INDEPENDENT BOOK STORES STRUGGLE

Since Family at Booknook is a novel by a Michigan author set in Michigan, I’ve been marketing to the states independent bookstores, four named Book Nook. When I mention that Booknook is set in Michigan the comment is, “We like to support local Authors.”

Yesterday I talked with Gene, owner of The Book Nook in Allen Park. When I told him I was calling independent book stores he laughed and said, “How many are still in business?” He told me that his store has been in business since the sixties and that, due to recent industries changes, he focuses mainly on magazines, but that I should go ahead and send him information. It was clear that he was a book lover and that limiting his stock to magazines was not his first choice.

I did not like the idea of charming, neighborhood book stores going under. And I was relieved when I called Janet Berns at The Book Nook in Monroe, who was busy with a huge shipment of text books. My next call was to the Book Nook and Java Shop in Montague, where McKenzie Smith told me that she ordered from Ingram and to send her information. Both women were upbeat.

But, on my next call the book store phone had been disconnected. I got to thinking about what Gene had said. I had been invited to do a signing at Cranesbill Books in Chelsea, a quaint shop packed with great books. Recently the owner, Janet Loveland, emailed me that she was sorry she could not host a signing. She was closing her book shop and getting on with her life. This woman has devoted her professional life to the world of books. Her simple statement seemed sad, as though she were leaving a failed love. Walking down the street in towns and cities I see shops with a closed or out of business signs. How many of these were once book stores?

I have little understanding of the print industry and how technology is changing it. I know technological advances are changing the way we access books, newspapers and magazines. Much information reaches us via the internet. Here I sit typing away. I will send this out to space where it could be read by millions but realistically will be read by a handful. (Still, I get to express myself and I will save a tree.) Books are read on line, and books that you hold in your hand are bought on line and often for less than a bookstore with its overhead can sell them for. My little novel is listed on Amazon and on occasion is less expensive there than it is in book stores. Thankfully the buyer must pay postage when he orders over the internet. But it’s tough out there. Even Borders is having difficulty.

Hopefully small bookstores will find inventive ways to survive. Strolling into a book store with its smell of fresh print, browsing through the shelves and having a book lover, someone that I may know, help me make a selection is an experience to be cherished.

I’m making more calls to book stores today and will post about them. It would be interesting to hear from book store owners or managers. You just have to sign in to comment. Thanks