i was having a conversation with a woman at the coffee shop this morning, and an incredible feeling of sadness came over me: what ever happened to the independent bookstore? rochester used to be home to this wonderful bookstore called the village green, but when the barnes & noble opened in pittsford, it closed. it's closing just seemed to leave a big, gaping hole in rochester - nothing came to take its place. a lot of it may have to do with the fact that the city itself is rotting from the inside out - there's nothing but poverty left in the city, and the suburbs where all the money is are more conservative, and people there would rather just drive to borders than go into the city for their books, or order them online.
sadly that is happening everywhere.I live in a small town in tx and our bookstore closed also.people would rather drive to hastings and get a 10% off, and to books a million and buy a discount card to save, which most independents don't have, yet you lose the closeness of knowing the people who run the store. I miss the calls I used to get when they thought a book I would want had come in and the non commercialism of the place.
This kind of thing is happening all over England and I imagine the rest of the UK. As bigger corporations set up in towns, it pushes out the small independant shops because they simply cannot afford to compete. Even the book market is becoming dominated by the large companies. Supermarkets sell pretty much everything you need and because they're so convenient, small shops lose out on even the passing trade. Welcome to capitalism! I agree, it's very sad.
Yes, I used to like going to Village Green. I remember going to the one that used to be here in Greece quite a bit (the one at the corner of Ridge and Fetzner). That's been out for at least 12 years now, and has since been replaced with an Outback Steakhouse. I know there is Moodmakers in Village Gate, but I believe it's only African-American related books they carry. Aside from that one, and Lift Bridge in Brockport, I can't think of any others in the immediate area. Wasn't there another indy bookstore that used to be in the Gate many years back, on the top level? I usually just order online now, but I agree. It sucks that all these neat little book shops are disappearing, but that's Corporate America for you.
Sort of like what Wal-Mart or Starbucks do to the local businesses. I believe there will always be independant bookstores that are superior, or catering to a different niche than B&N or Borders. I remeber a great one in Portland, OR called Powells Books that will never go under, as well as one in an old part of the city here that everyone still goes to.
is that the same powells that's the huge online book place? a while ago i was posting on a hoodoo/witchcraft newsgroup, and there was this discussion of a classic hoodoo formulary that had gone out of print. it was incredibly hard to find and everyone wanted it. i found it for $6 at powell's. matt, i remember the village green in greece. i went there with rocky a few times. wasn't there one in fairport or webster or one of those suburbs, too? i used to go to the one in buffalo all the time when i lived there with my first husband. the area lost a real treasure when the last store, on monroe avenue, finally closed. i used to take damien there every night when he couldn't sleep, and i bought my first tarot deck there. i don't recall if there was another indy bookstore in the gate...i don't think there was when i had my shop there, but there was that rare/used bookstore, and i believe peddler's village used to sell books, too...i know there was another place to get used books. what's the name of that bookstore on east ave? greenwood books, i think? is it just used books or do they carry new books too? i forget, it's been so long since i've been in there. i found this wonderful, new-agey, hippie-dippy children's book in there once, called the magical rainbow man and the journey of love. i bought it for the kids, and it annoyed the hell out of suresh, which made it even cooler. we do still have some good used bookshops. i'm such a regular at brown bag and rick's recycled books that both pete and rick know what kinds of books i prefer and will point out new titles that they'd think i'd be interested in when i come in the shop. i occaisionally duck into guttenberg's or abacus, but more frequently i find the kind of books i'm looking for at brown bag or rick's. i also miss all the zines that village green used to carry. is there anyplace left in rochester to get zines?
The big book store of my town is Joseph Beth, as far as i know it;s independent and it's a huge fucking store. Something along the lines of 400,000 square feet. They have an incredible music section too, and a very cheap one at that. So i gotta say that as long as you keep prices low and strive to grow the indie store is long from being dead.
matt, i just talked to the idiot i went out with last night. he used to hang out at the gate a lot, and while he didn't remember another indy bookstore, he reminded me of the existence of the bookshelf, that tiny second-hand bookstore that was on the fist floor. i'd forgotten about it, i used to go there to get something to read before opening my shop. it was a tiny place, you were barely able to squeeze between shelves, but i used to find good things there.
there's only one independent retail bookstore in this city of mine of c. 500,000 people, and a handful of used bookstores, a few of which sell some new books. the independent is located in a neighbourhood where people are attuned to supporting local small businesses, and the guy is exceptional when it comes to customer service and finding hard-to-get books. he couldn't survive any other way. as for used bookstores, it's no way to make a living. most people who run them have other sources of income and it's really more of a hobby if anything. a lot of used book sellers have gone to the net and sell online because there's no way that they could sell many of the books locally for what they get on-line.
there are a few around where I live, my favorite is Illiad book store, they have an amazing mural all over the front. There's also Dutton's, they have a couple locations, been around forever. One of my favorites just closed, about a year after a barnes and noble opened a few blocks away, I was so sad to see it go, they had an amazing music books section. Latley the independant music stores around have been closing, but the chains are closing even quicker, so it evens out. In fact, I can't think of one chain music store around anywhere, but I can name 3 independant ones, so hooray for music, lol
i have a cousin in brooklyn who has a used bookstore. i think that's all she does, just the bookstore. don't know how well she does, but to the best of my knowledge, she gets by.
i felt the same sadness when i was reading about City Lights bookstore, it was a keystone in the counterculture in the sixties. i feel like we are missing out on the community involved in independent stores, this goes for music stores as well. its a shame...
City Lights is open still, with Larry at the register in the middle of slow days. To support the concept of independent book stores, I buy my family BookSense gift certificates. They are good at any Book Sense member. BookSense is a marketing mechanism for indy booksellers. In Denver/Boulder, we have Tattered Cover (2 soon to be three locations), Boulder Books, a slew of occult shops and a selection of used book shops too. Austin has Book People, a three storey indy, with deals at least as good as the sprawlochains. Boulder Books offers a discount card. BUT you have to be big to survive long term, or have other ways of making money. The Arts/entertainment wrter at my paper is a former bookseller. She sold out 5-8 years back. Books are a slim profit margin
The few books we sell in the drugstore range from a 30% to 150% markup. Not a bad profit margin... The overhead for independent booksellers really hurts them. Inventory, rent, payroll, slow inventory turns, damages, etc.
I even occasional see 200%! Seasonal stuff mostly. Seasonal cookbooks, coloring books, sticker books, "collectors edition" Cambell Soup & Saturday Evening Post books, and books that are a memorial to the recently deceased, such as Kurt Cobain and some Nascar drivers memorial books. "Back to School" pocket dictionary/thesaurus. Really, its all crap. There is a big markup on crap, and the general public buys crap like its a necessity.
oh my gosh! there's a city lights I used to go to in the town I used to live in. I never thought it was a chain; i'd never seen any other than that one. I think it's still open, but it might not be. lotsa things close, it's not right. stupid big chains. stop shopping at them, everyone.
I'm a ruthless book-buyer. I go where I can find the biggest selection and the lowest prices. Back in my hometown, I saw 2 indie bookstores, 2 used bookstores, and 2 smaller chain stores close after Barnes & Noble came into town. I miss the local stores for sentimental reasons but I hardly went to them after B&N opened. Yeah, the indie stores had some cool books that B&N would never have, but I got sick of going to them and not finding what I wanted. Any store can get you pretty much any book, but if I wanted to wait for a book to be shipped in I might as well just get it through Amazon.com. Usually the extra money you pay for shipping is compensated for by discounts and avoiding sales tax, plus you have the convenience of the book coming to you. I don't think the independent bookstore is dead. Certainly their numbers are being decimated, but I see it as just a sort of capitalist natural selection. The well-run stores will stay in business.
