book pile
iStock

Main Street

Requiem for a Bookstore (a lot of Bookstores)

Posted March 17, 2009

Like many of us, Charlie Fish is full of great memories about independent bookstores that made a difference in his life. When he was young, an aunt used to take him to a tiny, cluttered store in Miami called Book Barn Exchange, where customers would get book-buying credits when they brought in their own used books.

“Without any chairs to lounge on or mochacinnos to sip,” he recalls, “we would spend hours at a time in that dusty store.” We can relate. Please don’t miss his look at what’s happening to stores like this, today.

By Charlie Fish

For over 70 years, an independent bookstore survived and thrived in cherished real estate heaven: New York City’s Rockefeller Center. Slightly more surprising, this bookstore was the first retail tenant to set up shop there, back in 1935. Perhaps most surprising of all, though, is the fact that this bookstore, called Librairie de France, specialized in French and other European publications.

Against all odds, the nation’s most famous French bookstore rubbed shoulders with Fifth Avenue giants and conglomerates for decades, providing a rare opportunity for the Francophiles and the curious alike to have a taste of France in midtown New York City.

Unfortunately, this soon will come to an end, as the tenant’s annual rent reportedly increased from $360,000 to $1 million. Compound this cost with a stagnant economy as well as prospective customers’ ease of ordering titles online (saving money while at it, given the bookstore’s import fees). The story’s ending is clear: Come September, the quaint bookstore will bid adieu to its 73-year history.

It’s not the first independent bookstore to buckle under the weight of our flailing economy, and it certainly won’t be the last.

Another New York institution, the Oscar Wilde Bookshop, will close at the end of this month. The West Village staple for gays and lesbians first opened its doors in 1967, two years before the Stonewall Riots paved the way for the Gay Rights Movement. Not only was it a community bookstore serving a niche market, but it also served as a safe haven and a meeting place for the GLBT community and youth.

Recently, I called Oscar Wilde to talk to the manager, and was amazed at how willing she was to speak with me, a gesture that likely would have needed to be approved by the proper publicists, if I’d been making my request to someone at a large bookstore chain.

“We had a day where we had two customers for the entire day and the owner just looked at me and said, ‘We can’t keep going on this way,’” she reported. “We could no longer stay open because we were not bringing in enough money just to cover the essential bills.” Rising rent prices were not to blame in this case, as the landlord — a friend and supporter of the bookstore since 1973 — had consistently undercharged its tenants in an extraordinary gesture of kindness. Still, she noted, “we can’t even manage payroll.”

Indeed, the brutal economy is taking a toll on bookstores in all kinds of ways, as even the most committed readers find that they must save money by cutting back on purchases or looking for deep discounts online and elsewhere.

It’s hard not to read the handwriting on the wall: Independent booksellers are an endangered species. San Francisco staple Stacey’s Bookstore closed this month after serving the community for 85 years, citing store sales that had fallen by 50% since March 2001.

Other independently-owned bookstores that have recently closed, or are due to be shuttered, include Port in a Storm (Somesville, Maine), Cheesecake and Crime (Henderson, Nevada), Pages for All Ages (Savoy, Illinois), and Olsson’s Books and Records (Washington, D.C.).

Fellow Whiners, you may well have your own favorite bookstore to add to this list. Whiner-in-Chief still mourns the closing of New York City’s Murder Ink bookstore, where she once won a prize for writing a 500 word noirish spoof on why it was her favorite store.

But independent bookstores aren’t the only ones suffering. The recent book-buying downturn has even hurt those seemingly resilient chain bookstores. Waldenbooks turned the page, for example, on its location in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Meanwhile, Brentano’s closed its Cincinnati store.

And yet, like a truculent teenager laughing at the face of doom, Queen Creek, Arizona just welcomed its first ever new-and-used bookstore, Pass the Book. “We have a love of reading and felt that there should be a bookstore in our neighborhood,” reads their site bio.

Hopefully, they’re right. There are indie bookstores, after all, that are surviving. When times got tough, one local general-interest bookstore got impressively creative: The Jumping Frog, a bookstore in Hartford, Connecticut, not only sells Americana but it has an active source of income from items that it lists on eBay.

And in my home state of Florida, an independent chain, Books & Books, boasts continuing success in its five stores. “The key,” says founder Mitchell Kaplan, “Is to provide value to your customers.” Indeed, with a café, bar area, and frequent in-store readings and signings, Books & Books has survived for 25 years, despite competition from local Barnes & Noble and Borders stores.

But Kaplan is privy to some sound bookselling advice, having been the former President of the American Booksellers Association, the trade group for independent booksellers. The ABA itself recently suggested some survival strategies to its members, including approaching landlords about negotiating current lease terms downward, in the light of the downturn. And if that doesn’t work (or even if it does), the ABA recommends switching to a lower-cost utility provider, since utility costs are second only to rent in terms of operating expenses.

While bibliophiles everywhere lament the pressures on bookstores, there is a silver lining. Deep discounts (both in-store and online) can add up to huge savings for the voracious reader.

No one knows when the economy will even itself out, or what the outcome will be for all kinds of independently-owned businesses. The only thing that’s certain (aside from the proverbial death and taxes), is that our best bet for survival will be to keep adapting. As William Butler Yeats put it, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” Hopefully, our favorites stores will be able to keep adapting along with us.

The Whiner wants to know: Do you care about what’s happening to independent bookstores? If you’re a fan of these wonderful stores, would you tell us about one of your favorites (even if it’s no longer in business today)?

Reader Comments

  1. Coastman

    Two favorite stores: Brazos Books in Houston, Texas, and Faulkner House Books in New Orleans. They both have websites, and I would encourage all to check out both online. Also Cheever Books in San Antonio.

  2. the aunt

    Yes the book barn was one of my favorite places as a teenager. Years later I heard the book barn was sold. The kept it almost the same and yet the feeling was different. The original owner had it for manny years and she would hire college students to man the store. 20 years from now I will still remember the dear store… I am due for a visit.

  3. amy

    I’ve worked for several indies (all gone now but one) and a couple of chains; my old roommate owns a major used bookstore in the Midwest.

    I think you have to remember that a lot of independents — not necessarily the famous ones you name, but many — are not well-run. Many of them are essentially hobby stores, excuses to buy lots of books of a type that the proprietor enjoys. Marketing and promotion are nonexistent; inventory is not well-controlled; orders are mishandled; often they’re run as though no other bookstores exist. The chains wiped out a lot of those in the 90s, but hope springs eternal, so new ones open and then close again. And some independents have survived because they’re local anomalies; they have connections to universities and advocates there, or they serve some other function in the community.

    Low rent is key. You cannot survive as a bookstore with high overhead; in books you don’t win on margins or ticket, so you either have to live very cheap or do tremendous volume. A common story in used is the elderly absentee landlord who rent the owner have the place for a song. I have seen new landlords and heirs put many bookstores out of business — usually there’s a forced move to a cheaper location away from foot traffic, and the store doesn’t survive the transplant.

    We have a very good independent store here, but I still order a lot from amazon. (If our indie would set up shop there, I’d buy through them, but they don’t.) Convenience and 24-hour are factors, yes, but so’s the fact that I can get the book within two days, free shipping. If I order downtown, it takes a week or more, and sometimes that’s OK, but more often it’s not. Also, I don’t always want to have a conversation about what I’m buying. Sometimes I just want the book.

    Search engines, by the way, have helped kill off bookstores. I have proprietor friends who tell me that younger people no longer know how to browse. This was something that all us card-catalogue mavens groused about in the late 80s and early 90s — there’s no browsing in electronic catalogues — but the result seems to be that the kids come in, ignore the books, ask at the desk whether the store has X, and if the answer is no, they leave.

  4. TJ

    Do I care about what’s happening to independent bookstores? Yes, to the same degree that I care about what’s happening to all of the independent stores out there — the mom/pop hardware stores (who received black roses from HD when they moved into town), the small children’s or women’s boutique, the local (fill in the blank) family owned store. All of them.

    Listen, I understand the emotions around the bookstores. I also think that many of the same people who agonize their losses are seen at B&N, buying books on amazon, etc. So if we all loved them so much then they’d still be in business. We’re all a bunch of hypocrites.

  5. Coastman

    I believe that the comment by TJ probably strikes closer to home than many would like to admit. It is quite easy to bemoan the loss of indie bookstores, local hardware stores, local appliance stores, etc. than it is to actually support them. When was the last time any of us bought a new appliance and paid a 25% premium to the local store as opposed to finding it on sale online, or going to a “big box” store and buying it for much less? The same rationale applies to books, or any other consumer good. Let’s face it, we are all raised in a “Consumer Reports” type of mindset whereby we have to have the latest product, the best product, the highest rated product, at the absolute lowest possible price. Competition, baby! Where was that website with TV ratings and the discussion of 120Hz refresh rates?

    This same analysis applies to things like the arts, public radio, live music, farmer’s markets, and the like. Unfortunately, for many it is easier to talk about it than to actually do something about it to support it.

    My concern is that many will use this crummy economy as an excuse to stop doing anything charitable, and turn completely into themselves. Me first!!

  6. Suited Aces

    My favorite bookstore is one I’ve never actually visited but I have shopped there for years. The Gamblers Book Shop (formerly the GAmbler’s Book cLub) in Las Vegas has been filling a very special niche for over 35 years. Dr Frank Wallace’s book, “Poker: A guaranteed income for life,’ saved mine.

    On the web at:

    http://www.gamblersbookshop.com/home.php

  7. Hope

    We have access to B&N and Borders in MI, but the best indy bookstore in Lansing and Grand Rapids is Schuler Books & Music. We support them whenever we can. And they do well…their Chapbook Cafe is a favorite quick food hangout, and is usually full of book lovers.

  8. paprikapink

    I want an internet bookstore/cafe. So I go to the cafe, sit down to have my coffee & croissant, shop online for books (or whatever), logging in through the shop (so they get that affiliate payment or whatever it is that Amazon offers to people who shop through them). I have my order come to the shop, pay no shipping, maybe even get a coupon for my next visit. I come back to the bookstore/cafe to pick up my order a couple of days later, redeem my coupon, and restart the cycle. It’s like brick&mortar internet shopping. Actually, in my dream version, it’d be an internet bookstore/yarnshop/cafe. (Obviously the shopping can be for ANYTHING.)

  9. LAZiege

    In my DC days, I’d spend hours in independent books stores. My favorite job was the weekends I helped out at Atticus used books on U St. I wasn’t rushed off my feet, let’s say. I rarely ever bought a new book. I bought what I could not get at a library, or used.

    One great current on-line haunt is http://www.Abebooks.com. It’s an association of independents, selling new but mostly used books. By allowing tiny booksellers to reach a broader nation, the internet has helped some survive. Not always in a brick and morter form.

  10. Deputy Whiner

    One of my favorite jobs has been “bookseller,” in a number of different independent stores in a number of different locations. I could happily do it again, if only it paid enough to support us.

    There is no independent bookstore in the town I live in now (there was, but it went out of business after a short while), so I do find myself at the B&N one town over. Actually being in a store, in the presence of/talking to other readers, and leafing through real books, matters to me. I can’t remember the last time I bought a book online.

    Are we fools to lament the passing of the independents? If so, that’s the sort of fool I am, then.

  11. larry

    I too love the independent. But given that amazon.com is one of the few businesses showing an uptick in sales, could it be that part of the blame here lies in us book buyers who have chosen to buy online rather than to frequent the local bookstore? Could it be our impatience to wait a week for a book to be ordered when we could click on it now to get it from amazon.com led to this demise? I’d challenge each of you to go to site like Powell’ or other online store site and buy some of your books there or, better yet, get up out of your desk chair and get yourself into the bricks and mortar independent store. Feel the books. Smell the pages. Buy something — and make it a new book so the authors get a bit of a royalty.

    I’m heading out now. You should too. But a book instead of gourmet olive oil at Marshall’s or swell canned tomatos at whatever store that is you get it or instead of that chocolate bar. Buy a book.

  12. abo gato

    My favorite local indie got bought out by B&N but there is still one in Houston that, while owned by B&N, is still a way cool store to hang out in and browse around. It is BookStop, over on S. Shepherd. Housed in an old theater, it has several levels, lots of interesting nooks and just a fun place. There is one in Austin too still, but I haven’t been to it. When the local one closed, they had a petition to sign….so I did and was greatly surprised a few weeks later to get a call from someone at the B&N headquarters who actually was calling everyone on the petition. I expressed my sadness about the closing and was told it was all about money. Hell, I knew that before he called. I was hoping that maybe they would take some pity on us…..I guess maybe they thought Houston and Austin were close enough to SA to be okay. I do still love to go to bookstores but have to confess to the lure of Amazon as well as book clubs. I really buy most of my books through book clubs, but with money and costs now I need to pare back. I’d love to get back to City Lights in San Francisco, but sure don’t see that in my future.

  13. amy

    larry — And do what with it?

    Look, you cannot make people read books — or anything else — if they don’t want to, and bookstores are not a public trust. (A good thing too. Can you imagine the votes on inventory? Remember, a lot of people voted for George Bush.) I’m a writer; I make my living writing; I’ve frequently made my living in bookstores. I regret the passing of so many indies, if only because it cuts down on opportunities for small publishers who don’t align themselves with major distributors. You can’t go to a Borders with a box in your trunk and handsell to the manager. (At least I don’t think you can.)

    If you want to support writers, write a check. You can write checks to individual writers (I would be happy to send you my name and address) or to organizations that support and fund writers, like PEN. If you want a community gathering spot, you can make one without turning it into a business. But bookstores that depend on goodwill, rather than sales, are not only neutered creatures, they’re shortlived. A bookstore is not a pet. It’s a business. Booksellers who don’t understand that don’t last long even in the best of times.

    I once worked for a bookstore that died when Kmart started selling books at near-wholesale prices. The manager felt that the customers were disloyal for leaving. Well, they didn’t owe us anything, and I don’t see how such an attitude helps sales anyway. Frankly, we had a bad bookstore. The inventory was uneven (and dusty); we had no idea what was in the store; money would be taken for orders that never materialized; and our location hadn’t been good for 30 years. Distributors would hold our orders because we frequently failed to pay them, and indeed the staff worked for sub-minimum wages. I’d find boxes of books in the back that had sat there for eight months to a year, unopened. Do I regret that the store died, no.

    There are closures I regret. I still miss the old Scribner’s on 5th Ave. That was a glorious bookstore. Book emporium. A palace-slash-train-station of books. I don’t know the business reasons behind the closing, what dealt the final blow. There’s a hollow laugh in there somewhere in the fact that it turned into a Benetton.

    If you want to do something about it, you’d better start with the kids, which means you’re going to have to upend the ed colleges, shake out the people in there, and put in people who can tell you why _Cricket_ in its current incarnation is a betrayal of the original hopes for the magazine. You’re going to have to give the kids teachers who can really read, teachers who love MAD Magazine and Joyce and Laura Ingalls Wilder and Nabokov and Stan Lee. And you’re going to have to give them long works, long songs and poems, from the very beginning. If you don’t put the sound of the language in the kids’ ears, and train them to an attention span, they’ll never be interested in doing the work of reading.

    As they say, good luck with that.

  14. larry

    Dear WIC,

    Really, hear my plea. Ask each of your visitors to buy one book this month — a new book, not a used one — from an independent bookseller. Make it a challenge and have everyone report back.

    I want action — make some book.

  15. Mletta

    I agree with TJ (So if we all loved them so much then they’d still be in business. We’re all a bunch of hypocrites.)and Coastman.

    It’s too easy to bemoan their exits. But how many of us supported them when they were alive?

    The solution for some of these bricks and mortar stores that are still around is, ironically, to sell a lot of their stock online (ebay, amazon.com, etc.). With specialized or atypical inventory, some can compete well enough to stay alive. (Alas, if they’re in a big city, with the outrageous rents, that’s not possible.)

    Larry, I am going to take up your challenge and consider an independent this week, when I can find them (We have one fish store, one bakery. That’s about it). Alas, I’m in NYC where, whether it’s books or apparel or anything else, the independents are few and far between (and often a long subway ride away).

    As for favorite bookstores, I can’t even remember them all. (I live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and we lost dozens of great shops when Barnes and Noble came to town. We used to be independent bookstore land.)

    Murder Ink, in my neighborhood, was a favorite along with a few others, where I not only browsed regularly, but purchased a lot. I really miss those stores and the people that worked there. A lot more fun than the BN experience, that’s for sure.

  16. The Whiner

    As longtime Whiners know, here at EconoWhiner Central, we’re pretty passionate about our reading (and yes, we love newspapers and magazines — endangered species though they might be — as well as books).

    We agree with the comments others have made throughout this thoughtful discussion. As a society, we need to find ways to support independent bookstores (in fact, independent stores of all types: good point Coastman!), and authors (yes, Larry), while encouraging new generations of readers to follow behind us (we agree with Amy – this is essential).

    The Whiner can’t begin to second-guess anyone’s finances these days. But if you can afford to buy a new book from an indie bookstore sometime soon, paperbacks included, we urge you to do so. Whatever type of book you like.

    If you can’t afford new, then follow in Nic&Al’s footsteps and rummage through thrift shops. Read. Everything you can get your hands on. That’s what matters most. And do patronize your local library. Libraries are a treasure for all of us.

    All of these steps are more important than we can begin express. Thanks, Charlie, for getting this discussion going. Great article!

  17. CMP

    Abo Gato–City Lights is a great store, made a pilgrimage there one year while at ABA Booksellers School. What a great store–my mother used to go there when she was young and living in San Francisco, so there’s a great deal of family nostalgia there, in addition to great reading material.

    I also love Eagle Harbor Books on Bainbridge Island, WA. Beautiful island, wonderful literary and arts community.

    I never leave an indie emptyhanded.

  18. Crayon

    I assumed all the indies now have an online book sales going concurrently in the back room to stay afloat. I thought it was a proven business decision along with the 24/7 cat sleeping in the window.

    I love the aforementioned abebooks.com for personal reasons. There were books that I searched for for years that suddenly popped up on the screen in an instant. That missing childhood copy of “Perry the Imp” or certain cookbooks comes to mind. Now I can pick editions and condition, signed or unsigned, etc., contact the sellers and they’re on their way to my mailbox!!! I prefer the copies that were first issued if the price is right. You get the feel for the era it was published, cover art, embossing, etc.

    The fun of indies is not knowing what you might find, the browsing and discovery of the unknown author or title, or something new or different from an author you like. I feel the same excitement at libraries.

    There used to be (maybe still is) an annual book fair in St. Louis that HH lived for every spring. It benefited a charity, was set up in a Famous-Barr parking lot under huge tents with shopping carts provided. Half his ever expanding galaxy collection of sci-fi was gleaned from there.

  19. amy

    re: uptick in amazon sales:

    How much of that is actually books, and are the book sales up? I’d find that odd. Book sales usually drop hard after Xmas even in good book towns. I’d bet that a lot of the sales increase has to do with marked-down non-book merchandise, including grocery. There are a lot of people out there stocking up.

    As long as we’re talking books, though, I’ll recommend Agee’s _A Death in the Family_, which I’m nearly done with now. It’s a beautiful book w/carefully circumscribed scope, has plenty to work with inside that line. Of its time with the wise old dyspeptic editor bird, and I feel certain that I’m missing something in the relationship between the freethinking editor and the Catholic ladies, but most of it reads like it was vacuum-packed. Whoosh. Fresh.

  20. larry

    WIC,

    Be bolder, oh fearless leader. What can we give up that costs $12 that will enable us to buy one new paperback book at an independent bookseller this week? Not used, not thrift store, but a good new book from an independent. Urge your readers on. Forgo the pesto. Forgo the fresh cauliflower. Buy a new book.

  21. JamieKay

    We’ve tried hard to stay away from online booksellers and patronize our downtown indie book store here in Placerville, CA. Now I learn it’s for sale and somehow I doubt any buyers will step forward. Very, very sad. There still will be a good used bookstore in town, at least for now, but nowhere to buy new books…other than Wal-Mart.

  22. Angry Midwest

    I think people are forgetting torrenting, also. (Maybe I’m a bit younger than y’all.) Many of my friends torrent literal tons of books and read them on their laptops. I can’t tolerate it (though with my shiny new Mac I might), but it definitely keeps them from buying books as they are rather free with other medias.

  23. amy

    I don’t know how much torrenting really cuts into the book market. I think it’s more to do with the fact that people just read fewer books than they used to; there’s less rationale for having many books*; and unless you’re doing an intentional good deed there’s no reason to wait a week for a book that the store hasn’t stocked. I’d thought POD kiosks might have saved the bookstores there, but publishers haven’t moved fast enough on it.

    Actually if I worked for amazon I’d be trying to cut a deal with the major chains to install amazon-standardized POD kiosks — it’d keep people in the stores, the booksellers would get back a cut of the special-order business they’ve lost, and it’d make the paper customers happy, though the binding would have to be reasonably good quality. Or you could skip the kiosks, and have amazon co-op screens available in-store; the store would get a cut, amazon and the store would split the shipping, and the customer would be incentivized to order on the spot. Delivery would be two-day to the customer’s house, not to the store. Maybe a POD or exclusive download option for customers who absolutely had to have the book right then.

    *There really is less reason for the existence of many books. Anything where the info ages quickly, you’re better off with an online source.

  24. Larry

    Torrent, shmorrent. Buy a new book from an indie.

  25. Mary Ann

    There is none better than “The Poisoned Pen” in Scottsdale, AZ. Not only is the store fantastic (great range of mid-list authors, carries every volume in a series, has author signings and lectures), it runs its own book publishing arm (Poisoned Pen Press) and has a fabulous on-line newsletter.

  26. Jonathan

    TJ puts it best. If more people actually supported the indies, instead of just complaining about the big boxes, then they wouldn’t need to shut their doors.