"There's a Mr. Barnes and a Mr. Noble here to see you."

I've been told I'm not the only bookseller who clipped and posted that particular cartoon. All of us ­ all of us who are still in business anyway ­ hear Mr. Barnes and Mr. Noble knocking. And Mr. Amazon Dot Com and Mr. Barnesandnoble Dot Com.

It's ironic, isn't it, that the first mega-business on the Internet (after pornography, of course) would be a service that sells books? Amazon.com, which began in 1995 with book sales of half a million dollars, now sells about $360 million dollars of books a year.

By one calculation, stock market investors now have invested $72 into Amazon for every dollar's worth of books it sells. The Economist noted that Amazon may become "a $10 billion business with the profits of a corner shop." Amazon loses money on every sale, but they make it up in volume.

I heard on the local news this week that Wal-mart is working on plans to open a superstore at Todd's Point in Fort Bragg, where Highways One and 20 meet. I wonder how Racine's and Noyo's Ark and Fort Bragg Tire feel about that one?

This has been a depressing couple of years for independent booksellers. At the start of the decade independent booksellers accounted for a third of all books sold nationally. Now we are down to less than 17 per cent and falling, as store after store is forced out of business.

That's the story down here on Main Street - literally, on Main Street. Diversity of thought, diversity of opinion, diversity of options is under attack.

Here's what booksellers are doing to fight back.

The American Booksellers Association and 26 independent booksellers have filed suit in federal district court against Barnes & Noble and Borders. The ABA contends that chain stores have induced publishers to grant them a variety of secret and illegal special deals, in effect helping finance the growth of superstores at the expense of independents.

The ABA is sponsoring a new web site that will allow independent booksellers to take part in an effective Internet marketing tool, linking independent stores with a book database of 1.6 million titles, all of which can be ordered on line and delivered by local bookstores.

Thousands of book lovers in Capitola, near Santa Cruz, loudly and successfully protested a developer's intention to sign up a Borders superstore for a creekside shopping mall. The city council was overwhelmed by the response, and citing environmental and traffic worries, as well as the possible loss of the town's only independent bookstore, denied the permit.

This year San Francisco neighbors united to deny a permit for a superstore that wanted to establish itself on stylish Union street, just across the way, what a coincidence, from Solar Light Books.

On Wall Street, the business of publishing and bookselling is rapidly being concentrated in a few all-powerful corporate hands. Just a few examples: In March last year the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG ­ already the largest publishing company in the world ­ announced it was purchasing Random House, America's largest trade publisher. Bertelsmann AG already owns Bantam Doubleday Dell, which is the second-largest American trade publisher. Together the Bertelsmann behemoth now accounts for more than 40% of all trade books sold in America.

In November Barnes and Noble announced it had made a deal with Bertelsmann. The German conglomerate agreed to purchase a 50% stake in Barnes & Noble's online business for $200 million.

A few days later Barnes & Noble turned around and used that $200 million check from Bertelsmann to purchase Ingram Book Company, America's largest trade book distributor. The proposed sale is being protested by a large grass roots campaign, and the Federal Trade Commission is reviewing the merger.

Andy Ross of Cody's Books in Berkeley said, "These rapidly unfolding events constitute nothing less than a seizure of the book business at all levels by two huge corporations. Bill Petrocelli of Book Passage in Corte Madera said, "In one month's time the world's largest publisher, the world's largest bookseller, and the world's largest wholesaler have suddenly joined in an arrangement that has left everyone else in the business reeling."

The implications are awesome. Many smaller booksellers rely on Ingram for most of their stock. If Barnes and Noble is allowed to acquire Ingram, all of us will be forced to purchase at least some books from our largest and most implacable competitor.

Here's something else to think about. When hundreds of independent publishers shared the trade books market, there were hundreds of editors reading manuscripts and making diverse decisions about what books to publish.

Thousands of independent bookstores of all sizes and kinds made millions of independent decisions about what books to purchase and put in their stores.

Now publishing and media in general is highly centralized. Superstore buying decisions are made nationwide by as few as six people. This new situation has depressed the market for new ideas and new novels.

It's not all bad news. I hear customers tell me every day how much they appreciate my store and stores like mine. That certainly is encouraging.

Think about this: At Gallery Bookshop and Bookwinkle's we pay the salaries of 10 employees who average about 35 hours employment a week. Unlike online Internet businesses, we pay local sales and property taxes.

Every year we run a hugely successful "Book Angels" program that gets books into the hands of more than 750 needy local children at holiday season.

We regularly donate books and gift certificates to local community groups and libraries. We discount books for teachers, homeschooling parents, libraries and reading groups.

We purchase local advertising and we are a major outlet for locally produced books, cards, music and calendars. Gallery Bookshop now does more than a million dollars a year in sales, and most of those dollars return directly or indirectly to this community.

We host a number of book-related events where readers can meet writers of all kinds ­ from Doug McConnell of Bay Area Backroads to the Laytonville author of the book "Women and Orgasm" to mystery writers, children's book authors, business experts, poets, travel guide authors, and many many more.

This kind of activity is typical of independent bookstores nationwide. How many book signings have you attended recently at Amazon Dot Com?

It takes a lot of dedication, time, energy and money to maintain what now might be termed an "old-fashioned" storefront bookstore. Still, we manage to offer our workers an excellent health and dental plan, a retirement investment program, paid lunches and meetings, subsidies to attend trade shows, free coffee and tea, and other benefits.

I've been advised to cut back on the number of books I carry or cut back on the number of people we employ, in short, to make Gallery Bookshop more efficient. And we have made great strides toward increased efficiency. Our inventory is completely computerized, for example, and we have an increasingly important Web presence.

So far I have refused to make my store more profitable at the expense of customer service. Two people work on the floor at all times, frequently more than that. This allows us to answer the phone, sign for UPS boxes, recommend a place to stay or eat, answer all sorts of tourist questions, sell a post card, wipe up a spilled ice cream cone, reunite a crying child with her mother, show someone where the birthday cards are located, and take the time to talk with a customer about an author we love or a new book that looks interesting.

I'm proud to think we can still do this at a very high level of competence. Why does it matter? Why is selling books different than selling hammers and nails?

It has to do with the love of ideas, and the belief that all kinds of literature, no matter how silly or controversial, deserve a chance to be heard in the marketplace. This is democracy in action, and we need more of this, not less.