When Borders closed last year, one writer hired ex-Borders employees to promote his book and share a warning for other companies.

In this encore edition of the Morning Media Menu, we interviewed Aaron Shapiro, the CEO of the international digital agency, HUGE. Shapiro introduced his new book, Users Not Customers: Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business and shared advice for booksellers struggling to survive in a retail landscape dominated by Amazon. Shapiro also helped create the new Togather tool for writers and readers.

Press play below to listen. Shapiro shared this advice for booksellers: “Obviously it’s a very tough challenge to compete with Amazon. The good news is that Amazon is a very impersonal machine. They are a great transaction mechanism, but they don’t really market books or give the same kind of care that independent booksellers can.”

He concluded: “I think one of the best strategies that independent booksellers can do is think about their audience as an extended community of book lovers. To really look at ways to promote books in that community … Amazon is just going to fulfill, they aren’t going to build a community and mailing lists, facilitate book clubs and all the community aspects that books entail. “