Today we say goodbye to a good friend

     Today started just as it usually does. However as I went to my local Independent Bookstore I was greeted by a sign that read Going Out Of Business.  It was truly a sad day for me.  Sadly though this is not a new phenomena.  In the last three to five years one by one Independent bookstores have been closing and disappearing all across the country.  Replacing them is the Mega-stores and the Internet. Slowly some of the larger chains have also disappeared. B. Dalton Bookseller and Crown Books were the first to fall. Then the first coast to coast chain, Borders collapsed in 2011. The result was that consumers were pushed to a handful of places to buy books.

     In my neck of the woods I have two options if I want to go and purchase books. One is Barnes & Noble and the other is Hastings. Obviously I can still go online to Amazon.com and purchase through there as well.  The advantage to the local independent bookstore was that they cared about the customer. I could go in browse through the books open them up and read a little bit to see if I liked the story.  There were times when I would easily get lost in a piece of work and spend a couple hours sitting in the store reading a book. Customer service was also at a high because the people that worked in those stores were usually avid readers.  They could tell you about the books they sold and read.  On numerous occasions I would buy a book because the clerk behind the register was reading it between sales, and would tell me how good it was.  If you ask the clerk as Barnes & Noble about a book even one that is popular you are likely to get the standard "Ugh, I don't know" reply.

     The first thing the major retailers like to say is well you get that same treatment with us.  Sadly this is just not the truth.  Prior to 2009 all the big retailers were the same large spacious stores with lots of books and chairs and benches located through out for customers to sit on to read books.  Shortly after 2009 this all changed. In 2010 Barnes & Noble went into capital preservation mode. (they still are in that mode)  In an effort to increase sales they remodeled most of their stores and scrapped plans to open new ones.  Barnes & Noble decided that they needed to make a major changes to their stores.  The Barnes & Noble stores of today are a far cry of the Barnes & Noble stores of 2009.  Gone are the chairs and benches and wide aisles between shelves. Today shelving has increased by 40% and the only chairs are over by the Cafe/Espresso stand. The stores are now designed to get customers in and out quickly and minimize in store browsing and reading.  Customers are also highly discouraged from picking up books or magazines and walking over to the Cafe area and reading them while sitting at a table. 

     Now I am not saying that they should be letting customers sit down and read an entire book and place it back on the self but when I am shopping for a book I start in a section (Fantasy) and look at all the books there I may then pick up a book and read the back cover and maybe the first page or two at the beginning.  If this peaks my interest then I will open to the middle and read a few paragraphs and do the same thing at a couple other parts in the book.  In the end I then make a decision if I want to buy it at that time.  You might be saying Amazon allows you to do that. Yes and no, while Amazon allows you to read a little of a book prior to purchase the content is usually the first chapter or first few pages of a book.  I have read many books that start slow and become awesome. I have also read books that have started awesome and died halfway through.  If I can only read the first few pages or chapter I might be missing out on good books. Being able to open up a few chapters in or to the middle allows me to judge if a book will keep me engaged.

     Now we can't reverse time and if the trend continues there will be no more small independent bookstores by the year 2020. (This is a speculation, but considered to fairly accurate) There will still be the small hold outs that are in smaller towns that don't have the population to support a Mega-store.  The Mega-stores however will not disappear mostly because Amazon doesn't want to be a monopoly in book retail.  However, I wouldn't be surprised to see Amazon get into the Brick and Mortar  game.

     Technology has also changed the book world as well.  Thanks to the internet I now have access to every book that is published and for sale anywhere.  The advent of the ebook has also changed the landscape although we have yet to see the promise of cheaper books because of it.  Back when ebooks first came out the big promise was it was going to lower book prices because you would not need materials for printing.  The truth however is that if I were to buy Shadow Spell by Nora Roberts Paperback is $9.67 and the Kindle (ebook) version is $8.99.  Hmmm, no real cost savings there.  But yet I am going to pay almost the same price for an electronic version as I would for the paperback version.  Even if you figure that it costs $5.00 to print the book and that is factored into the price then the ebook is generating $5.00 of profit by being price so close to the print price.

     Goodbye my friend, the small independent bookstore.  You are a dinosaur of a fading era.  Your cosy atmosphere and customer service is now gone.  I for one will miss you. 

     So what about you? Did you have a favorite local bookstore you miss?  Or are you happy with how things have progressed?  Where do you think it will go next?