Indie bookstores resurgent

[fjtorres]

No, they never went away, but independent bookstores are in growth mode. As half the book industry has moved to online purchases and ebooks, a good portion of the other half is now shopping indie. CNBC reports:

"Sales from independent bookstores in 2012 were up eight percent over 2011," said Dan Cullen a spokesman for the American Booksellers Association, a nonprofit trade group of independent bookstores.

"We've got people opening new bookstores and people buying into existing ones," he said. Talk of the death of independent bookstores "as a result of the big-box stores was premature at best," he added.

Some interesting numbers:

About one in five books sold last year was an e-book, accounting for $3 billion of the $15 billion in total publishing revenues, according to the Association of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group.

Meanwhile, audio books are going through an explosive period, with sales up 21.8 percent last year from 2011, to $241 million. Amazon bought the biggest maker of audio books, Audible, in 2008 and has the lion's share of the market.

This comes as book sales are in general decline worldwide, with sales in the U.S. down 9.3 percent last year.

Independents hold just 10 percent of the overall book market compared with Barnes & Nobles's 20 percent and Amazon's 29 percent, according to the ABA.

B&N's numbers include *their* online and ebook sales so it sounds as if the Indies are cumulatively the equivalent to B&N's storefronts. Which suggests that lots of smaller stores at more sites *is* a viable strategy for a chain. It certainly seems to work for Half-Price books. (Though I'm not sure I'd count them as indie as the report does. They're family owned but... 116 stores/16 states...)

A trend worth watching.

(image by secretlondon123 via Flickr)

[Fbone]

I wonder where the other 41% of customers shop for their books?

[wizwor]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend

Bezos slayed the mega stores that preyed on the indies. With the mega stores gone, little stores can satisfy the 'buy now' and 'touch' needs of consumers.

At the same time, these small stores have brought in products and services to attract consumers.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Fbone

I wonder where the other 41% of customers shop for their books?

pbook B&M retail customers?
Well, 20% get theirs at B&N.
The rest get them at department stores, wholesale clubs, drugstores, supermarkets, and newstands.
What we're seeing is a return to B&M retail diversity.
"Other", as a category, once again matters.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by wizwor

At the same time, these small stores have brought in products and services to attract consumers.

The aspect that has been most neglected in the disruption of trade publishing is the return of local focus. For the past few decades corporate publishing has been enforcing a steadily homogenized centralized distribution model predicated on the assumption that readers are (essentially) interchangeable and local tastes don't vary enough to matter.

Indie bookstores are not only free to address local customer needs with more precision than the big chains, they've learned to leverage that ability to add value to their customers' experience. This is an important part of their ability to survive in this new era.

Submitted for consideration:

http://www.thebookseller.com/blogs/tough-deal.html

Ten years ago, I walked into a bookshop on the Charing Cross Road, with a rucksack full of Smoke: A London Peculiar, the magazine that I'd made with my friend, Matt Haynes. I went up to the front counter, found a nice man called Mike Atherton, and explained to him what it was: a magazine of words and images inspired by London.

Mike took 20 of them for Foyles. They sold out in a week. We took along some more. We did similar elsewhere. By issue 3 of Smoke: A London Peculiar, our two-person distribution network was selling 5,000 copies per issue in over 80 London shops, thanks to the relationships we had built with individual booksellers.

That world has gone. Ten years later, Matt and I are launching our first Smoke book, From the Slopes of Olympus to the Banks of the Lea, into a very different marketplace. Now, centralised distribution and buying are king, and the personal approach has little power. In many cases, it's not even allowed—and this position fails booksellers as well as independent publishers.

[TadW]

I could literally spend hours in indie book stores and not get tired of it. The disappearance of major brick and motar book sellers is a shame. The disappearance of indie book stores would be a disaster.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The rest get them at department stores, wholesale clubs, drugstores, supermarkets, and newstands.
What we're seeing is a return to B&M retail diversity.
"Other", as a category, once again matters.

But they will only stock the NYT Bestsellers or similar.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Fbone

But they will only stock the NYT Bestsellers or similar.

Maybe.
Or maybe if the publishers actively *marketted* the midlist, they might be willing to go a bit deeper into the Ingram and B&T catalogs than they do today.

The backlist is headed for online, no two ways about that, but nothing stops the general merchandisers from stocking a broader range of new releases, even if us for a few weeks instead of the three month runs they get in bookstores. They just need to be "persuaded" the same way they are "persuaded" to carry the annointed bestsellers-to-be.

[Fbone]

And give up valuable shelf space? For mid-list? The publishers/distributors would have to give the books away. As it is my local stores are dropping organic items and replacing them with more unhealthy packaged foods.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Fbone

And give up valuable shelf space? For mid-list? The publishers/distributors would have to give the books away. .s.

Why not?
When was the last time you saw a price war on midlist? Midlist sells at near list.
They could work as margin boosters.
Or not.

With the declining volumes of pbook sales the days of bestsellers as traffic generators are numbered, anyway. Most of the shelf space decline will come from there.

[Fbone]

What I meant was retail stores will only stock what sells and at the moment the NYT Bestsellers current and recent #1s are what sells. It's what the math tells us. When only 8 feet are allotted to books, midlist is squeezed out unless they are remaindered where they will be dumped in the "dollar bins" as my supermarket does.

And remember unsold stock is stripped of its cover and returned. Stores and distributors don't want to go to all that trouble issuing refunds. Also, books and magazines in my county have to be recycled.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Fbone

What I meant was retail stores will only stock what sells and at the moment the NYT Bestsellers current and recent #1s are what sells. It's what the math tells us. When only 8 feet are allotted to books, midlist is squeezed out unless they are remaindered where they will be dumped in the "dollar bins" as my supermarket does.

And remember unsold stock is stripped of its cover and returned. Stores and distributors don't want to go to all that trouble issuing refunds. Also, books and magazines in my county have to be recycled.

That is how things were done *yesterday*.
There is no law of nature that says it has to be that way forever.
Conditions *are* changing. Returns used to be 50% and more of a print run. They're down to maybe a quarter.

Indies are adjusting to the newly emerging world. Even B&N will probaby see the handwriting on the wall and adjust before they implode. General retailers will do likewise. The months and years ahead will tell us *how* they will adjust but none of the big general retailers got to where the are by doing today what they did yesterday.

Tomorrow will *not* be yesterday with a new calendar.
(Which is good because that would be sooooo boring.)

[pagansoul]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

pbook B&M retail customers?
Well, 20% get theirs at B&N.
The rest get them at department stores, wholesale clubs, drugstores, supermarkets, and newstands.
What we're seeing is a return to B&M retail diversity.
"Other", as a category, once again matters.

I buy from Costco very often as they tend to have a good collection of Cookbooks and other books that contain a healthy amount of pictures, kids books and a good collection of magazines in discount. I have also brought discounted Cookbooks from Kroger (southern supermarket). I don't remember ever seeing books in a department store but there may be some in the kids department. I do go into Books-a-Million at the Sugarloaf Mall in Georgia which has taken over due to the close of our Duluth B&N in my weekend book travels. Let us not forget Flea Markets, Used Book and Garage sales for buying books.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by pagansoul

Let us not forget Flea Markets, Used Book and Garage sales for buying books.

Dunno about other places, but in Ohio just about every town and suburb has a two-for-one used paperback shop in a strip mall. All indies. They do steady business in good times and bad.
Their biggest challenge is Half-price Books muscling in, not Amazon and not ebooks.

[fjtorres]

From the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/bu...end.html?_r=1&

Of course, not all indie bookstores have figured out how to survive.

In 2013, it has come to this: Asking their customers for donations.

Crowdfunding is sweeping through the bookstore business, the latest tactic for survival in a market that is dominated by Amazon, with its rock-bottom prices, and Barnes & Noble, with its dizzying in-store selection. It’s hardly a sustainable business model; but it buys some time, and gives customers a feeling of helping a favorite cause and even preserving a civic treasure.

I suppose it's one way to know if your customers want you to stay in business.
Reminds me of the membership bookstore proposal of last year.