 Hi, welcome to the Agora cafe. If you're new to my channel, I'm Roger long. I teach philosophy at Auburn University in Alabama. And I'm also, I also hit up the Molinari Institute, which is a small anarchist think tank. And I'm also senior fellow at the Center for a Stateless Society which exists in the kind of quantum superposition with the Molinari Institute and either the same nor distinct. But for present purposes, what's most relevant is that I am a displaced San Diego, although I currently live 2000 miles away from San Diego. I still think of it as home probably more than anywhere else that I've lived. And this is virtual San Diego. And behind me this is a photo I took from Cabrillo National Monument when I was there. Not the most recent time I was there but a while back anyway. You know so given my San Diego nostalgia, I often watch travel videos from San Diego. But I find them somewhat frustrating because they're all seem to be about beaches and restaurants and parks and while I have nothing against beaches or restaurants or parks. There aren't really any bookstores and you wouldn't get the impression that you might get the impression that San Diego doesn't really have bookstores. But in fact it has a quite quite interesting indie bookstore scene. And of course, you know, for me one of the most interesting things about any city is alright so where the bookstores and what kind of bookstores do they have. And so on. So, I thought it'd be nice if someone did a video series on the independent bookstores of San Diego. Well, why not me of course I'm not there. And given that this is being filmed during the pandemic even if I were there that maybe some, you know, there'd be, you know, I wouldn't be able to go into all some of the bookstores are open and some of the books don't aren't be able to go into all them, but I can interview. I can interview people from the bookstores via zoom and put them on my channel. And so I thought that would be fun to do. So I've, you know, so that's what I'm doing here I'm starting a series of of interviews with representatives from various bookstores around the San Diego area. The first one is with mysterious galaxy, which is science fiction and fantasy and mystery as some other genres. Bookstore and here we go. We have with us, Matthew Berger, who's one of the co owners, new co owner of mysterious galaxy bookstore, which is at its current address is 3555 Rosecrans Street number 107 in San Diego. And the website is missed galaxy that's my ST missed galaxy.com. And there's information there both about ordering books and about book events and podcasts and various things and I was in your bookstore a couple years ago, although it wasn't a gather years then and also it was in a different location. Can you tell, you know, tell us a little bit about about the bookstore and also about how you got involved with it in the history of it and so on. Sure. So mysterious galaxy is a genre bookstore specializing in sci fi fantasy horror YA romance. And it's been around for 27 years. It's been the comic con you've probably seen us there. And my partner and I took over in January. As we saw in November that the store was going to close. If there weren't new owners so we decided why not. And this was two months after she gave birth to our daughter so we maybe weren't thinking completely straight but we're very happy to be here. Yeah, well I'm judging for the website looks like you. You've got lots of author events and things going on, mainly online these days. There was a bit of a transition. The book when cove it happened we've maybe canceled two or three author events in March. But we figured out how to do the majority of them online and we started out through zoom. And then we switched over to a platform called crowdcast, and we've been doing four or five author events a week. You can still get signed book plates or signed books in some cases. And it's been not only a great experience to have all of these authors participate, but as a consequence of being online. There've been kind of an uptick in conversation partners so we've had a lot of great authors speaking to other great authors, which is made for some really special events. Yeah, and I know that's like that I've got on a smaller scale I've got a science fiction philosophy reading group that here at my university that usually meets in person and you know and it's frustrating that we can't meet the person now because he usually go out to dinner after wouldn't so forth but the, the, the plus side is that it's now it's no longer a local reading group we've got people from from all over. That's awesome. Getting involved. So yeah so moving things online has both pluses and minuses. Definitely. What kind of philosophy do you guys read along the side of your science fiction. Well, we don't read the philosophy. We just we read we'll read some work of science fiction for each meeting and then we'll talk about the philosophical issues. That's really cool. Yeah, so and you know we read everything from the old golden age classics to the latest stuff so by Ted Chang. Whoever. When I was, we haven't, we haven't read anything from the expanse yet when I was, you know, when I was in your not yet yours bookstore that was the most recent one with that. So what were you doing before you got involved with bookstore. So my partner just finished up her PhD at UCSD appropriately in literature. And I was working in a marketing department and tech company and we're still both doing both of those things as well. So she's teaching. And I work in a marketing department. So, what made you decide to buy a bookstore. Mysterious Galaxy has been part of my life since I was a little kid grew up going to author events, all around Southern California with my dad because he was a big fan of, you know, and McCaffrey Brooks and other the big fantasy authors of the 90s right. And so we would anytime they were in LA or San Diego or Orange County, we would go and take books to get signed and I would help carry them. So we ended up in mysterious galaxy quite a bit. And then we moved down to San Diego in 2013. And it just happened to be basically across the street from our house. And it became the place that we went every, every other week and hung out and kept going author events. And we just kind of couldn't let that disappear from our lives so we figured why not. I mean, am I right there's another mysterious galaxy up in Redondo Beach is that is that owned by the previous owners or That one shut down a couple years ago there used to be one in Redondo Beach so Okay, again when I'm looking online I can also tell you what's current and what's not. And sometimes websites survive there. Mostly survival of whatever they were the website for But you probably was someone is paying to help you keep a website going. Sometimes websites, you know, depends on the platforms, sometimes three and sometimes someone's paying to keep a website going for something that's not there anymore. So, you know, of course it must have been exciting that right after you purchased the bookstore and the pandemic hits. So that was unexpected. We'll say that it was not in the business plan for this year. But we, let's see, we signed all the paperwork in early December. And then we took over at the beginning of January. So between beginning of December and January 15. We had to find a new place. Sign of contract get everything built out and and move. So that was December and January. And then we had February where we were open and then March. And then we've been closed to the public ever since then. So we got about six weeks of having people in the store. We're closed for in store browsing, but you could just still, you know, the website's still very much open for ordering books and other merchandise. And also, of course, you've got the, the author events and podcasts and various things that people can, and I'll have links to the website in the description. So, you know, I mean, so, I mean, at the time that, you know, so if people are viewing this like shortly after, you know, it'll be posted and the pandemic was still going on but you know, for people viewing this a little bit later, hopefully, since there seems to be some some positive news about vaccines on the way and so on that some people by the time that they're watching this, they'll be able to go in your store and actually walk inside and look around. The way I did. Yeah, we look forward to that. And we, the place that we moved to is 50% bigger than the last one. So a lot, a lot more room for books, a lot more room for merchandise and I think most importantly for us a lot more room for author events. That was kind of the big thing. You know, we want to have the space to host as many people as possible safely for, you know, all the authors that people love to come and see. Yeah, when I visited it was it was in the place. It was right across from like an Indian restaurant. So that was, that was the previous place. But now it's on. It's in, you know, one of those places along along Rose Cranes. I know that I know that that strip of road. Right on the corner of Rose Cranes and Midway. It's a, it's a nice area. I think it's going to change a lot in the upcoming years so there are plans to change it and I think the voters approved it. Getting some taller buildings in there. Yeah, it's nice. You've got, you know, there's a lot of businesses around there so that we get. So you don't just get people who are specifically looking for you, but people who are just there for something else, but sort of me, you know, may see you and they go what's that and go in. Exactly. I don't think it's going to go away in the other location. Yeah. I found it because I was specifically looking for it because I, you know, I was on a conference with my, and I had finished the most recent volume of the expense that I had wanted that I wanted the next one. And so science fiction bookstore. Oh yeah, there it is. It's a cool place to go visit. We do that. Anytime we go to a city, we're like, All right, where are the bookstores? That is our, our kind of besides food, that is our main thing that we go look at. Yeah, well that's I mean it's part of why we want to do this series is that, you know, my nostalgia for San Diego often look at these, you know, travel videos and they're all about beaches and restaurants and I have nothing against beaches and restaurant. But, you know, there aren't any on bookstores, I thought that'd be cool to have one and I can't, I can't sort of physically visit multiple reasons both with the COVID on the one hand and the fact that I'm 2000 miles away on the other, but I just wanted to have a to do some videos on and San Diego bookstores and you are the first to get recorded I got some other people lined up but you know, the first we actually got together so San Diego such a great book city, you know, there's at least 11 within the county itself. We always get together to do the book crawl usually in April but it was August this year, because we pushed it back. But all of them are unique and they're all super nice and you know, it was a nice bonus for when we moved down here. I also see it in San Diego with book culture they think it's just, you know, just all the beach stuff and, but, you know, having, having spent a period of time in San Diego I would, you know, have a different impression of it. Because you know, when I was a kid in San Diego 1970s and was some of the bookstores that I remember from that time are long gone but but then there are new ones that worked around in my time either. So you mentioned book crawl, can you say a little bit about more about that because I don't think I've heard of that. So we do San Diego book crawl. That usually takes place on independent bookstore day, which is, I can remember which Saturday in April. Basically, it's the whole weekend we all get together and usually you get like a little passport book to prove that we've gone to each one of them. And each store does something unique for it. And there's deals and swag and, you know, if you go to six, you'll get a special art printer you go to eight you'll get a free tote bag. And that's unique to each of the independent bookstore days so it's, it's one of our favorite traditions outside of Comic Con, which we didn't get to go to this year. Obviously, I've never been to Comic Con alas. It's been 10 years since I've been and I was looking forward to getting back this year as part of mysterious galaxy. And obviously that wasn't in the cards. We're very hopeful for 2021 though. Yeah, well, I mean, you will gain what I'm hearing about vaccines sounds promising, but you never know. But that would be nice. I had, I have, I have friends who are having a wedding celebration and Laguna Beach that is kept getting postponed and postponed and postponed and I would really like to attend that if possible. It ever happens. I like to get married. Yeah, I mean they don't live in they don't live in Riverside but they know they've got the, you have this place reserved in Laguna Beach and keep updating the reservation. So here comes looking things about the prospects for independent bookstores on the one hand here well there's sort of gloom and doom that Amazon things like that have just made it really, you know, prohibitively difficult for for independent bookstores I've heard well, a lot of independent bookstores are bouncing back there are managing to offer, you know, so specialized services that the, that you know, Amazon and metal and can't can't easily offer. So you can see I mean obviously your experience is weird given, given that you were you had a normal opening month for only a month, but you see a little bit about your experience on on how you how you see sort of the prospects for, you know, for independent bookselling. Yeah, so, I mean obviously we have a pretty positive outlook on it because would depend on silly investment otherwise. But I think there are a lot of people like us who value what independent bookstores bring to the community. We've talked about all the author events but we host a lot of, you know, meetings of different groups. We have the writers coffee house that meets here every one Sunday every month, or met here, they'll be back. And a variety of other groups who use the space and, you know, incorporated books and reading as part of their, their community organizing. So I don't think that is going to go away, because that stuff is really important and people are willing to invest their time and money into spaces like this. So there is some evolution that independent bookstores are going to have to adapt to, to be a little bit more competitive with Amazon because, you know, it's hard once you've had the convenience to give it up, right. Yeah, that's been especially clear this year, where a lot of bookstores that didn't have e-commerce, you know, set it up, and now they're moving towards that. And one that might not be their main source of, you know, people ordering from them. Having that as an option really broadens your horizons and helps you build out that community right we've seen a lot of new people learn before because we've been very active on social media. We've offered a lot of cool, exclusive things through our e-commerce channel. And, you know, well, an independent bookstore will never be able to ship as fast as Amazon. We have a lot of value that we can bring, as long as you're able to kind of fulfill the what people want out of e-commerce, right. That sort of ease and, you know, just especially right now the convenience of being able to shop at home and know you're getting the right book. So it kind of needs to be a marrying of the two that I think a lot of independent bookstores this year have been able to tap into. Yeah. And of course, you know, the other services that you offer that you'll be able more, more, more able to offer once the pandemic is over or things that, you know, Amazon obviously can't do. And one of the, being able to bundle, you know, being able to bundle the thing Amazon can compete with you on with something else that they can't compete with you on. So then, you know, when someone comes to your bookstore for the book event that Amazon can't compete with. And then while they're there, they buy a book because buying a book when you're actually in the bookstore and right there on the shelf is even more convenient than ordering from Amazon. Really is. And we miss that convenience because it does add a lot of layers. Looking into it is really easier than, you know, using the look inside tool on Amazon. You get a much better feel for things by glancing inside and seeing if you want want it. And also certain browsing you can, you know, just see something that you hadn't planned on. You haven't been looking for. And it wasn't necessarily suggested to you by Amazon's algorithm, which is actually it's. Amazon's algorithm was pretty smart, but yeah, but still you can recognize something that you hadn't known about me. Oh, look, I'll go get that. I will say that it is pretty smart. The one thing that Amazon doesn't do that we do much better. And I think most independent book source do much better is the amount of care that gets put into books being shipped. In the Amazon packages, they're all about speed. There's probably some damage on the book or something that we would not let go through. You know, they wrap them in those speed boxes that you just rip open, but there's no like buffer between the box in the book. It's already come up a little bit. I have occasion boxes that were empty. Well, I've had that once. I just once, but that was surprising. I did get something that I don't think I ordered this week that just showed up. So either I ordered a long time ago and only just now showed up but I don't think I did. Well, I've ordered. I can't remember this is from Amazon and Barnes and Noble I ordered some book. They sent me the wrong book. So I sent it back and asked the right book and sent me the wrong book again. Over and over. So finally I just gave up with a. I already just lose some other means. I don't know what to do now because their customer service is is also something where Amazon does not really compete with with an independent bookstore. There's no human who's actually, you know, actually knows what's going on. We've really tried to keep that human element. And now because people are looking to buy books for other people who might not know much about books. So one of the things that we're doing this holiday, and we'll probably continue doing, as long as the whole pandemic thing is going on is these literary care packages. So basically, you tell us how much you want to spend, and you tell us some things, either some books or some fandoms that you or who you're buying for like. And we work as a group with all the booksellers to come up with the right books for you at the price point that you put in, you know, maybe we'll throw in some. So merchandise or apparel or like a bookpin. As well so that's been a really fun thing for us because we love hand selling and giving people recommendations of the books that we love rather than like said just what an algorithm tells you that you'll love. So that that's been a really fun thing that we've added to kind of provide the convenience of shopping online with the independent bookseller experience. So I'm trying to think of anything else to ask. Nothing's coming to mind any, you know, any last thoughts from you. And there's, there's a lot of ways to support independent booksellers right now. I think the easiest one that you could do is just follow people on social media, follow the stores on social media, give them likes retweets. Attend the virtual event. Obviously the best thing to do is to buy a book, but any of those other kind of online engagements that helps raise the profile of the book source that you love is is going to go a long way because we are fighting against the algorithms that are not necessarily tuned to the, the wholesome and sort of day to day content that the bookstore will put out right. Facebook is very much a conflict generator not a bookseller algorithm helper. So we rely on the people who who love bookstores to help promote them. Yeah, well I hope this this video helps I mean I don't have a huge audience but, but as I said, they've given that aren't many, you know, travel videos on San Diego bookstores I'm hoping that as a search for if anyone's searching for something let's bring this series up. Yeah, I mean it's definitely going to be a different group of people who probably never heard of us. So I really appreciate you having me on to talk about it and I appreciate you coming on. So it's almost nice to connect with with book people and San Diego people. I'll send you some, I'll send you some new photos of the new bookstore or some video I'm here right now just in the office. Thanks I am now they will appear in this video at some point. Yes, I edited. All right, well magic. Thanks a lot. Good to talk to you. It's good talking to you as well. Very well. Have a good day. Bye. Okay, so. That was the first in this series of San Diego bookstores. If you have suggestions for what other bookstores that you think I should do or to try to contact with the down in the description. I have a question about each book store that I do relevant information about it will be, like what in the description. For this one if you're considering. If you're interested in seeing a book in science fiction or fantasy or mystery or whatever that mysterious galaxy might carry you might consider instead of ordering it from Amazon you might consider ordering it from, from the website. And if, if you're in, if you're in town whether you're a local in San Diego, or whether you're visiting. A mysterious galaxy visit is particularly after the pandemic when they'll be open to in store browsing. And but in the meantime, you can, you can order stuff online from them books and merchandise of various kinds. You know, if you like baby Yoda swag or guess it's no we now have to call it grogu swag. They have some of that. And if you like the series you'd like to see more of that like share subscribe all that good stuff. So consider supporting this channel on Patreon or PayPal. And I will see you next time.