I think it’s pretty obvious that new book stores are in decline. The two big chains have caused many independents to close down and are now threatened themselves by online competition.
But I was thinking the other day about used book stores. I was reflecting on all of the used book stores I used to remember that are now closed. Obviously this could just be a reflection of normal openings and closings. But when I tried to think of used book stores that had opened in the same period, it was a much shorter list.
Is this just confirmation bias or maybe a local phenomena? Or is the number of used book stores really significantly declining?
One - or maybe two - new used book stores have opened up in Evanston recently. I say maybe because I can’t remember where the one I saw a few months ago was, and when I went hunting for it, I found another. I know it wasn’t the same storefront, but perhaps they moved.
The thing that set (both of?) these apart from other used bookstores that I’ve been in was that it’s set up to sell by the pound, instead of pricing each book individually. I assume this is easier on the staff, although it probably limits hardcover sales.
So Evanston has at least a half dozen used book stores currently open. Bookman’s Alley, The Book Den, Howard’s, Amaranth, Maple-Davis and the Chicago Rare Books Center, off the top of my head.
Our small town NEVER had a used book store, IIRC, but one opened up just last year. It looks like most used book stores – moldy, dusty and jumbled. I think the new proprietors brought their own mold and dust to create the expected atmosphere.
I would say so in Chicago, but I would have to qualify the answer. It seems so many business are folding now. I am absolutely astonished by the number of small businesses on Milwaukee Ave in Chicago, that are going under. Many of these small “Mom & Pop” type businesses that were here in 1995 when I moved in have gone under.
I guess they couldn’t make it in the recession, so I wonder if it’s is used books stores themselves or just businesses in general that are going under
In Dallas, the chain Half Price Books really drove out the small mom-and-pop used bookstores years ago. They are a combination used/remaindered store, and it’s a missed blessing: I miss having places where I could go in and chit chat with the owner for an hour, you certainly don’t get the same sell back value, but the selection at HPB is fantastic, and they have a nice rustic-hippie atmosphere that makes it a nice place to hang out (especially in their flagship store). They seem to be doing fine around here.
Little places here, 3 or 4 of them, seem to be doing OK. A new used book store just opened up in a declining mall. There are a lot of people who enjoy the search rather than go through Amazon.
Is saying that common around Dallas? I would render that as ‘a mixed blessing’, coming from southern Illinois and having lived in Montana for many years now.
The HPB chain is all over the metroplex, there’s several in Fort Worth, one in Burleson, and one in the Northeast Tarrant county area that I know of.
I like being able to browse the remaindered books as well as the used books, but I really don’t like the fact that HPB has basically driven the Mom and Pop used book stores out of the area. I also don’t like the fact that HPB will move books from the regular shelves to the clearance shelves to the recycling heap so fast. I mean, I appreciate the clearance shelves, but what if I don’t hit the store every week? Also, many of the books that I really want are older books, which HPB won’t even put on the shelves for a minute. They’ll accept them and just put them straight into the recycling bin.
When I visit another city, one of the things I love to do is see if they have an old fashioned used book store.
Actually, the used books will bring in their own mold and dust and dirt. If someone wants to open a new used book store, then s/he has to get inventory from SOMEWHERE. Maybe from a store that’s closing down, maybe from estate sales and garage sales, maybe from a combination. But those books WILL be dusty and moldy.
Used book stores have been in decline for years. There used to be a dozen in Harvard Square, and many of them in Back Bay Boston and the Beacon Hill area. They’re virtually gone. The only ones that remain are old long established ones – the basement at the Harvard Bookstore, Boston’s venerable Brattle Book Shop, and one or two others. Used bookstores were killed off more effectively than new ones by the internet – no overhead and the ability to show off stock easily at individual sites, and at large sites like Alibris and later Amazon.
Outside the Boston area, the rsults were no less devastating. Salem, Massachusetts and Portsmouth, NH used to be filled with used bookshops, now all gone. There was an even chance that Boston suburbs used to have one used bookshop (mine did), but they’re gone, too.
One thing that I have seen a rise in is the Charity Used Book Shop. They’ve put out donation bins in Church lots asking for used books, which are then sold at an associated bookstore in an empty space in a local mall. The books clearly cost nothing, I think most, if not all, of the labor is volunteer or minimally paid, and the proceeds go to charity. One such operation has three outlets locally, and I know of one other. Ironically, the closest one to me opened in what once was a Waldenbooks – and has a better selection than the Waldenbooks did in its closing days.
I’ve seen one non-charity used bookshop open recently (and heard of another), also in former new-bookstore spaces. But there’s no doubt that the number of used bookstores, even with these newcomers and the charity bookshops, has taken a very, very major hit.
A last thought. One place that used to have used bookstores was the shore – people on vacation are looking for cheap and disposable reads, and there used to be several shops catering to the transitory summer trade along the Jersey shore. All of the ones I knew of have closed up shop. I suspect it’s not just the economics of used books – this is a market where most people aren’t going to order over the internet, but make spur-of-the-moment purchases — but suggests that people are reading fewer books.
We have Half-Price Books here in Indianapolis, and again it’s a mixed blessing. They don’t asell older paperbacks at half of cover price any more; they actually will scratch the old price off, damaging the cover, and then charge $2 or $3. I used to go in and buy a couple of dozen old paperbacks, anything that caught my fancy, at a few cents a pop… now I’m a lot more selective, and consequently spend less money and buy fewer books from them.
The local used paperbacks shop closed recently, but a few locally-owned used book stores that operate under the HPB model have opened recently. Too many used textbooks at these places at the moment, but I imagine that their selection will improve over time as the local population sells stuff to the stores. It looks like most of them have bought book lots from wholesalers to get instant store stock.
A couple of used/rare book dealers hang in there, for no apparent reason. The ex and I made a few rounds of the used book stores in the area, and the rare book dealers had unfriendly hours (think noon-3 pm every alternate weekday, closed weekends) and snotty attitudes when open.
Where did you read that? The records themselves made a comeback, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that there are more record stores now, if most of those additional records are purchased at a) already existing record stores or b) online.
The local Barnes & Noble has a large used books area in the store, probably as big as any used book store I’ve ever been in, but less actual books as the section isn’t as crowded and cramped – you can actually walk through the aisles without turning sideways. I don’t know how widespread used sections in B&N are, but if at all common, that would likely have an effect on used stores.
Where I live three Borders and a Barnes and Noble have closed in the past year, while all the used book stores seem to be chugging along, and are fairly crowded when I go. Amazon competes directly with a new bookstore, but if a used one sells on it as well as sell to local patrons, they can expand their sales area.
In fact, Rasputin, a mostly used music store, now has a fairly small selection of used books. Our HPB moved from a strip mall to our brand new high class shopping center. I prefer the independents, but they are okay. I don’t know of any used bookstores which have closed around here in the recent past.
Vastly different from my experience, as i’ve said. Used book stores in most of the towns around me have closed, and now none exist except the aforementioned Charity Used Book Stores. Boston and Cambridge used to be home to scads of used book stores, and now they’re almost all gone. In the past couple of years, I know of at least two more nearby ones that have bitten the dust. Ad to that the new bookstores that have been dying – the closest independet bookstore to me died, appropriately, last Halloween – and it’s a bleak picture.
It’s almost impossible for a used book store to survive these books without an internet component. The physical store is a front for the back-end business. Lots, perhaps the majority, of physical used book stores have closed their shops but a great many of them still live on the internet. It depends mostly on whether they have a good enough deal for the physical store so that they break more than even with diminished traffic. You have to store your books somewhere, after all, so why not try to make a bit of extra money along the way?
If you’re not a front for the internet, I’d suggest starting a paperback store. Mailing is pretty standardized at $3.99 and that’s more than most old paperbacks are worth before adding in the price of the book itself. Those penny books are just giant book stores burning off useless duplicate inventory. For the rest you’re approaching the retail price of a new paperback in total outlay. A physical store that doesn’t need to charge mailing can survive if the rent is minimal. That means staying out of nice strip malls and finding a niche somewhere cheap.
Only one of the 4 B&N’s locally has a used book department. The space is large, but the number of books offered is low compared to a dedicated used book store. And it depends on turnover. The books stay only for a while and then get cut to half price, then are 75% off and then are 50 cents and then probably donated or something. A large B&N gets the foot traffic to make that possible. No small used book store I’ve ever been to can match that foot traffic. Books stay there forever.
