David Streitfeld of the L.A. Times jumps on the ‘end of the world for bookshops’ train with his story Bookshop’s Latest Sad Plot Twist
It is; however, one of the better ones to emerge from this recent painful trend. Streitfeld is one of the first to be able to cover the plight of the new and non-new bookstores seamlessly. Like the book trade, the media has always tended to treat these two aspects of bookselling as separate animals instead of what they are and that is two branches from the same tree.
Some lowlights from the eulogy:
-Technology changes behavior, which reshapes the physical landscape
-“The bookstore as we know it is in dire straits,” said Lewis Buzbee whose bookstore memoir “The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop,”is now in its fourth printing.
-It’s hard for any single used bookstore to compete against this bounty, just as it’s impossible for any shop carrying new books to rival the electronic plenitude of Amazon
-“I’d be really hard pressed to come up with a single social or demographic trend that is in favor of bookstores…it’s a lost cause” said Tom Haydon, whose Wessex Books closed in 2005.
-“Why would anyone want to perpetuate small independents by paying higher prices?… “Most of these proud little independents were poorly run anyway.” said Curtis Faville, an “Internet retail used and rare book trader”, who doesn’t even have an open shop!
and these killer comments from Wired’s Chris Anderson, the father of the Long Tail retail theory which is the lead suspect in the flattening of bookshops left and right.
-“The clear lesson of the Long Tail is that more choice is better…Since bookstores can’t compete on choice, many once-cherished stores are going to be road kill.”
-“A lot of our affection for bookstores is based on a romanticized notion…The fact that we’re not patronizing them speaks more loudly than our words.”
OK booksellers we can get off the floor now.
Thankfully there is a bright spot here and he is 41 year old Praveen Madan who recently purchased The Booksmith in San Francisco.
His goal:
“Create the store for the 21st century. If you do it well, you’ll give customers a reason to come back. But you can’t do it by making them feel guilty.” He plans on “tying the store more firmly to the Haight-Ashbury community” and by fully maximizing the store’s website.
Thank you Preveen.