A funny thing happened on the way to the funeral

April 29, 2013 12:36 PM

The novel resurgence of independent bookstores. {Single page version}

One of a number of idependent businesses trending upward (benefiting the local climate, economy, and local charities) (and with help from the Marketplace Fairness act that would tax online retailers) toward revitalization.

Bonus: Why bookstores are better than online sites at creating book discovery.

posted by Potomac Avenue (31 comments total)

While I think an online sales tax is a good idea, I am not sure basing it on the location of the buyer is the best idea. Why not set a federal online tax rate? It could either stay with the Feds or be apportioned to the states according to some plan (population, I ternet use , etc.).
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:48 PM on April 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

I am not sure basing it on the location of the buyer is the best idea

Can you say why not? That seems fair to the state governments to me.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:53 PM on April 29, 2013

You might want to set it based on the shipping destination - otherwise, I'd just get people from out of state to order things & then have them shipped to me.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:56 PM on April 29, 2013

You can do that now if you want to right? Call up your friend in Delaware and get them to ship you some sales-tax free pants whoohoo sounds easy!

Maybe I'm swallowing too much propaganda but I don't what's unfair about asking residents of a state to pay the taxes of that state when buying something there, wherever you're buying it from.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:58 PM on April 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

I liked this part:

Sales at independent bookstores rose about 8 percent in 2012 over 2011, according to a survey by the American Booksellers Association (ABA)...Independents are valued more these days by publishers, who need them for their print sales. Their small size and low infrastructure – seen as a liability in the mid-1990s – are also considered an advantage.

"We absolutely believe indies are the small, fast-moving mammals in this dynamic," said Michael Tamblyn, chief content officer of Kobo, speaking at the ABA's Winter Institute in Kansas City, Mo., in February. In November, Kobo, a Toronto-based e-reading company, partnered with the ABA to sell e-readers and e-books at independent stores. So far, about 450 have signed on.

"If e-books are the asteroid hitting this planet, small independent bookstores are the ones most likely to come out the other side," said Mr. Tamblyn.
posted by mediareport at 12:59 PM on April 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

To overstate only slightly, the only people worried about "discovery" are publishers (whether corporate or self-), for whom it's another way of saying "not enough people are hearing about and buying my book." Book sales is largely a zero-sum game (people aren't going to double the number of books they read each year), and complaining about discovery is just kvetching that your marketing isn't working as well as you would like.
posted by twsf at 1:02 PM on April 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

It's annoying that all of the spin for the MFA treats "independent retail" as a synonym for "brick-and-mortar retail" and "online retail" as a synonym for "global corporate conglomerates." There are tons of independent retailers online, and last I noticed brick-and-mortar big box chains hadn't exactly disappeared off the earth. (Yes, online retailers with gross sales under $1 million are exempted, which is nice.)

That being said, it certainly seems fair to harmonize sales tax collection between online and offline. But I hope this doesn't mean stores are going to have to file 50 separate state sales tax returns every month.
posted by enn at 1:07 PM on April 29, 2013

I discovered on a recent trip that the Texas Outback is populated with wonderful independent book stores. Front Street Books in Alpine has been around for years, ostensibly kept in business by Sul Ross University, and there's also Marfa Book Co. in Marfa (go figure). Front Street is closing their Marathon location, however.
posted by Devils Rancher at 1:08 PM on April 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

The link and discussion to a bookstore in Mystic fails to note that Mystic exists almost only for the very big tourist spot it is. Thus, a zillion shops and stores on its very large site, and a bookstore is sure to get some people to drop in.

For me the independent bookstore is to books what BestBuy is for many in electronics: you loo, explore, then go home and order online...Even with taxes, there will be much more to choose from and you probably will pay less because you have cut out the middle man.

I love books but now find I can get them used, new, ereader etc a lot faster and cheaper online.
posted by Postroad at 1:17 PM on April 29, 2013

The novel ... bookstores

I see what you did there!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:19 PM on April 29, 2013

That single page version opens a printer dialogue window, at this end.
posted by beagle at 1:22 PM on April 29, 2013

There used to be thousands of used bookstores, but now that a few *haven't* closed their doors, hey, things are looking up! Not much history in this article.

As a reader, things have never been better. I used to be dependent on the B. Dalton's in the mall ferchrissakes.
posted by mattbucher at 1:29 PM on April 29, 2013

For me the independent bookstore is to books what BestBuy is for many in electronics: you loo, explore, then go home and order online...Even with taxes, there will be much more to choose from and you probably will pay less because you have cut out the middle man.

You haven't cut out the middleman. You've just selected a different middleman, one with different expenses, buying power, and a different markup. You've also sent your money out of your neighbourhood, affecting the profit and/or employment of you neighbours.

You want to order online? Go right ahead, but doing it the way you're doing it is annoying at best and exploitative at worst.
posted by dobbs at 1:29 PM on April 29, 2013 [7 favorites]

The novel ... bookstores

I see what you did there!

Next up: The bookstore resurgence of independent novels.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:30 PM on April 29, 2013

I've pretty much stopped buying at Bunns and Noodle other than for the Christmas gift cards for our nieces and nephews, who do not live locally; all my brick and mortar money goes to Bookpeople (mentioned in the article). And my online acquisition is almost all through the Austin Public Library.

I've been very happy with this set of decisions.
posted by immlass at 1:49 PM on April 29, 2013

"I liked this part..."

I disliked that part, but I really liked this part:

And while everyone is supposed to be staring into an e-reader in the future, instead of flipping pages, Mr. Mutter says studies show that digital books are not heading for 100 percent market saturation. In fact, he notes, "some people who switched to digital have switched back."

ebooks are definitely going to be a large part of the market, and they may replace things like mass market paperbacks, but I think there's always going to be a market for well made hardcover books. That's because (in my opinion) the experience of reading a good hardcover (sewn binding, pages that don't have to be constantly held open) is superior to any e-reader.

This part of the article is also really interesting:

"These days, community-building is the most important key to an indie bookstore's success," says owner Christine Onaroti. "I believe that the days of just putting books on a shelf and hoping people will come in to buy them – [that] is not realistic.... There's not a lot of room for pretentious, snooty booksellers these days."

Prententious and snooty is probably an unfair characterization, but I think she's spot on about building community. Independent bookstores can be a wonderful "third place" where people go to socialize as much as buy books, but that community has to be built over time. It might require some lean years before a critical mass is built up - but once there, the bookstore's regular costumers can be extremely loyal.
posted by Kevin Street at 2:51 PM on April 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

(FWIW, I think that bit about e-readers is assuming too much. The notion that you have to be loyal to one format or the other is risible. It's like saying that not only has TV failed to completely displace cinema, some people have switched back to cinema.)
posted by baf at 3:12 PM on April 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

I went into a bookstore the other day, for the first time in, geez, about a year since I got my Sony eReader and began remorselessly pirating ebooks. After being completely opposed to ereaders for so long, I finally got the shits with lugging twenty or thirty boxes of books with me every time I moved, so I purged my physical collection down from a couple thousand to just under a hundred, which fit comfortably on a single smallish bookshelf. I've decided that I'll now buy a physical book every three or four months (and it had better be good and something I'll read again and again), rather than a half-dozen every fortnight, and I wanted to shell out actual cash money for the new John Gray book, The Silence of Animals, because his Straw Dogs is easily one of my favourite things in the world and this has been favourably compared to it.

Turns out the book, at just over 200 pages, was being sold for $39.95 (Australian). Because for whatever reason publishers still think it is a fun and clever idea to release books in hardcover, and bookstores are still happy to deep-throat their throbbing shit-cocks and stock those ripoff hardcovers instead of telling them publishers to fuck themselves and just go directly to softcover (people who buy hardcover books are assholes, btw). Forty bucks. God damn.
posted by turgid dahlia 2 at 3:30 PM on April 29, 2013

(people who buy hardcover books are assholes, btw).

The day is not yet over, but I doubt I'll read anything dumber than this on it.
posted by thelonius at 5:21 PM on April 29, 2013 [10 favorites]

Oops, my Detect-o-Tron just made a beeping noise.
posted by turgid dahlia 2 at 6:35 PM on April 29, 2013

I discovered on a recent trip that the Texas Outback is populated with wonderful independent book stores. Front Street Books in Alpine has been around for years, ostensibly kept in business by Sul Ross University, and there's also Marfa Book Co. in Marfa (go figure). Front Street is closing their Marathon location, however.

Amazing how many great bookstores you can find in small towns out West isn't it? Best used bookstore I've ever been to in my life? COAS Books in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Absolutely gigantic, huge selection of all sorts of obscure books, but my favorite part was the foreign language book selection ... where there were just all sorts of really old books in every foreign language imaginable, including TONS of Russian books from the Soviet era. They also had the most awesome credit system... they didn't give cash for books but gave store credit which (if I recall correctly) was 1:1 with the sale price of the books ... so I basically never had to pay them any money because on every trip I'd "sell" the books I "bought" last time and get enough credit to "buy" different ones. It was basically a library with an infinite lease time. Keep the books you like, return the books you don't and get a new one.

Second greatest used bookstore? Don't remember the name, but it's in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, and the clerk/owner was an awesome dude who contributed some spare change to help me buy a book when I was short.

I've been to tons of used bookstores in NYC since but nothing has ever come close in the sheer diversity and weirdness of books you could find at COAS ... Strand Schmand, I feel like 90% of their books are new anyway... and of course nobody would stay in business here with that awesome 1:1 credit system ...
posted by pravit at 7:09 PM on April 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

I think people who do their research at a local store and then buy online are lowbrow. If you are going to use a service (store) , pay for the benefit. If you do not want to pay for a benefit, do not use it. I recognize that my views are anachronistic, and I apologize for being such a stone age human. It is amazing they let me on the internet at all.
posted by jcworth at 7:34 PM on April 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

I get the impression that the main thing these bookstores have going for them is that

a)their high street competitors are shutting down
b)they are highly specialised

One thing that always bugs me when I go to a smaller bookstore is when it tries to recreate the chain bookstore experience, which it inevitably can't do. It ends up offering the same books, but a smaller selection at higher prices. The bookstores that work for me are those that have some hint of novelty to them, that make them interesting places to be in and browse. I'd argue such stores are less likely to be hurt by online sales because of the sense of community they inspire. That said, I suspect that without tourism those sort of shops are doomed either way.

I'm not sure I agree with the idea of condemning people for shopping online, or behaving in an "immoral" fashion at the bookstore. For one thing, I'm not sure its my moral duty to support one business over another simply because one is online and one is not, and for another its kind of trying to command the tide to go in. If the market forces are headed towards online only shopping then thats going to happen unless there is a hardcore of people who really want physical shopping. Trying to get people to change their buying habits by just telling them off isn't really going to get you anywhere, because buying at the cool indie bookstore is either going to appeal or it isn't. Now there are probably consumers out there who would love their indie bookstore if they'd just try it, but I suspect you catch more flies with honey for those guys, rather then telling them they are unworthy people.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 1:12 AM on April 30, 2013

I think people who do their research at a local store and then buy online are lowbrow.

I do my research on line, then shop locally. I got a belly laugh out of a Bookpeople clerk when I whipped out my wish list on my phone & asked him to help me locate the books in the store, using a move I call "The Reverse Amazon."
posted by Devils Rancher at 2:08 AM on April 30, 2013 [3 favorites]

I think people who do their research at a local store and then buy online are lowbrow

About as lowbrow as local stores who say 'We don't have it, but we can order it in for you' and in the mirror behind them you can see they've just fired up Amazon.com, added your book to their growing shopping cart, then quoted you a hefty mark-up and a 4-6 week delivery time?

And I certainly hope you don't do anything as lowbrow as seeing a book in one brick-and-mortar store then seeing it cheaper in another three-dimensional building later and buying that copy, because you totally waived your rights to participate in a free market economy when you walked into that first store. You should crawl back to that first store on your hands and knees (over glass - make sure it's organic glass recycled from a local artisanal sriracha outlet) and buy two more copies you don't need.

Except I can guarantee they don't have it in stock anymore, but they can order it in for you *A-M-[tab]-clickety-clickety...* in 4-6 weeks.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:44 AM on April 30, 2013

>I am not sure basing it on the location of the buyer is the best idea

Can you say why not? That seems fair to the state governments to me.

My problem with sales tax being collected for internet purchases is that it adds a large amount of bookkeeping for the retailer. Especially when you consider that cities also often add sales taxes, you are easily looking at a hundred or more cases that have to be monitored, collected, and disbursed, which is hard enough for a large company like Amazon, but hellish for smaller stores for whom online sales may be a nice sideline. A federally-collected tax would deal with the problem. Then the states can argue with the federal government whether they are getting their fair share.

I worked for a smallish bookstore in the 90s. We did a fair amount of mail order, and tracking sales tax would have killed us.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:30 AM on April 30, 2013

I recently wrote a blog piece that may be relevant here. Barnes and Noble's CEO is considering buying back his company, but is only interested in the brick and mortar bookstore division, not the nook division or the college bookstore division. I could care less about the nook platform, but I'm fascinated by what will happen to those college bookstores. B&N manages about the same number of college stores(674) as it has traditional retail stores(689). If no one wants the college stores, could the colleges and universities that host them, repurpose them? That's what I purpose in the piece.
posted by Toekneesan at 9:15 AM on April 30, 2013

Don't know if a Canadian example is relevant to a US discussion, but my university has always owned its own bookstore. It's huge, and it sells a lot of school branded merchandising along with textbooks, pens and calculators. (They even have a second store downtown.) Your average college could probably do quite well if they ran their own bookstore, because those places have both a captive market (students) and an extended market. (The alumni who keep buying school themed shirts and teddy bears and so on.) The community aspect is already built in.
posted by Kevin Street at 1:13 PM on April 30, 2013

Online Sales Tax Bill Passes Senate
Onward regressive taxation!!
posted by jeffburdges at 2:52 AM on May 7, 2013

If B&M businesses think forcing their online competitors to collect sales tax will be the thing that brings me back, I have an excellent opportunity to purchase beachfront property in Arizona that may also interest them.

The absence of regressive sales taxes on the internet is not the thing keeping me out of brick and mortar stores. It's the convenience of not having to drag my ass across town to the store through heavy traffic. It's not having to look for parking. It's having access to every bit of information in the world about the product I'm about to purchase, along with easy access to competing offers. It's (even including the sales tax) the lower prices.

The physical businesses could've gotten themselves online and reaped the benefits of the lack of sales taxes just like their web-only counterparts. They chose instead to try to ignore the opportunity and to hobble the channel that they couldn't (or wouldn't) take advantage of.

They should've pushed to level the playing field by removing their responsibility to collect taxes (as the internet retailers enjoy) and just putting all sales taxes to voluntary reporting. Sure, it would probably cause sales tax revenues to plummet and force the states to consider less regressive alternatives. There might also be drawbacks to this idea.
posted by mullingitover at 10:31 AM on May 7, 2013

In a couple years, I'm expecting the laments about how Silk Road lost it's underground feel when the masses started buying ordinary legal shit there to cheat on sales taxes, ala couchsurfing now.

Also, I detest paypal but still recommend buying through ebay to avoid supporting Amazon, B&Ms, etc. I'd hope ebay simplifies sales tax for merchants or will do so after this, but at least you can avoid supporting those companies.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:58 PM on May 7, 2013