Bricks and Mortar Bookselling In An e-Focused World

With the recent demise of Borders and the kerfluffle over taxing online sales, the plight of local independent bookstores has come to the surface again. While several beloved stores like Cody’s in Berkeley have closed in recent years, apparently it’s not all doom and gloom.

According to estimates from the Census Bureau, May bookstore sales rose 1.6% compared to May 2010. For the year to date, bookstore sales climbed 0.5%. (These numbers do not include electronic home shopping, mail-order, direct sale, or used book sales.)

Oren Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers’ Association, said at the ABA annual meeting last May that “more than 400 new independent bookstores have opened since 2005.” That’s good news; however, he added that “booksellers and publishers must innovate, adapt, and grow as we never have before.”

There’s no doubt that the business is changing.  According to the Pew Internet Project, as of June 28 this year, e-reader ownership in the US has doubled over the past six months, with the overall share of adults who own an e-reader now at 12%.

Janet Boreta, who co-founded Orinda Books with four friends in 1976, confirms that online sales, mega-stores, and e-books have had an impact on local independent bookstores, and adds that reader trends have changed in other ways. Sales in categories like cookbooks, gardening guides, and how-to manuals have declined because readers can simply ask Dr. Google for that pot roast recipe instead of buying a cookbook.

Boreta notes some positive trends as well, including the rapid expansion of reading groups--which Orinda Books has promoted since its inception--as well as the growth of the young adult category and an increasing interest in history and biographies.

Margarita Shalina, the small press buyer at St. Mark's Bookshop in New York, recently noted that independent booksellers who have been around for decades have a historical perspective from which to view the current situation, but they also need to keep innovating.

Add it all up, and as ABA’s Teicher said in his speech: “Now is the time for publishers and booksellers--together--to take out a clean sheet of paper and ask themselves: If we were to design a business model that would give all stakeholders in our industry the best possible opportunity for success, what would it look like? “

Independent bookstore owners may not have the luxury of a brainstorming session with 200 peers, but they are creative folk, after all. They’ve come up with a number of successful strategies beyond the traditional author readings, staff pick lists, and newsletters for customers.

• Websites filled with reading recommendations, resource links, and alternative purchasing options.  According to Teicher of the ABA, more than 300 stores are participating in an arrangement with Google to sell e-books through the bookstores’ websites.

• Clever use of social media like Facebook, Twitter, and blogging. For example, the creation of a new Half Price Books location in San Antonio, Texas was featured at high speed in the time-lapse video "How to Build a (New) Bookstore."

• Expanding beyond the base. Orinda Books has showcased local visual artists since the store opened in 1976 and now devotes shelf space to local crafts, along with calendars and music CDs. The staff helps customers through special orders and locating rare books.

• Knowing the community and focusing on special topics. Besides the more than 130 reading groups they support, Orinda Books features local authors in their events, and has a larger-than-average children’s and young adult literature section, complete with play area.  The store offers a large science and math section; Boreta says one local customer told her that he travels to the store just for that reason.

Community was also the key to Tatiani Soli, who opened Boulevard Books in her local neighborhood in Brooklyn in 2010. "I grew up there so I know my community," she said.  She focuses on events that reflect broad community interests, rather than trying to lure authors her neighbors might not be familiar with.

Alex Popoulis of Books Inc. in Mountain View put it this way:  “I think what independent bookstores have to do is identify their niche and figure out what they can provide to customers that they can't get elsewhere."

Janet Boreta agrees.  She loves seeing parents who came in as children to buy books with their allowance now coming in with their own kids.  She and her staff will continue to select the best and recommend what their long-time customers might enjoy reading, even as they fine-tune their strategies for riding the wave of change in the book-buying world.