I'm an old hack reviewer for a couple rags in the Southeast. However, I'm resisting Facebook.
That said, ever follow this: http://newmusicstrategies.com/ ? Though I'm certainly no expert, I sometimes enjoy looking into ideas about music industry and related business models.
And as Jackson_34 says, we need to support our indie record stores (and your indie bookstores too!).
I resisted too. I never had to compete with my wife for the computer, then all of the sudden she was on there all the time. I poo-poo'd the whole idea for months, but once I got started I really enjoyed connecting with most of the people I was connecting with.
In the last few weeks I've really started exploring the business possibilities quite a bit more. You can't sell stuff directly through their site without buying into some portal system that looks like its more trouble than it's worth. The ability to connect directly with customers and give them instant feedback on what's going on here is really intriguing - especially now for me.
To that end, I'd love it any or all of you are interested in writing some stuff on there to contact me individually and we can up with some parameters. It can be as formal or casual as you like. I'd just like to stir up some discussion.
Thanks for your input.
And, yes, by all means support your independent stores whenever you can.