A bookstore founded by authors – this experiment was attempted 50 years ago, for the first time in Germany, by writers such as Günter Herburger, Inge Poppe and Michael Krüger. How does the concept of the Munich author’s bookstore continue to work today?
The resistance against bestseller lists and mainstream literature can still be felt in the shop at Wilhelmstrasse 41 today. The author’s bookstore in the heart of Schwabing is a place steeped in history. 50 years ago, ten shareholders and 120 authors came together and founded the first cooperatively organized bookstore in Germany on November 8, 1973, the offering of which was determined by the writers themselves. Each member paid a capital contribution of 1,000 marks and thereby acquired shares. In return, the bookstore committed itself to stocking all available works from its members. “We don’t have any bestsellers, neither in the shop window nor on the bookshelf. We want to prove that a bookstore can also exist by selling literary books, which are otherwise usually lost in the massed bestseller advertising,” said the first managing director and co-founder Inge Poppe 1978 in an interview on the fifth anniversary of the author’s bookstore.