Bookstores: Independent, Used and Massive Chains
AKIE BERMISS: I love me some books. No I really do. When I walk into a bookstore, I expect to come back out significantly poorer than when I walked in. If there’s any one thing that I’m easily distracted by — its probably books. I love to read them, yes. But also, I love to look at them. To leaf through them. I like having them around. I like them on bookshelves arranged neatly and in order. And I like them stacked high like dirty dishes on the floor, in chairs, on the bed, on top of the television. I simply adore books. And, unlike many people, I’ll never enjoy buying them online. I don’t feel satisfaction when a graphic of a book goes into my “shopping-cart” and then a week later a box shows up in my mail. No joy.
I need to go to the store. I need to see them in their element. I need to pick them out. And I need to take them home with me.
And so, I don’t tend to buy used books very often. I generally like to be the one making the imprint on any given book in my collection. Books given as gifts or hand-me-downs or heirlooms are where I make an exception, but for the most part: give me a clean fresh, unharmed book. And let me bend it, twist it, fold it into submission. When it has developed a nice crease and the pages are a little more jacked up and and stained — then I’m happy.
And so, to support this crushing book-habit of mine, there has been no greater enabler than the big chain bookstores. For me its like going to a holy place. Two, three, four (sometimes even five?!), floors just filled to bursting with books. You got your poetry section (historical and current… some Shakespeare there, perhaps, some Byron, T.S. Eliot, Longfellow, Brooks… maybe some Plath if that’s what floats your boat), the biographies and histories, mythologies (by culture and, hopefully, exhaustive), romance pulp, science fiction and fantasy (my favorites), childrens’ books, how-to-do/instructional books, non-fiction studies, and on and on and on. The bigger the store, the more shelf space, the more dedicated each section can be. And that’s what I’m looking for in a book store. I want to lose myself for a few hours. Wandering here or there. I pick up books I’ve already read and find my favorite passages. Maybe look at what newly released in various sections. Check out the bestsellers, assuredly, though I rarely purchase them until they’re out in paperback. I don’t dig magazines, but I appreciate that some people really do love them so I’m cool with there being a magazine section.
I like that there are coffee shops in the stores now. I get a big coffee… I keep wandering.
Sometimes I go in in the afternoon and don’t come out until its dark. That’s a day well spent, in my opinion. And, more often than not, I’ll be on my way home to start a book. You can’t beat that kind of entertainment.
Community/Independent bookstores — I hear your pain. I WANT to support you. The trouble is what do you have for me? I come from a family of readers. I’ve got a house FULL of old books. I don’t really need to go ransacking your shelves from some ancient, un-heard-of, ironic masterpiece. Also, I don’t really need your advice on books to buy. I’m not a simpleton. I like books a lot. I get suggestions from other readers all the time. Sometimes the authors makes suggestions!
This is the modern era — I can’t stress it enough. You’ve got to adapt. I can do all my research and review online before I even set foot in the store. When I get to the store, I know what I want. You need to have it. I’m not waiting for you to order it. I’m not going to wait a week or so to get it! I can do that at Amazon.com! You don’t provide anything special for me — other than you’re local and you’re probably (but not always) nice people. Time to turn these stores into something more practical. If you’re a local bookseller, start thinking about what book-people are going to need locally. A place to read! A place to read and surf the internet and be comfortable. And not hear loud, braying music. And not be surrounded by too much conversation but, in my case, no too little either. Libraries are nice, but they’re just a bit too stuffy for my hardcore reading marathons. Right now, if I want to put in some steady reading time, I’ll go to a local cafe or diner. Order coffee and food. Eat it there. And then stick around for three or four hours. Just reading. There’s a diner around the block from my apartment. They let me come in at noon, take a booth for myself, and stay there til they close at five. The waitress keeps my coffee coming. I order a meal, read for awhile, then maybe a dessert or a shake, read a little more, then I take off.
If people love to read, they’ll do it where its of greatest comfort. Sometimes home is NOT that place. Put a couple tables and desks in your store. Cut back on the book supply… if people want books, send them to the back. Or down the street to Barnes and Noble. When they’re done, they’ll come back to you to read. Then, you see, you get more money than if you sold all the books in town. One book is, what, 25 bucks? And that’ll last me a couple of days. Maybe a week or weeks — depending on how you read. But if I’m reading in your establishment for six hours… how many coffees/muffins/paninis/smoothies is that?
My ideal destination would be a the cigar lounge/reading room. If you make it: I will come. Have no doubt. Its time to think outside the box. You can’t match the selection of the big stores. And soon even the big stores won’t be able to match the selection of online retailers — especially if those retailers get smart and start having warehouses near large cities so that when you order a book you can have it in a day or less. But if you provide people with a service — you’ll always have customers. Local or otherwise.
Yeah, I’m just full of ideas for this book stuff. Unfortunately, I can’t get my head out of one long enough to make anything happen. One day, though. You may be able to light up a cigar and read for a few hours at: Akie’s Community Reading Room and Cigar Lounge.
HOWARD MEGDAL: Like Akie, I do acknowledge a love for the Big Box Bookstores. But to cast aside the many other ways to acquire books- yes, I share his obsession with all things bibliorific- is an astonishing limitation I simply do not share.
I adore used bookstores. There are no shortage of books that are out-of-print, and still amazingly desirable. Yet you won’t find them-ever-at Barnes and Noble or Borders. If I only bought books there, my library would be limited to what the publishing industry considered to have a significant current market. And if you spend any time with the general public, let alone the publishing industry, you’ll know why that’s not acceptable.
I also am addicted to Amazon.com. Sometimes I want to browse for books at 2 AM. Sometimes I want to look for related books on a topic. Sometimes I want to use the Internet to search the largest used bookstore in the world. And to buy a used book for $0.01? Gladly I’ll pay shipping! It usually doesn’t take a week for a book, either- I can get it overnight if I wish! Best of all is when my order is around $20. To get to $25 and free shipping, I HAVE to buy another book. It’s the fiscally responsible thing to do!
And my Kindle has taken this experience to another level. Let’s say I’m reading about a particular author in the New Yorker. This happened recently with Edith Wharton. I was able to purchase the book in question, on my Kindle, for 99 cents. For the price of some cheap, plastic toy, I had Edith Wharton on my Kindle and was reading her work in the time it takes me to feed my cats. How this isn’t a worthwhile part of the book purchasing experience, I’ll never understand.
Lately, however, I’ve been buying books for 50 cents apiece at my library’s perpetual book sale. This feels suspiciously like when I adopted the aforementioned cats from a shelter. These books, cast aside, belong in my home. They wouldn’t be in a Barnes and Noble, and many aren’t even on Amazon- a 1990 Elias Baseball Analyst! An old collection of Art buchwald columns!- but they are safe with me. I will pick them up, and yes, I will read them. And my money goes to allowing other people to pick up other books and read them as well.
ZOË RICE: While I was away at college, Barnes & Noble opened its first Brooklyn store four blocks from my parents’ house. Park Slope, Brooklyn, was decidedly not a chain store neighborhood–the Starbucks wouldn’t come until later, and no, I still haven’t recovered–and here was a massive store, two levels, popping up right in my backyard. We had independent stores: Community Bookstore (still living), Booklink (no longer with us) and Booklink II (the first to go). Park Slope was known for being quite literary, with loads of editors and artistic types. B&N would not do. But then I visited it. And I realized Park Slope needed a Barnes & Noble.
Barnes & Noble welcomed all comers. I don’t mean literally; yes, every book store is open to anyone who wishes to enter, but quite frankly, the crowd at B&N was more diverse than I’d ever seen in a Park Slope book store. We had a high school nearby, John Jay, whose students didn’t tend to mingle with the local mom and pop stores. And yet here they were, students of all races and ethnicities, enjoying books. The B&N was partnering with John Jay, as well, making a concerted effort to become a part of the community. What’s more, the store was open until 11PM, much later than our other stores. You could come home from work and still be able to pick up that book you were looking for, and people loved that. So after I had actually visited the Big Evil Chain invading our neighborhood, I became somewhat conflicted. How could I be all “Independent only!” when it seemed like this big superstore was giving our neighborhood a cool new shot of energy?
Ultimately, all those years ago, Park Slope needed both the independent bookstores and our new Big Chain. For browsing, hanging out, feeling like an anonymous shopper, I like to go to Barnes & Noble. But for a recommendation, for intimately knowledgeable sales staff, for a more carefully edited inventory, then I’ll happily approach the door of a beloved independent. Have the indies suffered because of the chains? Well yes, of course they have. But so has every other industry. At least B&N isn’t Walmart.
As a writer who was a struggling first time author a couple years ago, what I confess gets to me are used bookstores. They, too, have a purpose, I don’t deny that. I live not far from Manhattan’s famous Strand, and the Strand is awesome. But what’s awesome about it are the rows and rows of esoteric, out of print books. Here are hundreds of volumes that you can’t find in a regular bookstore. How can you not love that? But Amazon.com used books, I believe, are hurting the publishing industry. You can buy a book for $.01. How can people resist that? And yet, if you buy this book, you are hurting the author. Especially a small author, or a first time author trying to find a leg up in an impossible business. Believe me, please, when I say that every purchase counts for a new author–every one, that is, except a re-sale. Profit margins on books are tiny, and often even those tiny profits get eaten away by returns. Very few first time authors earn back their advances, and so the publishing house has less incentive to continue publishing them. If you don’t support new authors, then there will continue to be fewer and fewer of us. You who love to read may never get to read your favorite book; it may never get published. So before you buy a second-hand book that’s in print, or before you loan a book to a friend rather than recommending he or she buy it, take a moment to evaluate whether this is something you can afford to purchase first-hand. The book business needs it. Those independent bookstores need it. Heck, even the chains need it.
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