
As a publishing house, we are also moving in this direction. Our catalogue includes a series of translations, *Orizzonti*, which was created specifically with the aim of bringing literature that is still little known in Italy to the country. One example is the South African novel by Zakes Mda, The Man Who Calls the Whales, which always arouses great interest and curiosity among readers when we tell them about it (https://www.incipit23.it/negozio/libri/narrativa-straniera/uomo-che-chiama-le-balene/).