# A sad commentary on the state of book selling **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [June 28, 2021, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206 "2021-06-28T19:46:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2021, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/41 "2021-07-01T01:18:11Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Not sure how big Rochester is. The city itself was a little over 200,000 people. The Rochester metropolitan area has a little over a million. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@salinqmind1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind1)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2021, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/42 "2021-07-01T02:14:38Z")
I wish there was a place to take books. My husband died and left an untold number of books, mostly non-fiction, about WWII airplanes and WWII badasses. And a whole shelf of leather-bound books on big game hunting (he bought online, most were very expensive). I’ve given away a lot, but the library has been closed for a year and a half and wasn’t taking books for their annual garage sale. (I don’t even know when the next one will be, if ever). I may have to tear off the covers and throw those away, and put the paper into the recycling. We did that years ago with a ton of useless Stephen King novels and coffee table books on gemstones and ‘Cats Throughout History’ and such. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2021, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/43 "2021-07-01T02:26:45Z")
> [@salinqmind1](#): > > I wish there was a place to take books. Goodwill won’t take them? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2021, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/44 "2021-07-01T02:40:36Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > Companies don’t just disappear, though. If Amazon goes bankrupt, or breaks apart, or whatever, there will still be someone with ownership of the bookselling part (or parts) of the business. > > Not sure what you’re saying here. Companies obviously disappear. It’s the topic of this thread. > > There’s nothing that says somebody else will step in and keep Amazon’s book selling business going if the current owners stop doing it. Sometimes when a business stops operating the only thing that remains is empty buildings. As long as books are still being made, there pretty much is. The publishers will just put their books for sale elsewhere. It seems to me that most of the used books I find on Amazon are actually from other stores which put them online. Thriftbooks had all of the latest books I bought. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2021, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/45 "2021-07-01T04:10:40Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > As long as books are still being made, there pretty much is. The publishers will just put their books for sale elsewhere. Again, I don’t feel this is true. Any section of the economy requires a certain active critical mass in order to support the infrastructure necessary to make and distribute the product. Let’s look at VHS videotapes as an example. It’s not like the market totally disappeared. There are presumably still people out there who have VCR’s and would like a VHS videotape of recent movies. But that base of customers isn’t big enough to support the cost of a factory that would manufacture those videotapes. And it’s not just an issue of recovering costs. Most businesses require investment capital. That’s money people are putting into the business in anticipation of getting more money back out of it. Even if it’s marginally possible to keep a business going, investors are going to decide to put their money into a different business which offers higher returns. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@salinqmind1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind1)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2021, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/46 "2021-07-01T13:58:26Z")
Some Goodwills have been closing, there are thrift stores that will take a few books, but they won’t take a whole lot. I guess I can smuggle a few into each one every week or so. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2021, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/47 "2021-07-03T03:18:09Z")
Ay-men! And I’m one of them! I also carry sewing patterns (something I stumbled into after getting several boxes for free at the end of a rummage sale) and just sold something that the person probably wouldn’t have been able to obtain at JoAnn’s Fabrics. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2021, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/48 "2021-07-03T03:20:30Z")
Salinq, this is where an auctioneer may come in handy. Doesn’t hurt to ask. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2021, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/49 "2021-07-03T04:10:54Z")
The problem with this approach is that it might be appeasing your own guilt at ditching perfectly good books that someone else might want to read, but the thrift store has to absorb the actual cost of dealing with the book if they cannot find a ready buyer. Around here we saw lots of charities and charity stores at the start of Covid when everyone was getting stuck into tidying up being flooded with things like clothes and furniture and books they could not use and had no hope of re-selling, and then had to fork out heaps of money to dispose of them. If you want to help a charity, ask them which booksthey can take and get rid of the rest yourself. ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2021, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/50 "2021-07-04T02:25:51Z")
I think the allure of bookstores for me is discovery–online shopping is a focused search for specific genre, author etc, whereas in store I can pick up random author I didn’t know before, which you can’t do online ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2021, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/51 "2021-07-04T02:49:28Z")
I agree. Online sites are great for finding a book you’re looking for. But they’re generally not much good for finding a book you didn’t know you wanted until you saw it. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2021, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/52 "2021-07-04T22:24:24Z")
This. I used to love going to used book stores and just wandering around to see what I would find. I’d usually start in the SF and Mystery sections, but given the time I could end up almost anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2022, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/53 "2022-05-28T06:41:07Z")
An update of sorts. I was traveling a lot in the last couple of days and, as is my habit when I have the time, I visited a number of thrift stores. And I found at least four of them had their entire book inventory on sale for twenty-five cents apiece. Two of the store owners, without any solicitation from me, told me they were “clearing out” the books in their store. I understand that media can be ephemeral. And I have come to accept the fact that things like cd’s and dvd’s are disappearing from shelves and will probably vanish entirely within a decade. These were media I saw appear in my lifetime so I can visualize a world without them. But books? I never thought there might be a day when books disappear. But now I’m wondering. ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2022, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/54 "2022-05-28T12:51:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But books? I never thought there might be a day when books disappear. But now I’m wondering. Physical books, certainly. Supply chain issues mean that fewer physical books are being printed in the first place. But I think we’re a long way from seeing them completely disappear, especially from shops in airports and train stations. I recently read a post by an author who said that he doesn’t expect his books to be read in 50 years. He write popular science-fiction that fits today’s society. There will be new authors writing their own popular fiction that will take his place. Sadly, it means that many of the paperbacks I read end up in the recycling bin. Hopefully it’s slightly better solution than putting in the trash to be incinerated. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2022, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/55 "2022-05-28T14:08:15Z")
Just because some bookstores closed does not mean that it is the end of books. There is no law stating that every single store has to stay in business for 100+ years or else it heralds the collapse of civilization. Note that you can still buy paperbacks somewhere. IMO there is still demand for the kind of cheap paperback formats you can buy and read at the airport and then leave in the lounge for the next reader. Whether it in fact uses more or less resources to print and bind a pulp book than to mine the minerals and ship chemicals and components all over the world to manufacture an e-reader (which can then be used for years with many books), that is a question that deserves analysis. > [@Die\_Capacitrix](#): > > I recently read a post by an author who said that he doesn’t expect his books to be read in 50 years. He write popular science-fiction that fits today’s society. There will be new authors writing their own popular fiction that will take his place. Note that low-cost books equals not being able to eke out a living writing anything but pulp fiction, and even then you have to crank them out like Stephen King (if you even have the talent and work ethic to do that) and it is still no guarantee. Also, note you have to get something published in the first place: _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_ was rejected 121 times, _A Confederacy of Dunces_ was never accepted for publication at all during the author’s lifetime, even _The Cuckoo’s Calling_ was declined, not sure how many times. So, while I do blame him a little for not writing epic poetry cycles if in his heart that is what he really wants to do, I can certainly understand him. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2022, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/56 "2022-05-28T14:19:26Z")
At first glance, I thought this thread was going to be about the types of stories that can be found at [notalwaysright.com](http://notalwaysright.com) (search on “bookstore”) Those following this thread **may enjoy the book** (oh the irony) _Sixpence House: lost in a town of books_ (2003) by Paul Collins. The author describes a town where used bookstores had become the main industry - and the local fields were filled with used books that were unlikely to ever be sold. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2022, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/57 "2022-05-28T14:38:51Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Just because some bookstores closed does not mean that it is the end of books. There is no law stating that every single store has to stay in business for 100+ years or else it heralds the collapse of civilization. The collapse of civilization? Don’t be silly. But will a substantial reduction of places that sell books lead to the collapse of book printing? That’s a real question. The issue is not just some book stores closing. It’s the way a lot of book stores are closing and very few book stores are opening. When deaths outnumber births, the endpoint is extinction. > [@DPRK](#): > > Note that you can still buy paperbacks somewhere. Which was the point of my update. My original topic was how used bookstores are disappearing. My update was how thrift stores are apparently heading toward not selling books. > [@DPRK](#): > > IMO there is still demand for the kind of cheap paperback formats you can buy and read at the airport and then leave in the lounge for the next reader. I would disagree. I feel this will probably be one of the earliest casualties. The people who used to buy a disposable book to pass their time at the airport are probably now playing games on their phone. Casual book buyers will be the first ones to stop buying books. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2022, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/58 "2022-05-28T15:03:35Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But will a substantial reduction of places that sell books lead to the collapse of book printing? That’s a real question. I’m not sure this question can be answered without defining “book”. I’m serious - does “book” only refer to the physical item or does it also refer to the content? When I see things like " X percent of Americans have not been in a bookstore/bought a book/read a book in the past Y years" , I’m never 100% sure of what is meant. Ok, I definitely haven’t been in a bookstore in at least 5 years. But bought a book/read a book - I’m not sure. If we’re talking about physical books, it’s been at least 5 years since I bought one. If ebooks count, I bought one a couple of months ago and read at least 4 a month ( borrowed from the library ). When I was young there were vinyl albums\* and then 8 track tapes and then cassettes and later on CDs and then MP3s and now it’s streaming services - but through it all, there has always been music. Same with movies - when I was a kid, you could buy some movies on film ( 8mm, I think). When I was an adult, there were more movies available on videotape and later on it became DVDs and Blu Ray and then streaming. And I expect the same thing will happen with books - maybe physical books will disappear and only ebooks will be available and maybe at some point people won’t even buy ebooks but will pay a subscription fee to have access to books on a monthly/yearly basis - but there will always be written works that have the same sort of content as “books” even if they are not printed on paper. - Which apparently made a comeback ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2022, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/59 "2022-05-28T15:30:43Z")
You know what I don’t see anymore? Blockbuster or Mr. Movies. Must mean people don’t watch films at home anymore. That’s a shame, it was a good past time. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2022, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206/60 "2022-05-28T16:53:46Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Which was the point of my update. My original topic was how used bookstores are disappearing. My update was how thrift stores are apparently heading toward not selling books. I’ve been a devotee of thrift stores for decades, and few have ever had decent used book collections. There is only one near us of about a dozen, and that was where we donated a bunch of excess books. So I’m not seeing a decline around here. There was another thrift shop that had a reasonable collection, but it went away, not just the books. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sad-commentary-on-the-state-of-book-selling/945206.md?page=4)