Images

All the news that is fit to print about indie bookstores can generally be summarized this way: they are closing faster than a shark feeding frenzy. Perhaps a bit of hyperbole, but the demise of the indie bookstore is on everyone’s lips.

The questions are why are they dying out and what can be done to halt their death march? As to why, I don’t think we need spend much time on the question. Fewer Americans want to either pay more for local availability or want to patronize a local bookstore. What they are becoming accustomed to is huge selection and lower pricing without leaving home — the online bookseller. Another problem for indies is the trend toward ebooks. Their online competitors have them and they do not, or if they do have them, they are not as cheaply priced as their online competitors. It is just a matter of economics.

I grant, however, that the loss of indie bookstores is another nail in the coffin of Americana. It is pretty difficult to call Amazon on the telephone and discuss the merits/demerits of a book selection with a knowledgeable bookseller. But Amazon is doing to the indie bookstores what Walmart did to mom-and-pop Main Street, and while many of us lament the demise of mom-and-pop Main Street, we are also the first to shop online and the last to buy on Main Street.

Yet indie bookstores can and should fight back. Although books are entertainment — few people would call a Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh book an educational bromide — they are also the source of knowledge and we continue to need help in picking through the detritus for the gem.

I have been thinking about what indie bookstores can do to fight back. I’m not sure they can ever compete on price unless book publishers, especially the Agency 6, are willing to give special help, but there are things that they can do.

First, if your local pizzeria can offer free delivery, why can’t your local indie store — or if there is more than one local indie store, why can’t they band together to offer free local delivery? Amazon’s delivery is quick but indie delivery could be quicker, and we all know how unwilling we are to wait. This seems a minor customer service that could quickly and inexpensively be implemented.

Second, consider making the local populace a partner in the store. If the store is not already a corporation, make it one. Then create a nonvoting class of stock, a preferred stock, that entitle the owner to share in dividends on a preferential basis. Give 1 share of stock for every $250 in purchases (the dollar amount could be higher or lower). Give the local book-buying public a direct stake in your success. Think about parents who would see this as a good way to introduce their children to capitalism and stock ownership.

Third, create a special members-only club. Amazon tries to do this with its Prime and Barnes & Noble with its membership, and even some indies have their clubs — but none of them are really special. What is so special about Amazon’s Prime? Nothing. Make this club special. Club members with young children can use the premises for birthday party with the bookstore staff doing the work; major holidays have special get-togethers; have a biweekly restaurant-of-the-month get-together for adult members where they come to the store and for a steep discount are cooked a special meal by a local restaurant and get to learn how to make the dishes as well as eat them; have audience participation mystery plays bimonthly. The ideas are almost endless. The point is, make the membership more than a discount membership; make it something to look forward to and you can even theme the parties around certain books.

Fourth, come to an arrangement with other local indies whereby if someone is looking for a particular book and you do not have it in stock but your competitor does, your competitor will give you the book so you can make the sale subject to a small fee and your ordering a replacement. This will expand your inventory.

Fifth, make it a point for you and your staff to comb places like Smashwords for indie authors who are self-publishing. When you find a good one, contact the author and see if you can’t cut a deal with the author to write a book that will only be available to indie bookstores, that you can use to draw people in. This is more difficult to do than the other ideas but if you can create a catalog of indie books that are available only through indie stores, you are at least fighting back against Amazon exclusivity.

Sixth, as part of finding indie authors, you need to figure out a way to offer ebooks and print-on-demand pbooks for those who only buy one or the other format. The Espresso machine is expensive, but why not join with several other indies to buy one that you can share? Or why not talk to a local print shop and see if you can work something out with them.

Seventh, create an Indie Book Mall where several indie bookstores can share the space. This type of arrangement is often done by antiques and collectibles dealers and I see no reason why it couldn’t be done by indie bookstores. It would create a shopping “destination,” which seems to be something consumers like. Some of the advantages to doing this include the ability to share fixed expenses (e.g., rent, heat, electric) and it would allow each indie to have an area of concentration rather than be required to have such a general focus that each is a full replica of any other. It would also facilitate some of the earler suggestions. Additionally, this is the kind of project that would fit right in with Main Street renewal projects and could enable a group purchase of the real estate or low rent from cities trying to draw busiensses and people back to the Main Street. Something like this could also be done in conjunction with a struggling local library system, something I proposed nearly 2 years ago in A Modest Proposal V: Libraries & Indies in the eBook Age.

I’m sure that others can add to this list, but it is clear to me that indie bookstores can fight back. Imagination and effort are the keys. The Internet Age has isolated more of us; we tend to do less socialization because we are working by ourselves. The indie bookstore could become our new socialization venue with some effort.

At least it is something to think about.

[Via An American Editor]

10 COMMENTS

  1. I wonder if Mr. Adin has ever run a business himself. Some of these ideas are not simple suggestions at all, but entirely new enterprises. They are expensive, complicated undertakings. He might as well suggest book sellers hire fairies to build them new customers during the night.

  2. @DRC — Not only have I run several businesses, both for myself and for others, I currently run two successful businesses. Two things I have learned in nearly 40 years of running businesses is that you must think widely and you must be willing to spend money to make money.

    I grant that several of the ideas are expensive and more difficult to do, but they are not impossible. Some, however, are pretty easy and inexpensive. For example, book delivery. Although not a cost-free service, it also is not a very expensive service, especially if the result is increased sales. If sales remain flat, then anything one does, including simply opening the door, is expensive. I also do not think coming to an arrangement with other local indies to fulfill a customer’s request (suggestion 4) is either difficult or expensive, but is good customer service for everyone involved.

    The practicality and cost of the suggestions depends on many factors, including where the indie bookstore is located and the energy of the owners. Creating a members-only club can be expensive, but if done correctly could be profitable for the indie.

    To simply dismiss ideas out of hand because on the surface they appear impracticable or overly expensive is self-defeating. Of course, my ideas are certainly not the only ones and may well be far from the best, but at least I am thinking about the problem. What are your solutions to the indie survival problem?

  3. DRC, I clicked through from my feedreader just to tell Mr. Adin that I thought his ideas were GREAT and wish he could come implement them in our own local bookstore. I’m copying this post to give to them! What it does is address the things an Amazon or BN can *not* do for customers or not in the same way and features those.

  4. I think the sixth idea should have been the first: Indie store access to online content sales. Indie stores could allow people to come to the store, find out about an ebook, then buy it through the store, either handled by the store’s clerks, or bought yourself through the store’s online portal (the store would get a cut of the sale).

    Someone else a few weeks back suggested an online ebook outlet that served indies only, a targeted Smashwords in essence, and similar in operation to the organization that sells books to indie stores exclusively. I think that’s a great idea. That indie-devoted organization could also keep POD equipment, and print and ship as required, allowing indies to continue on with or without their own POD equipment (those things ain’t cheap).

  5. I’ve read “Shelf Awareness,” the indie bookstore online newsletter for years.

    The indies went through a bad spell, but they’ve really turned around and are healthier than the big box booksellers.

    A vast majority close because of high rent and retiring owners rather then ebooks and lack of customers.

    The newsletter and its sister review issue which is aimed at readers are free, and you can subscribe here:

    http://www.shelf-awareness.com/xs/register/readers

  6. Please….. this notion that we need a brick and mortar book store, and an indie book store in particular, in order to get good recommendations on what to read is a bit disingenuous. I heard the same argument in an interview with Ann Patchett on public radio’s “Market Place Money” this past weekend. (I wonder how a Rush Limbaugh listener came across that….?) Supposedly you can’t ask Amazon or your e-reader to recommend something that would be similar to the book or author you just enjoyed reading. Wrong. Amazon (and my Kindle, and I’m assuming the Nook does too) makes recommendations on my browsing and purchases and and there are reviews and comments by other readers. Sort of like crowd sourcing a recommendation. Book stores are going to have a limited number of staff and their familiarity is going to not be all encompassing. The last three books I read were “recommendations” on Amazon based on what others had purchased. The reviews were good so I bought them, I doubt if I would have even found them in an indie book store, let alone have a bookseller recommend them. Two of the three were the authors’ first foray into fiction, having primarily written technical publications.

    I do hope the brick and mortar book stores survive. I spent many Saturday afternoons at the Tattered Cover in Denver browsing their shelves. I’m a big fan of instant gratification and when reading a p-book, I appreciate being able to drive over to the local book store and getting my selection right now. I never patronized Amazon’s book store that much until I got my Kindle. Now I’ve read more in the last 6 months than I had in the previous two years. This is largely due to the ability to find books I want to read and getting them delivered quickly. That shopping experience is what the b&m store is going to have to address.

  7. I gave up on this article a quarter way though. I got lost trying to figure what the Author was referring to, local bricks and mortar book shops or online Independent eBook retailers online and which ideas referred to which……..

  8. Indiebound, the independent bookstore consortium, has released a ebook reading app for Android, and one is supposed to be coming out soon for iOS. I look forward to it – I like the fact I can buy ebooks through my local bookstores, but the integration of the ebookstore into the bookstore websites has been clunky thus far.

    I like a bunch of those ideas – the “Indie Book Mall” sounds like heaven to me 🙂

    Where I live (Oakland, CA) it seems that the independent bookstores that are still surviving often carry used/remaindered books, but they also have lovingly curated tables featuring a variety of new books. While I don’t depend on a bookseller telling me directly what he/she recommends, I do love browsing those tables.

    I miss the days of our superbig indie stores (Cody’s…) – that kind of bookstore lives on in fewer places these days… the Bay Area has almost none of them left but Kepler’s.

  9. Paul,

    Antiques work in malls because broadly speaking no two antique objects are the same. So each proprietor will have different stock.

    Bookshops sell much the same, usually at much the same price. Particularly when new titles are released.

    Location is the main differentiator for bookshops. If you put several bookshops together, they have nothing to differentiate them.

    I think you know very little about business.

The TeleRead community values your civil and thoughtful comments. We use a cache, so expect a delay. Problems? E-mail newteleread@gmail.com.