Sandra Parshall
Do you still have a bookstore within quick driving (or walking) distance of your house? Or is the closest one so far away that it’s easier to go online and order what you want? Do you have a store nearby but still find shopping online easier (and often cheaper)?
It’s a vicious cycle: online sales (including, now, e-books) eat into the profits of brick-and-mortar stores; the stores start closing and whole chains collapse; the disappearance of stores sends more people online to shop for books.
I live in the Washington, DC, area, where Crown Books was born in 1977, and I remember the TV ads in which a handsome young Robert Haft sat atop a stack of books, looked into the camera, and declared, “Books cost too much. That’s why I opened Crown Books.” In a sense, he was announcing the end of bookselling as we knew it. Not that Crown was the first bookseller to discount new books – Barnes and Noble led the way in 1975 by offering N.Y. Times bestsellers at 40% off cover price. But Crown discounted everything, and that policy threatened stores that charged full price.
 |
| "Books cost too much!" |
Some smaller chains have survived. The southern company Books-A-Million, which has been around since 1917, has 232 stores and is expanding into some of the spots vacated by Borders. Zondervan, a subsidiary of HarperCollins that had 126 stores 20 years ago, was sold and renamed Family Christian Stores and now has 283 outlets. Hastings Entertainment has 146 and Half Price Books has 113. Cokesbury, which had 40 stores in 1991 and increased that number to 76 before scaling back, now operates 57 outlets.
The U.S. had 3,293 chain bookstores in 1991 and now has 2,206, by PW’s count. A few new independents have sprung up recently, but many long-established indies stores have gone bankrupt.
Where will it end? Will we become a nation where only residents of large cities can walk into a real bookstore, hold new books in their hands and flip through the pages before deciding whether to buy? If we are headed in that direction, does it matter? Can a sparse scattering of tiny independents with limited stock take the place of sprawling superstores with aisle after aisle of printed books available for browsing?
What does access to a brick-and-mortar bookstore mean to you? Will you miss the chains if they all disappear? Do you think children who will never step inside a bookstore and choose books for themselves will have missed out on anything?
by Sheila Connolly
This past weekend, author Ann Patchett wrote a delightful short article called "On Bugs and Books" for the New York Times (sorry, but I don't think you can access the link unless you're a subscriber). It first caught my eye because of the "bugs" in the title, since my husband is a research entomologist, but in fact it turned out to be a piece linking book tours to 13-year cicadas—no easy feat.
Patchett doesn't like book tours: they make her anxious. I'm sure many writers can identify with that (at least, the ones who can afford book tours, with or without their publisher's help), but Patchett gracefully acknowledges that book tours are "the price of doing business."
But Patchett is doing more than following the script for successful writers: she's putting her money where her mouth it and will be opening a bookstore (yes, a real bricks-and-mortar one) in October. Why?
First of all, she believes that Americans are still reading books, based on what she saw on her book tour this summer, when people showed up at her signings carrying her books—including the more expensive hardcovers. Bookstores are still selling books, bless them. And her concept of the most functional bookstore in these rapidly changing days is the small, locally owned, independent bookstore. She sees this as part of an almost biological cycle: "the little bookstore grew into a big bookstore, which was squashed by the superstore, which folded beneath the Internet store, which made people long for a little bookstore"—all this in only 13 years. Wouldn't it be nice if the demise of Borders has yielded tiny sprouts of new, local bookstores?
As I may have mentioned before, my daughter has been working at a local independent bookstore for the past four years. It's a quirky place, much loved by its patrons. It's physically huge, with an amazing selection, including a lot of backlist. Admittedly they don't make it easy for anyone to find a book, since they're filed according to publisher and title, not author (a practice that always mystifies me). There are only two computer terminals on the floor for customers to use to search. So how do people find what they want? They ask people—the knowledgeable staff, many of whom have worked there for years.
But there's another important point about "real" bookstores: you can browse. I'll admit I buy books through Amazon. Often I want to find something that's out of print or obscure, and usually I can find a copy through one of Amazon's subcontractors, or whatever they're called. (Yes, I do use my local library, but often what I want isn't available, even through the regional system.) But I'm also very conscious of how Amazon manipulates its buyers, with phrases like "Customers who bought this item also bought…" or "Customers also bought items by…" or "Customers also considered…" I accept that it's good marketing, and Amazon recognizes that someone who likes a particular genre probably buys a lot of that genre.
But there's no serendipity. There's no joy in wandering the aisles, picking up whatever catches your fancy. There's no "aha!" moment on Amazon. In a physical bookstore you have the opportunity to find something you didn't even know you were looking for, and that's a pleasure. Or you can wander in and say to a clerk (like my daughter), "I'm looking for that new book—I think it's about a horse—I know the cover is blue or maybe green—she wrote something about rabbits a couple of years ago"—and you'll get an answer. Try putting "new+horse+blue+rabbits" into an Amazon search and see what you get.
So thank you, Ann Patchett, for take a stand and keeping the small bookstore alive. And, readers, if you're in the Nashville area any time from October on, stop in at Parnassus Books and vote with your pocketbook to prove Ann Patchett right and keep bookstores thriving.
Sandra Parshall
The dragons and witches are on display, waiting for someone to claim them. The furniture in the reading corner wears SOLD signs. Sunbeams stream through the skylights and fall on mostly empty shelves that will never be filled again. In the back office, Hamilton the cat snoozes peacefully, unaware that his life is about to change forever.
Creatures ‘n Crooks Bookshoppe is going out of business.
The closing of yet another independent bookstore is always a sad event, and it’s especially poignant for writers who have appeared there and readers who love its friendly atmosphere and personal service. The latest indie to fold is Creatures ‘n Crooks in Richmond, VA, a beautiful store in the historic Carytown section of the city. As owner Lelia Taylor prepares to close the doors forever on September 30, she threw a final “favorite authors” signing party last Saturday, and I was honored to be one of the 15 mystery, science fiction, and fantasy writers included. One of my first appearances as a published writer was at Creatures ‘n Crooks in the summer of 2006, when I joined Donna Andrews, Ellen Crosby, Laura Durham, and Ellen Byerrum to meet with the store’s mystery book discussion group.
The weather was perfect last Saturday, and customers came to buy books, but it was a melancholy afternoon.
Lelia opened Creatures ‘n Crooks on May 20, 2000. Hamilton, adopted from a shelter, has served as the store’s resident feline almost from the beginning, so his life, as well as Lelia’s, will change radically at the end of this month. Because Lelia’s cats at home might not accept him, he’ll go to live with people he knows and likes, who will provide him with the worshipful attention he’s grown to expect. He didn’t join the party on Saturday, but he granted me a private audience in the back office.
In addition to Hamilton, another animal was on hand, so to speak. Mystery writer and licensed falconer Andy Straka brought H.P. (Harris Potter), his gorgeous Harris hawk, and the two of them greeted startled customers and passersby outside the store. In case you might someday have to sign something while balancing a full-grown hawk on one hand, study Andy’s technique for autographing copies of his new PI mystery, Kitty Hitter.
Before introducing H.P., Andy chatted in the store’s reading corner with Bob Cohen (left) and Marcia Talley (seated).
John Lamb paused in his conversation with Ellen Byerrum and Ellen Crosby to sign a book for a reader.
Mary Montague Sikes and Pamela K. Kinney were among the authors attending.
G.M. Malliet and Ellen Byerrum talked among the shelves.
And Lelia did what she enjoys most: selling books.
Creatures ‘n Crooks will be missed.
Posts
Do you still have a bookstore within quick driving (or walking) distance of your house? Or is the closest one so far away that it’s easier to go online and order what you want? Do you have a store nearby but still find shopping online easier (and often cheaper)?
