Huffpost Books   David Henry Sterry Headshot  Pissed Off at
Amazon? How to Help Your Writing Career with the Power of Your
Purse  Posted: Updated: Cindy Prins via Getty Images  As Book
Doctors we always say that independent bookstores are vital to
any unpublished author. Right now, as Amazon is standing over
the major publishing house, Hachette, threatening to crush them
like a fruit fly, independent booksellers couldn't be more
important. Let us explain why.  A few years back, we met a
lovely, talented woman at a Pitchapalooza, an event we created
that's like American Idol for books. She didn't win, but we
could see that she had the goods. She contacted us after the
event because she wasn't having any luck finding an agent. We
worked with her to get her manuscript and pitch in shape. This
wasn't hard. She was an exquisite writer with a great story.
What was hard was our number one recommendation to her: Go work
at an independent bookstore. She didn't have a lot of time to do
this. She had three kids and anot