NEWS: Small Bookstores vs. Conglomerates

CULTURE: Small Bookstores vs. Conglomerates

There's a pseudo-predatory practice in bookselling that takes advantage of something called "the right of return," the bookseller's right to return any or all unsold books to the publisher and receive a refund. When a small bookseller opens a store, they usually sell books produced within the area by smaller publishers in addition to the books published in Chicago and New York from larger publishers. Major booksellers rarely carry local authors unless they have a compelling reason.



If a chain store, like Borders or Barnes and Noble, opens a store near an independent bookseller, the chain will order and temporarily stock a larger selection of local literature and sell it at a cheaper price to force the independent bookseller out of business. The small bookstore, in an effort to recoup revenue, will invoke the right of return and return all of their small press inventory, devastating the regional publisher. If enough independent niche bookstores close in a market, the chain bookstore will also return all small press books; thus removing both the small publisher and the independent bookstore from the market. This happens in almost every single metropolitan area in the United States.



The mainstream book industry favors this practice because it consolidates sales channels between publishers and booksellers. It is important to understand that it is almost impossible to reverse these effects on local booksellers, especially in a market like New York.



That is, until now.

The largest independent bookstore in New York, Strand Books, has four Borders and seven Barnes and Noble within 2 miles of its Manhattan location.



McNally Robinson is also going to try to reverse the effect that the large chain bookstores have had on independent publishers in the area.

I love when capitalism works its way into subverting large conglomerates.

wasn't this the subplot from Sleepless in Seattle?

I live in calgary... that place does have a 'old' feel to it... not like chapters at all... which is grand.

If this strategy works, then great. It's the Free Market in action. But if it doesn't, as it hasn't in the past (as detailed in the first post), what is the solution? Even if it works in New York, or San Francisco, or some other region where the average social outlook includes supporting local/independent businesses, what about the dying bookstore in Fort Wayne, Indiana?

I grew up in the midwest, and observed some regional booksellers going under (though the primary local bookseller in my hometown still exists, barely). What's the solution there? Most people in those regions are more concerned about saving money and finding the book they want than having a broad selection of regionally-published works.

What is the solution there?

"nolita"?

...

"NOLITA"?

...

excuse me smaller bookseller, do you have lower prices than the big booksellers?

if not, america hates you.

americans aren't willing to spend an extra dime to support a local store, or for that matter, any store that doesn't have the lowest price. sad but true.

the idea to special market their store to the local population is a good plan, but we'll just have to wait and see if that's going to bring in enough revenue to make the store a success.

[Edited on Dec 01, 2004 2:38AM]

I only like bookstores with cafes in them. If I can't hang out and read comics while sipping a latte, then I won't go in a bookstore.

These independent bookstores need to sell coffee and have a place to hang out to compete.

The main regional bookseller that had to shut down where I grew up had a cafe. They had live local music, including frequent visits by one of the finest classical guitarists in Brazil (who happened to live there at the time, music school town). They went under because a Borders moved in literally two doors down, and a B&N moved in across the street. Live music, cafe, and loyalty were not enough to overcome price wars.

I'm not trying to demonize or anything. I honestly don't know what the solution is here.

Bullshit.

Maybe this happens in the US and Europe, but given what I know about the market in Canada I strongly doubt it.

To begin with, the "small presses" that have any real impact on sales are, from a retail point of view, indistinguishable from larger ones due to their books being sold by national distributors. That is, they're bought by the store just as easily as The Da Vinci Code. For a big box retailer to take the effort to source local product outside of these distribution channels and implement a discounting scheme on it would be a colossal waste of time.

There is very little money to be made in selling books produced for only a local market. To say that this segment of the overall market is a point of leverage for the big boys to put the little guys out of business is patently absurd. Here are some figures to play with: the store I work at makes around 2 M per year; books printed for the local market accounted for less than $1000 of that. That's less than 0.05% of total sales going to local interest print, and let me tell you, it's not because we've shut it out of the store.

And I've got to laugh they way you use the phrase "invoke the right of return", as if returns were something everyone steels themselves up for, like a war. Here's a real news story: all bookstores return books to the vendors. All of them. You couldn't survive two years in bookselling without being able to send dead stock back to the publisher for credit. What separates the little guys from the big guys is that the big guys do the most damage when they order poorly and return in large quantities.

The way the big box stores hurt the little guys is by discounting the titles potential customers are interested in: bestsellers. It's here that the little guys can't compete, due to the already slim margins on books. (Markup accounts for only 40-50% of the sticker price of most books: when you're discounting your bestselling titles 30% you've got to hope they'll buy something else once they're in the store).

The real news story here is that an independent bookseller's managed to get a foothold beyond the troubled Canadian bookselling market. More power to them. We've been suffering simultaneously from overabundance and a lack of vitality on the retail side of publishing in this country.

[Edited on Dec 01, 2004 by Dogslife]

In larger communities, the solution is a large, well-stocked and inviting independent bookstore that can compete with the chains in the number of titles stocked. If the independents can draw local and touring writers to sign and talk, then they can create an intellectual community centered on the bookstore, which the chains have had a difficult time doing. This doesn't mean Joe and Jane Public will run to the independents, but it can help them carve out a niche among discriminating readers. Dutton's in L.A. is doing this superbly; I've heard they're opening a second store in Bev Hills.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that. Even in Super Facist...err.."Republican" Texas, I couldn't begin to count how many people I know who refuse to shop at places like Wal-Mart just because they hate what they do to local businesses. The ONLY time I ever shop at places like Wal-Mart is at: A) two in the morning, or B) when they're the only one who has what I want.

Frankly, I'd pay an extra twenty-five cents and drive an extra five miles to buy a gallon of milk at a locally owned store as opposed to a huge congolmerate.

Unfortunately, in my neck of the woods (San Antonio), few small businesses still exist. Wal-Mart has destroyed so many it's disgusting. Barnes and Noble is the same. The only independent book stores I know of that are still open derive almost all of their profit from selling second-hand porn (I'm not joking). I love them because they have all those pulp Sci-Fi novels Barnes and Noble can't even special order.

Course, I live in a city where even Barnes and Noble won't open a store anywhere on the Southside (or Southwest or Southeast) because it isn't "profitable" enough for them to do so (this is despist a huge yearly petition drive from us local Southsiders going door-to-door to get signatures of people who want a Barnes and Noble within fifteen, twenty minutes of where they live).

Proud to say 3 of our 4 local independents survived the giants. And alll the bookstores including the giant are doing well.

the 4th was a prick anyway with sky high prices.......always thought it was a front for lucrative drug trade

FUCK YEA! McNally Robinson is my favorite bookstore EVER!

You are in luck then because McNally Robinson does in fact have cafe's in their major locations. I know the Winnipeg ones do at least. I can only suspect they would open one with the new york store!

Stands for NOrth of LIttle ITAly.
Realtors in NY love giving names to nabes.

I work at Barnes & Noble. I can't speak for all of them because there are so many, but I know our store is very interested in local authors. We have events with them all the time. We keep as much stock as we reasonably can, but anything we don't have.. if somebody wants it.. we'll find it. The local authors love it. They gain new readers, make some money, and have fun doing it. I don't see what's so wrong about it. It's not done to push the little guys away. It's done because you can't get that stuff in too many places. We make WAY more money selling calendars (calendars!!!) and scrapbooks/journals/etc. than we do local authors. We even have a separate manager that deals only with getting local authors in, setting up community events, and doing book drives, etc. for schools and other organizations.

People rag on B&N all the time, but I think it's a really nice place. Everyone at my store is well read.. knowledgable.. and nice. We love to talk books as much as the people in the little stores do, but they're the only ones who get any credit for loving to read or knowing what's good. That's sad.

We don't give 2 fucks about driving local businesses out. We actually HELP local businesses. There are many, many times that another store calls and asks if we have something in-store. If we do, they send somebody to buy copies from us (we make our money) and they put them in their store and sell them for higher (they make their money). It works the other way around, too. If we're out of something and somebody can't wait to have it ordered, we go through the process and check with them. We **know they can't compete with us. We've been in business since 1873, for the love of God. We own so many bookstores (not all of them under the Barnes & Noble name) and game stores (gamestop, software etc.).. our own publishing companies, our own distribution centers and warehouses... just so much stuff. Local bookstores? Indie music shops? They aren't doing anything to us. And we don't target them at all. We don't even put them on the "competition's prices" list in our breakroom. Borders and WalMart are our competition. Sometimes Target gets added to that list.

Sure the company is interested in making money. But that's business. The little guys are in it to make money, too. I'm local, not from corporate office. I'm interested in getting paid. But I really care about books.. and I know my fellow-dorky-co-workers do too. So, damn.. lay off B&N. Working there is fun, but it's not as express-lane checkout as you'd think. It's not like we just sling books for a quick buck because it's easy and we can push the little guys away relatively quickly.


Graaa. Rag on WalMart or some other company that can be proven to be unethical, monopolizing, and in some cases, illegal.

Broaden the focus beyond the type and size of bookstores to what seems more essential: the quantity and variety of books published and sold. If you're willing to do the digging, you'll discover that along with arrival of Big Box Books, we've seen an tremendous increase in topics covered and overall sales.

Still sucks if you own a small store that's failing. But are we supposed to encourage the communication of ideas, or protect an idyllic past?