On Uncanny Valley, writer Mike Meginnis has some thoughts about the potential demise of the chain bookstore. He notes that, though a number of Internet literati complain that nobody is reading anymore, more people are actually buying and selling books than ever before. The only area of publishing that’s doing really poorly right now, he writes, is the physical bookstore.

As a result, a number of writers are mourning their imminent passage, “Writers taken to the pleasures of self-righteousness are never so full of themselves as when they lecture you about the necessity of book stores, about the wonders of book sellers, without whom we would not be able to sell our books,” writes Meginnis.

However, Meginnis points out, if the bookstores were selling their books, they would not be going out of business. Their problem is that consumers are finding it easier and less expensive to buy their books (or e-books) elsewhere. The market is rendering them irrelevant—and Meginnis has a hard time feeling much sympathy for a system as riddled with waste and inefficiency as the printing-warehousing-shipping-returning-pulping system that supports them.

I suspect it is their very irrelevance which makes them so important to authors. I remember when writers absolutely loathed the big box stores. Now that these too are struggling, they’ve transferred much of their hatred to Amazon, which had the gall to succeed, to sell our books (or, to speak more honestly, the books of others); some are still too pure for big box stores, perhaps, but the sudden cloying wave of nostalgia is smothering me.

The important thing, Meginnis holds, is the survival of reading and writing, and the ability of people to keep finding ways to do it. If bookstores can’t do their job of selling books to promote that without trying to guilt-trip people into shopping with them, then they don’t deserve to survive.

Perhaps Meginnis’s position may be a little extreme, but I’ll say this for sure: I haven’t shopped much at physical bookstores in the years since Amazon got started. Physical bookstores might be a good place for impulse-buys, but if I’m willing to wait a few days for what I want, why would I want to pay anything near full cover price? Nobody’s under any obligation to prop up a business whose model is failing, and nostalgia really isn’t a rational reason for keeping failing stores open if some other form of business can replace them.

But when you get right down to it, I’m not even sure just how many swallows it should take to make a summer. Is the bookstore business really in that much trouble, or is it just Borders and Barnes & Noble? Borders is having a hard time, but historically it hasn’t been run very well for the last couple of decades. Barnes & Noble is having a few troubles too. But I haven’t heard anything about smaller but still pretty big chains Books a Million or Hastings being in danger.

Books a Million is closing a store in Columbus, Ohio, but it’s opening a new one in Laredo, Texas, which was previously one of the biggest cities in the country without a chain bookstore. (A small bookstore running out of the Laredo public library is closing in anticipation of the chain’s opening.) And these bookstore chains may take advantage of some Borders closures to expand and serve new cities. But on the other hand, Books a Million’s stock has fallen pretty sharply lately.

Whatever happens, I agree with Meginnis that it’s a good sign that people are still buying books, even if they’re not buying them from brick-and-mortar locations. Take that, Steve Jobs!

6 COMMENTS

  1. The buggy whip maker did really good at his job and provided a good product at a reasonable price with reasonable availability. Time and technology rendered him and his product extinct for the most part.

    For someone who enjoys books in a paper form but living 2 hours from any book store Amazon is a godsend. It is the digital age. Some companies will make it others will not.

  2. I think we should be clear on what it is that’s having trouble: It isn’t chain bookstores, or rather, some aspect of their being part of a chain; it’s the BIG issue, the fact that the bookstores are not economically viable as big-box stores with a Wal-Mart infrastructure behind them.

    Many of us have proposed ways in which bookstores could re-invent themselves, to make themselves viable in today’s age. That viability simply doesn’t include warehouse-sized stores backed up by warehouses of books, most of which will end up being pulped after they’re wastefully produced and displayed for awhile.

    To my mind, we should celebrate the end of an age that brought us big-box bookstores, and the new age which gives us a better way to go with ebooks, print on demand (if you must) and more personalized services. If we mourn anything, it would be the failure to heed the signs of change and evolve the old big-box stores into the more personal small stores of the future.

  3. The chain stores put the Mom and Pops out of business, because they could undersell them and offer more. Now the internet is putting the chain stores out of business, because they can undersell them, offer more, rarely sell out of a title, and you don’t have to drive across town, or even around the block.

    Commercial evolution.

    Just as a few indies have survived, so will a chains.

    The industry, at it’s simplest, is writers producing novels and readers buying them. All the stuff in between isn’t nearly as important to the process as they try to make themselves look. They’ve taken the lion’s share of the profits for decades. Direct internet sales is changing that. Even Amazon.com may feel the draft as ereaders start to dominate the market and, tech savvy, hunt down author’s sites and buy direct.

  4. Chris – the closing swipes at Jobs just devalues your article. Jobs was absolutely right in what he said. Reading rates in the USA are pitifully low and that is basically all he was saying. Why should he shoulder the responsibility to turn that around more than the Publishers? He is already doing enough in his day job, and it is far more likely reading would increase if the big publishers didn’t charge so much for their product.

The TeleRead community values your civil and thoughtful comments. We use a cache, so expect a delay. Problems? E-mail newteleread@gmail.com.