Are bookshops failing us?

[Jo Zebedee]

Bear with me, this might take a while to get to where I want to go, because it's twofold.

Firstly, I've been knocking around Amazon for a couple of weeks. Now, I'm no fan of Amazon and mostly try to support bookshops but, here's the thing - Amazon and kindle have what I like to read. Baen-style space opera, good fun space stories, ones that are easy to read and don't take themselves too seriously.

Track back two weeks and a browse around a couple of bookshops, both with decent genre sections of several meters. I could have any amounts of Neil Gaimans, and Iain Banks, and Kings, GRRMs, Rothfuss', Donaldson.... No Francis Knights. No range outside the top sellers. Sure, I could order them but I'd need to know what to order first.

I've been undergoing the joy of trying to get stocked in bookstores and I've managed it locally (due to one chain's incredible generosity) but, apart from that single chain, there is little to encourage a small author. Margins are sometimes ruinously high, leaving little for the the publisher and author, and, frankly, a debut or small author doesn't appeal on any level.

What to do? Where is the model broken? If bookshops don't offer the range and the internet does, what choice do we have? Or am I the only one finding this? Discuss...?

 

[J-Sun]

It's very different in the US, yet the same. We probably have more of the Baen space opera you might like but it's very hard to find much aside from most of those (not anywhere near all, even) and a bunch of ties, YA books, major series from major authors, and a odd and an end. My main thing is that I once went to a store, they didn't have what I wanted, I asked about having them order it for me, they told me to go online, so I did - to Amazon where it's cheaper. It's a completely idiotic attitude to turn your customers away from where they are when they're trying to buy a book. But, then, it's also the publishers themselves - they publish almost nothing but the most popular and/or crappiest things in mass-market paperback. I know a lot of folks buy hardcovers and even those ripoffs (literally - just hardcovers with the hardcovers torn off) known as "trade paperbacks" but I tend to cross books off my list if I find they aren't in mmpb. (I think they're called "small" and "large" paperbacks in the Isles.) So this makes the publishing in general less appealing to me - I buy FAR fewer new books than I would if they eventually made it to mmpb as a rule the way they used to rather than as an exception. And this may be another distinction - I gather the Isles have "charity shops" or some such vs. our used book stores. Those I patronize all the time but even they are getting stupid in relation to the internet. One used bookstore has raised their price from what used to be the generally standard "1/2 cover price" to "3.99" for all SF paperbacks. I know they do this because that's equal to Amazon's minimum shipping & handling fee but they don't realize that (a) there are places other than Amazon that are cheaper and (b) it just pisses me off. So I can go browse through 99.9% of the books I've browsed through over and over before in the hopes that the 0.1% of new arrivals have something I want and spend 3.99 or I can go online, order exactly what I want for less, and be done with it. I want to support both new and used bookstores but they both stupidly make it as unattractive as possible.

So, yes - rather than being customer-centric, cheaper, and just plain "cooler", they utilize the same profit-squeezing, screw-the-customer, jerk approaches that the giants use and really just take on all the vices without any of the "virtues" of them.

Still, in theory and inertial sentiment, I love bookstores so probably support them more and longer than I should, as little as that is.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Well, we used to have immense super-bookstores in this area, with very large and varied SFF sections: Barnes and Noble, Borders. But Borders is no more, and B & N has cut way back, and since they had both devoured their own young -- the smaller chains that belonged to them -- suddenly there is a dearth of bookstores around here. Those that remain are devoted to used books, with may be a few dozen new books offered as well.

I don't know what corporate stupidity, or competition from online bookstores, brought this about, but these bookstores literally failed. I don't know how they were about stocking books by small publishers, but they had nothing against debut authors. I miss them and the wide selection of books they offered. I'd rather browse for books in a bricks-and-mortar bookstore than an online store, but to have both as resources would be ideal.

Other than the used book stores, there are book departments in stores like Target and Walmart, but of course the number of titles they offer is very limited, and they do focus very much on bestsellers.

 

[Bick]

In New Zealand there are no good shops of new books. Yes, you read that right, none. In the whole country. This is because the big chains have shut, the middle sized bookstores have turned into greeting card and puzzle stores, and the little boutique shops which still exist charge (wait for it)... 2-3 times the cost of buying it from the UK and shipping it here. Book Depository will ship me a SF book that is not available here for $11 (free postage 12,000 miles), and such a book if I could find it here would invariably cost $30.

Unsurpringly, I never buy new books from book shops. Ever. A shame of course. I do buy lots of books for $4-$10 used from a good second hand bookstore in Auckland. My purchases are therefore 50% used in NZ and 50% new, shipped all the way around the world from a UK based online store.

It does make me wonder, if I can get books shipped to me for free at 35% the "NZ RRP", why can't the book shops who complain about online shops killing them off?

 

[Bick]

A further thought - even when I do go into a huge bookstore overseas from me (eg US or Australia), the authors I like, such as Poul Anderson or Philip Jose Farmer, or Niven, are never to be found on the shelves. There will be square metres of shelves of GRRM but literally not a single book by any of the half dozen SF Grand Master authors I most enjoy. I suppose this reflects my age and generation, but the range of books in SF in the shops is really pitiful tbh.

 

[Susan Boulton]

We only have a Waterstones and WH Smiths in Stafford. That is a 14 mile round trip, pay to park (if I don't manage to get there in my lunch hour) and paying over the odds for the book. So for years I have used Amazon. Same for DVDs and anything else that I can get cheaper on the net from amazon or another site. For any decent shops I have to go to Manchester or Birmingham. Which costs, petrol, parking or train fare.

These days I tend to buy most of my genre books at conventions. I can either get a good deal on a second hand one, or buy something outside the normal box at a book launch. The rest of the books I buy are now on Kindle.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

That's better than the situation here. We used to have three big bookstores within about 6 miles of here, Borders and B & N in one direction, a second Borders in another. Now I think the closest large (new) bookstore is about forty or forty-five minutes away . . . if it's even still there.

But I imagine I wouldn't be feeling so deprived now it we hadn't been so fortunate before in this area. Before the big stores, we had some good medium-sized stores, a B. Dalton and a Waldenbooks, which were replaced by their corporate parents, and an independent that didn't last long once the B & N opened it's doors, so one way and another, until the last few years this was always a great place for bookstores.

I wish the chains had found a way to downsize their stores, instead of going bankrupt, but I don't imagine that is the kind of thing that appeals to corporate executives.

 

[mgilmour]

I actually don't think that its viable for an indie or new author to try and get their books into local bookstores that still exist. It's not a scalable option....by this I mean, you can't visit enough stores and sell enough to them to make it worth your while.

What I'm trying to work out is how to reach a very fragmented audience with a new offering.....it's a struggle but like anything good I think that it's possible. In our new online world its all about the data and making sure that you track everything and know exactly what each marketing channel is bringing you.

Here's a few anecdotes:

• What I'm finding really interesting is that my data is telling me that twitter is bringing as many visitors to my website as facebook....even though I have five times as many facebook followers. This surprised the heck out of me.
• The gaming community is dynamite! There is a LOT of traffic there that just wants to read a good story.
  
• LinkedIn is useless for a novelist....I'll need to do more work on this.
• Kboards is providing a lot of traffic and exposure
• My business blog has generated about 25% of my traffic

It's really early days yet so I'm still sifting through the data and working out what it's actually telling me.

 

[chopper]

folk like Adam (AJ) Dalton can still get decent exposure in chains as they are published by Gollancz as well as having a decent rep as indie authors. what i have heard from other people however is that some - a small few - indie authors have essentially spat in the barrel for everybody else by being overly pushy, arrogant, forcing customers to the till (yes, really!) so that the likes of Waterstones no longer want to deal with indie presses and indie authors. i can't really blame them.

 

[TitaniumTi]

Bick,

If you fly "across the ditch" to Sydney, I recommend a visit to Galaxy Bookshop, above Abbey bookshop near Town Hall station. I checked their catalogue and they have all three authors you mention (25 titles, 20 titles and 48 titles respectively).

They also have titles by over half the Chronicles authors listed on the roll of honour.

With that exception, I agree, the selection of SF in Australian bookshops is pitiful. (Sadly, it takes me so long to get to Galaxy, it would almost be quicker to fly in from Auckland.)

 

[tinkerdan]

I used to go into the bookstores here a lot and at one time there where two in each mall so I could go into the mall and browse. Back then the interesting problem I had was that I went in too often and it only took a few minutes glance to see there was little new and I think that that might still be a problem. I'm not sure why they don't perceive it as a problem. But i do remember from what employees of the bookstores have told me that a lot of their business is sending books back and getting credit on unsalable goods.

It seems they thrive on the bestsellers; with as little other new books as they can get by with; which means they really don't cater to customers like me, who are looking for something new or old that I haven't yet read. I have noticed when I order something special that often they get a second copy to put on the shelf.

To be honest; the way that books sell along with magazines there is an expectation of returns, which is the main reason the price stays so high. If you can promise the bookstore that you will take back all unsold merchandise then it might help, but you also have to make sure you are plugged into their pricing structure regardless to how much you might want to just give your book away.

That said; there is much to be understood in that those bookstores that have taken a chance on the Indie books have been soured by the whole transaction. Most don't do well; in part due to lack of advertising and unknown authors and sometimes perceived poorer quality of finished product both in the writing and the materials and process used to finish the physical book.

Dealing with a small press or a self published author there is an enormous risk or at least a sense of risk that doesn't exist within the relationship with the larger publishers. They have to have enough sales off the bestsellers to offset the books that are taking up or making dead-space on the shelves. Few small publishers and self publishers have those or can promise them.

Still, I don't recall any bookstore that didn't have at least one piece each of many of the popular classic authors and I think that's because they use that shelf space as their form of lost leader. They don't sell many and when they do they have to replace the one that they have on hand, but it has secondary importance to something that is flying off the shelves. But they do need those there because the casual browsing customer expects to see them. That makes a delicate balance trying to keep a suitable amount on the shelves when they know they sell one of those many classics to every ten of a single best seller at best.

So I think in many bookstores around here you find the old classics along with the new best sellers; and any oddball new author can usually be ordered. This is not conducive to the small publisher or self publisher, but brick and mortar are running a business that has limited fluid cash and any investment into those two might have to cut into the fluid cash that they do have.

Add to all of that that each location has a different demographic in regard to what it might sell and what won't sell and that can further dictate what they will keep on the shelves. It doesn't surprise me that they devolve to the easiest solution and try to stock anything that is on the bestseller list with the most prominent display reserved for those while leaving the back shelves as a sort of facade to demonstrate that they really are a bookstore.

 

[thaddeus6th]

There was a great Borders in Leeds [although 'classics' means Romano-Greek to me, not Jane Austen...] and losing that was a shame. There's still a very nice Waterstones (there were two, not sure if the second's still about) and a WH Smith, but the problem is that it's an hour and a half or so round trip and a fiver to get there and back [and I live pretty close]. The alternative is five minutes browsing online.

If I happen to be in Leeds and have some time to kill I usually head to Waterstones (found William Hague's Pitt biography and Philip Matyszak's excellent Legionary: Unofficial Manual through idle browsing, which is, it must be said, much nicer than browsing online).

On Borders: in the UK, at least, their sad demise was due to lack of credit/cashflow issues in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Really was a shame, as they had a very good selection.

Perhaps specialisation is one way to go. I'm a firm believer that the High Street generally must offer what the internet can't. Bricks and mortar can't compete with online stock of virtual stores. It'd be nice if bookshops had small 'new/up-and-coming' sections, where a small number of books by new or outlandish authors are on sale [and if they sold a lot then they could buy more of that book and put them in the relevant section of the store]. Be easy to find for readers, and offer a small foot in the door for authors. Plus, it's easy to check one corner of your local bookshop than to browse the internet in such a fashion.

Author signings and the like are another good thing you can only do with bricks and mortar, but obviously there's a limit to how often that can happen.

 

[MWagner]

The decline of the brick and mortar bookstore happened across dozens of companies in dozens of countries. So I wouldn't chock it up to corporate folly. The old business model of lots of big stores with huge stocks of books simply wasn't sustainable once online competition ramped up. It just doesn't make any sense to have money tied up on books you don't know you can sell sitting on shelves in stores where you have to pay high rents and salaries. If you have to blame anyone, blame your fellow consumers who abandoned the brick and mortar stores in favour of their online competitors. The market spoke, and they chose Amazon.

I still have couple of big Indigo stores nearby (think Canadian Borders). And I do support them, even though it will cost me a couple dollars more per book. No, they don't have a huge stock of older books (it saddens me to see zero Jack Vance or Michael Moorcock books on the shelves), but I understand why - they're just trying to stay alive by stocking product that sells. And when I buy something they don't stock at the their store, and I have the choice between buying from Indigo's online store or from Amazon, I always buy from Indigo, because I want them to survive as a company so their brick and mortar stores stay open. But most people I know will go with whatever is cheapest, and will order from Amazon instead of Indigo, even if it will only save them 1.50 for three books.

Price is king in retail these days. And brick and mortar simply can't compete with Amazon when it comes to price. Sad, but true.

 

[millymollymo]

I find that the independent book stores are best, Lindum Books in Lincoln, Southcart Books in Wallsall, Carnforth Books in Carnforth, they go that extra mile because they understand their readers, they've found their niche, they get that readers will travel and they understand that bookish events bring sales too. It brings loyalty. So while amazon may be all the things, personal service wins out at the indie.

For SFF my local Waterstones is pants.( Lincoln and Leeds are awesome by comparison.) If you want Crime your sorted. Likewise with my most local library. Crime is the only adult genre that has its own area. Teen reads are separated but not by genre, even the kids stuff is pick-and-mix
Back to topic though, Juliet McKenna did a 'secret shopper' survey of Waterstones offerings - using her facebook army to get as close to nationwide coverage as possible. You might find the results interesting: http://www.julietemckenna.com/?p=1352

 

[Jennifer L. Carson]

I miss going into bookstores on vacation and sipping cocoa at their counter. Just hanging out all evening. (Now where is that small font button, agian...Cause this is obviously not going to be a popular opinion.) But that's the only time I miss them. I am much more interactive with Amazon on a regular basis than I was with any bookstore. I understand this is a personal preference but here is why I like e-books and online book sellers:
1. I've been a packrat most of my life. One day I woke up and realized that my things were making me more unhappy than they were making me happy. This included books. I've now downed my collection to about three bookcases and am still winnowing. This improved my inner peace.
2. I get a little thrill out of finishing a book and hitting the buy next one button and there it is. On the beach, at midnight, all without me getting out of my chair.
3. I like reading the free sample. I can do it across days. In the bookstore, I had to often find a corner and sit on the hard floor til my buns fell asleep...and I ain't talking rabbits! I'm much more inclined to see something of passing interest and download the sample for later. This means indie authors and small presses get a chance where as before I started doing this, I would not buy an indie book if I knew it was. Was burned too often when I bought them unvetted. This way the serious authors get vetted from the ones that can't even be bothered to use spell check.
4. I like the features online at Amazon and Goodreads that try to direct me to what I might like to consider. I prefer a recommendation from a person I know and trust, but in a bookstore, I don't know that person.
5. This reason is the first reason I started using ebooks. I have my large format phone with me all the time. If I'm stuck in line at the post office, I can (and have) read. I have a friend who tends to drag me to events and ditch me for long periods of time. Before my phone, I was constantly annoyed at her. Now I just find a corner and read (How and ebook saved a life...I decided I didn't need to kill her for abandoning me). I know I could do this with a book, but because I was intending to be with a friend, I didn't carry a book with me at all times.
6. I lose books. All the time. Lost one in march I was in the middle of. Arg. Haven't lost my phone (yet!).
7. And my very favorite reason: without ebooks and a good place to sell them, I, who had no intention of moving to NY, would never have had the pleasure and honor of getting to edit professionally my first SF novel, a life long goal.

I know there are reasons to object to Amazon, but I admit to being a convert to the convenience they offer that fits so very well into my lifestyle. I acknowledge that everyones lifestyle is different and there are MANY valid counter arguments.

 

[ratsy]

@MWagner are you in the GTA area? In the Edmonton region, we have Indigo's almost only. Or Chapters/Coles/Smithbooks...all the same thing, though Im not sure if they dont all use Chapters/indigo now. There is only one independent new books store that I know of and it's downtown so I never go there anymore. It is a beautiful store though, and they do promote new authors and do book signings. I plan on reaching out them to discuss their approach to small presses and new authors. When I get my book out there (yeah, yeah, it will happen!!!!) I would love to do a signing event there.

So my only choice is the one large book chain. I live just outside the big city in a city of about 65,000 people and we only have one book store. Other than that, i have to drive about 20-30 KM to get to another Chapters. We do have the odd little used book store, but they don't seem to last.

So for the most part I use Amazon. You would think in a city of a million people I would have more bookstore diversity.

 

[Extollager]

There was a great Borders in Leeds [although 'classics' means Romano-Greek to me, not Jane Austen...] .

Thanks! I love Jane Austen, but I also like to use the word "classic" carefully, as Gollum knows.

 

[Extollager]

I know what a good book city is, or anyway was -- Portland, Oregon, circa 1980. I mean -- Powell's, etc.

The nearest bookstore worth mentioning that I could browse is about an hour's drive away (and I don't drive). I'm thankful for abebooks.com, Amazon, etc.

 

[MWagner]

@MWagner are you in the GTA area?

Calgary. Still eight or nine Indigo/Chapters in the city, of which three are within a 15 minute drive. Only one of them is really thriving, though. The others have that sad, disheveled look a store gets when it's on its last legs. They're trying to emphasize the boutique gift shop products (scarves, specialty teas, picture frames, etc.), but I don't know how much traction they're getting. I was in one two weeks before Christmas last year, and it was almost empty. Not a good sign.

 

[soulsinging]

I know a lot of folks buy hardcovers and even those ripoffs (literally - just hardcovers with the hardcovers torn off) known as "trade paperbacks" but I tend to cross books off my list if I find they aren't in mmpb. (I think they're called "small" and "large" paperbacks in the Isles.) So this makes the publishing in general less appealing to me - I buy FAR fewer new books than I would if they eventually made it to mmpb as a rule the way they used to rather than as an exception.

This is a lot of it for me. I think publishers shot themselves in the foot like the music industry did. While the technology was analog, they both gouged consumers as much as they could. CD's were artificially (via illegal collusion) inflated in price for decades. A few years back, one record label dropped their wholesale prices for CD's and... they were the first label to have a CD sales/profit increase since itunes launched.

Ditto for books. For years, they made a concerted effort to phase out mass market and value editions and now they're sort of paying the price. I like Joe Abercrombie and think his First Law trilogy is one of the best fantasies I've read since I was a teenager. But it's not worth shelling out close to $60 (by the time you get through taxes) to get the set at list price from a place like Barnes and Noble, especially when I could order them all for $25 from Amazon and the only available version is so oversized it's almost impossible to actually read. If they sold a mass market version for $7, I'd buy local. Even "mass market" versions (like all of Jim Butcher's new paperbacks, Michael Crichton's) these days have been made a little taller so they can charge $9.99 for them. So anymore, why would I bother backing one corporate behemoth (Barnes and Noble makes a KILLING via their monopoly in the university textbook market) to stick it to Amazon?

I do still go to bookstores, but pretty much only small, independently owned ones. Most of them are secondhand. There are some real gems out there, and I've found that if you can find a shop that "specializes" in genre (usually mystery or Sci-fi) they can be pretty fantastic. For instance, this might be one of my all-time favorite places on earth, in Minneapolis, Minnesota:
http://www.unclehugo.com/prod/index.shtml

If publishers are willing to produce an economical product, instead of adding a tepid essay and then repackaging Catch-22 for another anniversary edition that costs $20, then they might get people to come back to their stores. It would make shipping costs a bit more manageable too.