Why Bookstores live or die

Recently traveling through London, encountered Waterstone’s books on Piccadilly. In that edifice there were six floors of about 5 to10,000 square feet filled from floor to ceiling in numerous alcoves with books. Thought I had died and gone to heaven and found great difficulty resisting asking for one of everything, would definitely have to remortgage the ranch for that.

Finding a bibliophile bookstore operator is getting to be a rare treasure and all effort to support and give custom to such enterprises is a seldom granted privilege, wherever those establishments are found. Whenever a book is referred, providing the ISBN will allow all book dealers to access that product, whereas links to amazon limit access to amazon only. Some refuse to give amazon their custom.

I have been a book seller for 18 years now, and that wonderful run is about to end. I never had a store; rather, I was very specialized and sold online, and at 20 to 30 special events each year, such as antique tractor shows, antique tool shows, blacksmith hammer-ins, and ham radio shows. It was a living, up until the financial crash.

The business actually supported both my wife and I until about 2004 – 2005, when Dick Cheney’s secret energy tack force made its impact, and gas prices tripled. We had been driving each summer clear across USA, from Virginia to shows in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and California. We did that three years, then the increase in gas prices made it impossible. The best year we had was about $150k in sales. Cost of goods sold was just over fifty percent, and I drove that down steadily by offering more and more of my own titles, which are photocopied booklets I staple and trim myself. These are obscure titles in metalworking or blacksmithing, or manuals for old engines and tractors. For example, an operators’ manual or a service manual for a 1950s International Harvester Farmall H tractor. Or the 1906 sales catalog of Steam Traction Engines by the Northwest Thresher Co. Or “1926 – Gas Engines on the farm – Running Troubles & Their Remedy”. Out of the the $75K of so left after COGS, we then had to cover show fees and travel expenses, which usually ate up about half. That left around $30k for the two of us to live on.

That was the situation for only a few years, from about 2003 to 2007. Previous to that, my wife and I both had full time jobs, and the travel to events was only on weekends, and only within a few hours drive.

After the financial crash, sales collapsed to half what they had been. The only way we survived was by moving to North Carolina and paying cash for a double-wide from the proceeds of selling our home in the hyper-inflated market of Northern Virginia. If we had to carry a mortgage, we would have been out on the streets. We also were at the point that our vehicles were paid off. So, we had no monthly housing expense, and no monthly vehicle payments the past few years. Even so, we’re broke. Just plain flat broke. It scares me how much other expenses amount to, and wonder how other people manage if they have a house payment or rent due each month.

Now, why did my sales drop by half? And, was it just me, or is it affecting other book sellers. I’m not sure of the last question, because I’ve seen reports that new book sales are at all time highs. But I deal in new, used, and my own reproduced books. And I’ve seen almost all independent book stores, everywhere I traveled, go out of business. One anecdote: one show I used to do was in October, in Vermont. I love New England, and would take a few extra days to stay and visit in the region. One year, probably 2006 or 2007, I came across a huge used book store located in a barn outside Salem, Mass. I spent a few hours in there, picking out books for myself, and to resell, and negotiating and talking with the owner. He said the only reason he was able to stay in business was because his father had started the store, and owned the barn, and it had passed to him. He noted that not many years ago, there were 12 or 13 bookstores in and around Salem, but now there were only two others besides himself.

That was fairly typical of what I found in my travels. The best used bookstores were located in college towns, and were plentiful in the 1990s. Now, most college towns only have one or two. Salem is a college town, by the way.

My sales depend on hobbyists. Some of these hobbies have pretty much died off, especially antique tools and ham radios. I haven’t sold at an antique tool event for years, and there is only one ham radio show left worth traveling to to sell at. Steam engine enthusiasts are dying off, but there is lots of young blood still coming into antique tractors, and into blacksmithing. Unfortunately, not metalworking.

There is also the impact of e-books, which I feel especially in my online sales. I let my website expire earlier this year; sales had fallen to just 3 or 4 books a month. My eBay store is doing that every day, so that’s what I have concentrated on. But the shows have been one disaster after another, and I blame the economy above all else. Most events now charge $7 to $15 to get in, and a frigging hamburger, fries and drink now costs $10 or more. Bring the family to an event, and you’re going to pay nearly $100, if not more, just to feed them for a day, not to mention the tribute to Exxon-Mobil, and the admission to get in. Not many people want to spend much more money after all that. Attendance at events is down. And, so, of course are sales. The best show I used to sell four or five thousand at. Now I’m selling around two thousand, and flirting with break even. The shows that I used to sell two to three thousand at, are now money losers for me, and I have stopped going to them.

Sales declined about ten percent last year, and I expected a similar decline this year. And it’s what I’ve seen so far. There is no economic recovery I can see.

So, I’m looking for a new livelihood for the last few years of my working life.

A great bookstore in my neighborhood had the wisdom to buy their space when it was still possible forty years ago. Local rents have indeed climbed steeply but the store is doing well. It is now in the charming hands of a second generation of owner/proprietors.

Libertarian types (even, or perhaps most likely, the sort who don’t believe in evolution) like to talk about competition and winning as though it’s an unadulterated good. It absolutely is not. It causes death and destruction for everyone else in its pathway, and it can devastate the ecosystem so much that it eventually kills invasive species itself.

There is absolutely no moral imperative to change when the change is for the worse for most existing actors in the ecosystem. Yet, we in the West have an insane government and culture that worships winners at all cost.

Not a single used bookstore in my outer suburb of 100,000 people in NorCal. One cheap paperback and mass market hardover kind of place in the next town. Only one brick-and-mortar new bookstore-Barnes and Nobles-and one can see the writing on the wall for that chain as well.

Oh well. I mostly read stuff on line anymore. So, I guess I am part of the problem. And, there are still quite a few good bookstores in the inner Bay Area who somehow survive 🙁

In big cities, just as major restaurant chains and retailers have their own, or contract for, demographic research about where to locate, major commercial property management companies often look at the same type of info to see how much they think they can charge in rent.