Yesterday Amazon released a list of American cities of over 100,000 people buying the most books per capita. Cambridge, Massachusetts, topped the list. Click the link to see the other 19. Amazon also included this:
- Not only do they like to read, but they like to know the facts: Cambridge, Mass.–home to the prestigious Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology–also topped the list of cities that ordered the most nonfiction books.
- Boulder, Colo., lives up to its reputation as a healthy city by topping the list of cities that order the most books in the Cooking, Food & Wine category.
- Alexandria, Va., residents must be reading a lot of bedtime stories – they topped the list of the city that orders the most children’s books.
- Summer reading weather all year long? Florida was the state with the most cities in the Top 20, with Miami, Gainesville and Orlando making the list.
Hard to believe Louisville isn’t on the list. More than half the people here know how to read, and we have a bookstore, so you’d think…
Oh well, time to cut the education budget again, I suppose. Taint doin’ us no good anyhoo.
Here in Iowa City, a UNESCO designated World City of Literature, we still buy our books at Prairie Lights, a locally owned, independent bookstore. So we aren’t willing to agree that Amazon gets to make the call on who is well read and who is not.
I have a question. I buy a fair number of books — even now when I usually prefer to read on the iPad, I still buy actual books, four this week for example. But yes, I confess, I do shop for price: I bought the four from Amazon.
But I think I can claim that I would buy more books from local booksellers, like Prairie Lights, if they met Amazon part way with discounts.
So my question is, how can Amazon sell a book for 40% off but bookstores, whether local or chain, seem to offer almost no discounts?
Surely bookstores must have some margin. Do bookstore owners think they can survive as retail outlets in a wholesale world? How’s that working out so far?
Barbara Kingsolver wrote an excellent essay (it’s in one of her books–maybe High Tide in Tucson) about the demise of the local, independent book seller. It’s tragic, really. They obviously have different issues as to overhead and volume buying, so that’s one part of the variation in pricing. But, anyway, one of the reasons it’s so tragic, in BK’s estimation, is that the large book companies (such as Barnes and Noble) have a great deal of say-so in what is offered for sale in our nation, and what is not–so that it’s much more difficult for a new or regional author to get marketed now. They are, to some degree, controlling what we read as a society, in much the same way that our accessibility to news is now controlled by huge media conglomerations. Books like her first novel, she says, would probably never have been marketed at all if not for the local independent book-sellers which have nearly all vanished now. She describes the issue much more eloquently and convincingly than I have, of course, but I think I got the gist of it.
Having been a bookseller for almost 20 years, in both independent and national chain bookstores, I can tell you this:
The big chains buy in big numbers and receive big discounts. The independents do not and cannot buy in this manner. It’s the publishers that designed it this way and, yes, the NCB’s (which I guess, if you think about it, there’s only one left now: B&N) use that deep discount to create loss leaders to get you in the door… hoping you will buy more than one book other than those 40% off “Bestsellers”. Amazon does the same thing and that’s how they get the prices they are able to offer.
And then there’s the other “stuff” bookstores now sell such as, games, plush, music, movies, jewelry, and so on and so forth…
This is also part of the reason for the demise of Borders as they didn’t diversify enough (considering all the crap in the front of their stores… I know that’s hard to believe but they never really got on-board with online sales and their electronic device was poof.) Borders always had great stuff ON THEIR SHELVES but, if you really looked, it was dusty and dog-eared. Why? Great stuff is great but no one wanted to buy it at an average of $45 per hard cover. Again… publishers… especially text books! Way expensive.
Consider this:
B&N no longer has a “Customer Service” desk. They have a “Nook Desk” where ppl go to ask questions about how to use their Nook. Most booksellers, true booksellers, are appalled at this development as we are all so very, very tactile in our reading recommendations.
BK was talking about The Haunted Book Shop which used to be in Tucson but was summarily put out of business by a 42k sq. ft. B&N mega-store at the Foothills mall. I opened that store and watched what happened with HBS. Again, however, they didn’t really have a niche market or strong enough diversification. Sad though this may be… It was the way of the book world back in 1996 with the onset of the superstore model. I loved HBS and felt awful when the went out of business but I also knew that they decided to close their doors because they didn’t want to “fight” the big chain. It was all a bunch of hooey as independents can, and do, if they have the right niche, right booksellers/service, coexist with the big chains. We used to get it all the time: “You people put (insert name of independent bookstore here) out of business. Shame on you.” Well, no, people; shame on you for not better supporting your local, independent bookstore. We didn’t even carry the same books! But, you know, it’s all about perception. Those same people were dropping lots-o-bucks into our buckets versus buying from the independent so… there ya go.
BK would come into my B&N on Broadway, berate us for being a superstore, then ask why her books weren’t being displayed on the front octagon tables. She’d come in about every three months and none of us wanted to deal with her. While her little story was quite eloquent, those of us on the front lines thought it very hypocritical and just downright pompous/mean. We were all trying to make a living just like everyone else. After being treated like that, do ya think we’d be willing to hand-sell her books? Hell to the no. Even though I quite liked them…
So, really, the publishers set it up and opportunistic businesses (IE; Amazon, B&N, Borders, Books a Million, etc…) capitalized on the market.
I’ve had a really hard time switching to an e-reader. I love my pages, the smell of paper and coffee, the loss of (clean!! My God: never sit in those chairs) cozy chairs and lovely music as it’s all become passe’ and just another way to sell something, anything for some “bookstores”, in order to stay in business.
When I left B&N, I cashed in my stock options at over $46/per and they are now worth something like a fluctuating amount between $9-$14 per. That ought to tell you everything.
It’s a mad, mad, mad world…
BTW: just saw the “viral” trailer for “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Saw the Swedish version and loved it. Read the book… Viral is the new loss leader.
🙂