The Rise and Decline of Bookstores

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

I’d love to see this happen, and I think it might be heading that way, with electronic media.

I think it’d be a decent business model to rent/sell books much like they do movies; if you have a digital reader, you can “rent” a book for a few weeks and read it, for a nominal fee - $3 or $4, much like you rent a movie. When you’re done with it or the time is up, it’s automatically deleted from your reader.

If you want to buy a book, it’s just like now. Pay the cost to buy it, either electronically or physically, and it’s yours forever.

Seems to me they’d make some money doing it that way. Sure, you can still get books for free from your local library, but unless you live somewhere with a really great library system, they don’t buy every single new book right away, and when they do, you have to wait in line for a copy to become available.

62

Waldenbooks actually began as a for-profit lending library in the Depression. It wasn’t until the 60s that they began to sell books.

63

If it’s still there, there’s a good one right near by in Marblehead, Mass., Artists and Authors, formerly the **Much Ado **that moved to England a few years ago after 20 years in the same neighborhood. 50,000+ volumes, per their website. I picked up many volumes there in April, last time I was there but they were not buying any of the many books that I was removing from a late relative’s collection that I now have in storage. http://www.artists-authors.com/
Then there is also the new edition bookstore in the same town, The Spirit of Seventy-six, uptown.
The B&N 11 miles from my home is the busiest place in a new mixed-use center. They sent me a $100 gift card last month because I spend so much time and money there. But it competes with the busy local library system, with dozens of folks reading the magazines and books off the display racks, especially on weekends.

The Walden’s that used to be in the mall moved to a new offsite freestanding building 20 years ago and closed about 10 years ago. The small B. Dalton in the mall closed 6 years ago and was replaced for a while by a fly-by-night type used remainder bookstore. I haven’t been to the mall in about 3 years so I don’t know if there is still a bookstore there.

64

And if you’re a serious reader of fantasy and science fiction and mystery, may the Flying Spaghetti Monster have mercy on your soul, and let the Superstore buyer know something about those genres. In too many superstores, the F&SF buyer will ONLY stock “bestseller” books…meaning that if you actually LIKE Anne Rice, or Robert Jordan, or one of the half dozen or so Big Names, you have a lot of choice. If you’re a bit pickier, and would like someone a bit off the beaten track, you go to Amazon where you can browse the long tail.

Otherwise, you go to the local used book store, where people who have also used Amazon sell their old books.

I’ve had some success, too, in Googling some old favorites from my childhood, and finding used copies for sale. But I never count on being able to find copies this way.

65

Around here they are closing libraries because of a lack of use; so you aren’t nuts or anything.

I agree that reading books is (?) declining but I blame this thing here. I used to read at work sometimes when things were slow. Maybe another hour or two in the evenings to relax. Now I either surf the web or head here. 15 years ago I described my reading as “supporting a 10 book a week habit”. These days I read the professional journals and necessary references and not a whole lot else. If I didn’t use public transportation and read on the bus/trolley I’m not sure if I would actually read all that.

My wife, on the other hand, reads maybe 8 books a week. Of course, the next time she logs on from home will be the third time in her life.

Sorry but no links. Have to admit though that I don’t read the newspapers as much anymore as I used to - so they could be there and I just don’t know about them.

66

It’s been mentioned several times in this thread, but reading is not declining. It’s actually increasing quite a bit (as an aside, this thing right here requires a lot of reading to use but doesn’t get counted as reading by most people). Not only that, but library use is increasing steadily. Anyone worried about the future of the book is trying to find a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

67

I happened to stumble onto this, so excuse the late appearance.

Cal, you should hang around with writers more. We’ve been talking obsessively about this for at least a dozen years. Bookstores are zombies, dead but still giving an appearance of life.

The reason is that there are two types of book buyers. One type is like you and me and a bunch of the others here. We want all sorts of books on all sorts of subjects, whether we know the author or not.

The other type wants books by favorite authors or the hot book that everybody is talking about and not much else.

About 20 years ago, B&N and Borders caught on that they could pare down stock to fit the needs of type two and make a little profit from type one. They put bookstores into every mall in America. These did very well. Because they could sell bestsellers at a lower price, they started to drive independent bookstores out of business.

Then came the big box bookstores. Stores - like websites and television stations - make more money the longer they can keep a customer inside. Mall stores had quick traffic. Big box stores had slow traffic, with cafés and comfortable chairs and book group meetings. But Borders and B&N were essentially competing against themselves. So they started driving their own mall stores out of business.

Then came the discounters. Why bother to stock 10,000 titles when 100 of them comprise half the sales? (Literally true.) So Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club and its competitors started to stock the bestsellers even more cheaply. They now sell more than half the total of the bestseller lists. So the big box stores are being driven out of business. I’m frankly surprised that Borders is still around. (Books-a-Million, the third big box, doesn’t have 10% of the market but seems solid. They won’t absorb much Border’s business and B&N doesn’t have the money to buy them out, so when they go that’s 500 stores gone not to return.)

Then came the Internet. Why do type one people need to go to bookstores when the books are actually available and cheaper online? Internet sales are probably still no more than 10% of the business, but it’s a crucial 10%. It’s the 10% that gave profit to the remaining independents and the seeming diversity of a big box. The majority (again, I think literally so) of specialty bookstores in mystery and f&sf was doomed by the triple whammy of bestsellers, big selections at big boxes and the internet.

And the publishers are encouraging this because every major publisher in America is now a tiny, insignificant part of a multi-national conglomerate which is desperately trying to change a business with a historic 4% return into a business with a 10% return. It can’t be done, but profits from a few big name blockbusters are surer than profits from unknowns. They’d much rather print 1,000,000 copies of one pretty-sure book than 10,000 copies of 100 iffy books hoping that 2 will break out. (If this sounds exactly like the way movies are driven by blockbusters, that’s because it is the same since all the movie studios are now small parts of the same conglomerates.)

Don’t expect the Internet to change this. The long tail is sheer nonsense. Well, unknown books can be better found and can continue to sell. But only in the hundreds when thousands are needed for livelihood. It’s pocket money or a hobby or a pleasant extra, not a career.

Numbers of books published has increased. Meaningless, since that’s all driven by self-publishing of various flavors. 100,000 new titles average 100 copies sold. That’s less than a single Twilight book. Numbers of total books sold is level or down a couple of percent, with higher prices keeping revenue about equal. Again, almost all of that is due to bestsellers. Because YA & children’s titles have exploded there seems to be a lot of new interest in books, but there is no evidence that a sufficient percentage of these readers go on to adult titles. Books are like movies. Blockbusters are huge and much talked about, but the industry is dying painfully an inch below that surface.

Library funding is being slashed in almost every state. It’s the first thing to cut in a recession and many states have been in a recession for a decade. Besides, if libraries spend money they need to spend it on computers and DVDs and CDs and electronic books. Everything but print.

The good news is…

There is no good news, except that this is a slow process that will take years to fully play out. It’s not that it will happen. It has happened.

68

And furthermore, if I as an SF reader want something that’s out of print, there’s no hope at a Barnes and Noble. And the fact is that a lot of what I want to read is out of print. I made half-a-dozen trips to the sole used bookseller in the city of 150,000 this summer, put up with his abusive comments about out-of-staters taking jobs away, and did him the favor of clearing out his old Asimov collections. Can’t do that at B&N.

69

Completely untrue. There’s not a library in this country that spends more on DVDs than on books and most spend more on books than all other formats combined.

http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/indStats_02.htm

And did you see this article earlier in the thread? Book buying is holding steady (even increasing most years). And teenagers are reading a lot nowadays. And they are all stepping up to adult books before their teen years are out. Harry Potter has created a whole new generation of readers that are still reading. Don’t let a “kids these days” attitude blind you to that.

70

Replace “will eventually be” with “already is”. Book sharing sites are not as common as the music sharing variety, but they’re out there.

71

Number of bookstores in Sturgeon Bay in the 1950’s: 1
Number of bookstores in Sturgeon Bay in the 1960’s: 1
Number of bookstores in Sturgeon Bay in the 1970’s: 1
Number of bookstores in Sturgeon Bay in the 1980’s: 1
Number of bookstores in Sturgeon Bay in the 1990’s: 1
Number of bookstores in Sturgeon Bay in the 2000’s: 1

So I’d say the trend line was holding steady around here.

72

We had 4 Waldenbooks in the Little Rock area and they all closed a few years ago. Thankfully, our two Barnes & Nobles are still doing great.

I have to admit that Amazons convenience is hard to beat. I still love browsing at Barnes & Nobles. I buy from both.

73

A couple of months back, I was in both B&N and Borders, looking for a book to give to a friend. I wanted it in my hot little hands that night, or before noon the next day at the very latest. In both stores, I found a gazillion copies of the latest best sellers…but not any of the books I wanted. In each store, the clerk was eager to order the book for me, and I could come pick it up in a few days. If I wanted to order a book and wait a couple of days for it, why in the world had I gone to a brick and mortar store? WHY? I guess if someone doesn’t have an internet connection at home, this would be useful, but since I have a fast connection, I would prefer to make only ONE trip to the bookstore to purchase my books.

74

I’ll confess I’ve used them. I own a complete collection of Terry Pratchett, but it’s at my apartment in Chicago, and I’m usually at my apartment in Kansas City. I don’t own a Kindle, I own an iPod Touch - so yes, I downloaded “pirate” electronic versions of the books I already own. I feel perfectly fine about this, and view it in exactly the same light as the MP3s I’ve ripped from the CDs and LPs I own.

75

By the way CalMeacham,l you do realize that what you are describing has happened in every area of consumer retail?

For instance, I used to work for a small, local audio-video chain of 5 stores in the Kansas City, MO area. They employed nearly 100 people, and some of the employees had been with the firm for 25+ years. We were successful and had (we thought) a very loyal customer base.

The first wave of competition was the large national chains in the same field, but the real competition was large retailers like Best Buy and Circuit City who had buying power that we could never match. But the final blow was Nebraska Furniture Mart, a “category killer” that had all the same lines and sold them in quantities we could never match. They are pretty much the only electronics retailer in Kansas City any more, aside from the selection at big box retailers like Target and Walmart, and the warehouse clubs.

Are people buying less electronics? If you only look at the small local firms like ours (bankrupt 7 years ago) or even some of the large retailers like Circuit City (bankrupt), you might think so. In this case, we were the independent bookstore, and Circuit City was Borders. Instead, they are buying online, or perusing the limited selection at places like Target or CostCo.

76

I didn’t say they spend more on other formats, just that all the other formats eat heavily into their book budget and that total funding is decreasing.

Here’s an article about Cal’s state of Massachusetts.

Here’s what that link says.

Which is exactly what I said. Except for YA, sales are down for adult trade books despite higher prices. Down in an industry that wants 10% returns.

I read every issue of every publication by all the major writers organizations. They give statistics and trends regularly. There is no evidence that teens in any “significant percentage” are buying adult books once they get past Harry Potter. If you can give that stat I’d like to see it.

77

Total funding decreased during an ecomonic downturn. That happens. Politicians are dumbasses and don’t realize that people use the library more in times of economic crisis. As the economy recovers, library budgets will too.

And DVDs/CDs/video games/computers don’t “eat into” a library’s budget, they’re part of the library’s budget. An important difference.

I didn’t say buying, I said reading. Teens read, a lot. Sorry, but I don’t have any stats or cites for buying, but library industry publications has been charting the rise of the teen reader for years. For proof, look no further than your backyard:

http://www.teenbookfestival.org/

1000s of teens attend that festival every year and they are all huge readers who keep reading after their teen years end.

78

I wish. Library budgets started declining far before the current recession. And I didn’t say eat into the budget, I said eat into the book budget. That’s what we’re talking about here.

If the subject is book buying, then book reading isn’t the issue. And I keep asking for a cite that teens continue to buy adult books after their teen years. That’s the issue. We know that teens buy teen books. That’s kept the industry afloat the past few years. The question is whether the industry can turn them into adult readers. Your assertion that they do sounds nice but I see no backup for that.

79

Except, they really didn’t. They’ve kept steady for years (which is a decline in a way seeing as how book prices keep increasing), but they didn’t start getting slashed until the recession started.

Sorry, like I said, I can’t give you the cite you’re looking for. I have book reading cites and teens start reading adult books, but librarians don’t focus too much on studies dealing with book buying of the general public.

80

I don’t find it huge at all, and IME it is shrinking at that.

Nearest bookstore to me is a Borders 30 miles away, after that it is another 40miles or so to a decent size city, but I have not heard of any notable bookstores there at all.

Used to frequent all the bookstores mentioned in Boston, Cambridge, etc. Today is a sad day for me.

As for the selection at B/N and Borders, it only seems the topics are wide, but in fact they are not, not for people with a broad range of interests. Not only that, what is there is “a mile wide and an inch deep”. Nothing beyond introductory level n any non-fiction topic for instance, with the possible exception of some Dover books (which are all old scientific treatises in the public domain anyway).

Of the bookstores that remain anywhere, I think the “mile wide and inch deep” syndrome is the worst aspect of them.