On Cape Cod, "there are at least 18 small business bookstores, not including those found on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. That's a pretty impressive sprawl of stores for a relatively small piece of suburbia," CapeCod.com reported in featuring "a list of almost all of them."
There is a seasonal nature to the area's economy, with summer drawing "such a copious and diverse wave of people that bookstores tend to make enough money to get them through the year," according to Chamber of Commerce CEO Wendy Northcross, who added that "this isn't to say that these shops don't get any business in the winter."
"It also helps that Cape Cod's population tends to have a higher level of education," CapeCod.com noted. "As Northcross put it, 'many people retire here smart,' and therefore have the means to buy books from the more expensive boutique book stores."