Bookstore Survivability

John,

Regarding the issue that most retail sales are happening offline in real stores (supposedly internet sales are only like 5 % or so), I cannot avoid thinking that book sales (both printed books and ebooks) are different. There seem to be constant reports about commerce taking over in the media. Maybe the retail market is still adjusting to the advent of the internet (even though it's been about 20 years). Could the sales of other products be affected by the internet? Maybe it's just taking longer for the internet to change retail commerce?

see this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/business/media/james-patterson-giving-cash-to-bookstores.html?hpw&rref=books&_r=0


Hey Anonymous...

Thanks for being the #1 poster on my blog.

There is something different about the brick & mortar book business, and that is it has a model that needs to die.  Amazon killed off the fake bookstores, Barnes & Noble, Crown Books, Borders, which were really just financial services companies, not booksellers (they made their money off usury, not books sales.)

The model that needs to die is that of all USA industries, booksellers can return products (books) they do not sell.  This started in the great depression, where most of what is bad in USA was instituted.

Once booksellers could send back books they did not sell, then the business model changed to where a bookseller did not care what was on the shelves, just stack up the bestseller junk which is 20% of the business, and maintain the classics (MacBeth, the Iliad, etc) which is 80% of the business, and then sit back and manage mistakes by shipping them back.  Interesting or new authors need no apply.

Powells in Portland discovered (and I happen to think inspired Bezos at Amazon) the tactic of selling used copies and new copies side by side.  They are thriving.

And incidentally, neither of my books would ever be carried in a brick and mortar store without some direct association with me (a college bookstore carrying my book when I also teach at the college).  On the other hand, I've had a book on Amazon for over a decade.  See the Long Tail for what is going on there.

Michael Pietsch, the chief executive of Hachette Book Group, said that while some have prospered, there has been “a cataclysmic loss in the number of independent bookstores” over the last two to three decades. “The stores that have weathered the significant downturn have had very good years recently,” Mr. Pietsch said. “But there are many stores that have not had that success.”

Publishers went after the "blockbuster" books.  The printed massive amounts of each to stack in all stores and then take back what did not sell.  Fully 50% of the bestseller books are returned to be shredded.  Yes, that million copy best seller is ultimate only a half million copies, and actual printed copies come back to be shredded by recyclers.  Why would anyone lament the end of this terrible system?

Those bookstores still standing have a staff that cares about books, and an ambience catering to people who love to read.  That staff in effect curates books.  if booksellers could no longer return books they did not sell, not only would it help the ecology, it would widen access to audiences from bookstores.  If there were 10,000 bookstores in USA, then maybe there would be 200 in which a clerk who was expert on business might be recommending my book, and then it would sell in stores.  If each sold a copy a month, I'd have a stream of $2000 net a month from that alone.

And though many communities remain loyal to their shops, and the American Booksellers Association says its membership has recently grown, the online discounters have wreaked havoc on the independent bookseller’s business model.

If your model is the execrable 50% return model. The destruction of the old model is not over.  Some publishers (like me) have no return policies.  Right now it kills any sales.   Eventually those businesses that depend on the "no-effort" model of bookselling will die out due to competition from Amazon.  Amazon has well and truly killed off Crown, B&N and Borders, and hooray for that.  Good riddance!  I am happy to see the small independents who are organized around the "we can always send it back" die out.  More business for real book lovers.

The article you cited is a distress call from someone who made his money in the old system, Patterson.  We all love a system that works for us.  And what was his first plan?  A government bailout of book stores?!  Wow.  But then people who make money off degenerate systems do not want the gravy train to end.

Last year, Mr. Patterson placed full-page ads in The New York Times Book Review and Publishers Weekly arguing that the federal government’s financial support of troubled industries like Wall Street and the automobile sector should extend to the bookstore business. Since that appears to be a pipe dream, Mr. Patterson decided to create his own bailout fund as part of his mission to promote literature, especially for children.

Now, to Patterson's credit, when the government did not step in, he stepped in and put his money where is mouth is.  Bravo!

He began his project last year by getting the word to store owners that he was willing to begin writing them checks, which will range from $2,000 to $15,000, according to a spokeswoman for Mr. Patterson.

But wait...

The current health of independent bookstores is mixed. While some have benefited from the disappearance of the Borders chain in 2011 and a shrinking Barnes & Noble, the stores have been hit especially hard with consumers switching from paper copies to e-books.

Two things, probably 10% of my net comes from ebooks sales, but I believe very few of the people buying the ebooks are reading the ebooks.  In any event, in time the independent bookstores will come up with a open-source kindle that allows customers to buy any ebook with a cut going to their favorite bookshop.  An affinity kindle.

It has never occurred to me until now to pitch another book I wrote and sells on amazon, Perish Your Publisher.  It is a study on how to develop a teaching and writing and publishing combination as a sideline or full time occupation.  i brought what I learned from small biz int'l trade to publishing and figured out how to get paid for my time spent thinking.   (I wish what I thought brought in more money, but the bible says you have to be happy with your portion.)  Here is that book:

Perish Your Publisher

(Odd... the server image code no longer works with googleblogs... hmmm...)

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