Used bookstores are seeing increased sales thanks to "thrifty re-gifters" this holiday season, according to Minnpost.com, which observed that "thrifty customers buy used books in 'like new' condition they can quietly pass off as new."
"It's
a little tacky, isn't it?" said Amy Griffis, manager at Half Price
Books, Crystal, Minn. "But plenty of people do it. They'll call us
first and ask if the book is in 'pristine condition.' That's a tip-off
that they mean to give it as a gift."
Children's books are a
particular favorite. Karin Grimlund of Booksmart, Minneapolis, said,
"New or used, people know kids' books are going to be loved anyway."
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Duane Collins, who recently opened Reader's Delight bookstore, Vandalia, Ohio, told the Vandalia Drummer News that his motivation for becoming a bookseller is based in part on frustration with local options. "If I wanted something, I had to drive to the Dayton Mall because there was nothing nearby," Collins said. "There was nothing in town. A lot of people told me that they wished that there was a bookstore here."
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In Other Words, the Portland, Ore., nonprofit feminist bookstore, is "on the brink of closing its doors for good," according to Just Out.
"We looked at our financial situation and realized it was much more
dire than it has ever been in the past," said program director Katie
Carter, who added that sales are "down significantly from previous
years, and it looks like it's going to continue that way. We are in a
crisis situation." Just Out reported that "Carter and the
store's board of directors say they must raise $11,000 in the next 20
days, or the store will close shortly after January 1."
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In a Community Impact Newspaper story about how retailers in Georgetown, Texas, near Austin, are faring during the holiday season, Margarite Holt, owner of Hill Country Bookstore, said that with November sales down 23%, the store has been "doing more fairs and sidewalk sales. This is a challenge. As retailers, we have to be more creative on how we market our products--more so than we have in the past." She remains optimistic, saying, "I'm lucky because I think I have a product that is recession proof."
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That Book Store in Blytheville and owner Mary Gay Shipley were featured as "one of the town's jewels" in an Amazed by Arkansas segment on TodaysTHV.com.
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As noted in Bookselling This Week, three booksellers offered their picks for the holiday season yesterday on NPR's Morning Edition. To hear what Rona Brinlee of the Book Mark, Atlantic Beach, Fla., Lucia Silva of Portrait of a Bookstore in Studio City, Calif.; and Chris Livingston of the Book Shelf in Winona, Minn., recommended, click here.
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The ABA has unveiled the 2008 Indie bestsellers, which consist of 15 titles in five categories. See them here.
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A little good news for Borders: the company's website was named one of Internet Retailer's Hot 100 2009 Best Retail Web Sites. Commending sites that offer users extensive information, the magazine wrote: "The newly launched Borders.com site features exclusive video interviews with authors"--a key part of its Borders Media section. Internet Retailer also liked Borders.com's Magic Shelf, which the company calls "a virtual bookshelf that allows customers to view books, music and movies much the same way they browse book tables and shelves in their favorite Borders bookstores."
"Borders.com's new handsome, functional site does a great job of carrying over the Borders brand and experience from offline to online," said Kurt Peters, editor in chief of Internet Retailer.
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After a squirrel appeared this summer on Powell's Books reusable bags and then scurried around and appeared elsewhere in and about the store--on mugs, T-shirts, etc.--the staff became tired of referring to the anonymous critter as "the squirrel." So now the store is staging a naming contest: as Dave Weich of Powells.com put it on his blog, "Winner gets a $100 Powell's card, a featured book shelf at Powells.com, and bragging rights into the future." The contest is mentioned on the website as well as in the latest stories about Fup, the late store cat whose fans hail from around the world. Already 238 people have submitted a name for Fup's distant cousin.
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Some 15 ABA member stores opened during October and November. For a full list with contact information, go to Bookselling This Week.
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"Don't like reading? Buy a book anyway," advised Washington, D.C., Examiner
columnist Meghan Cox Gurdon, despite her belief that "the bleating from
independent bookstores has often seemed rather tiresome. Why should
readers conspire to make prices higher for themselves? The sympathies
of conservative book buyers are further strained by the seemingly
inevitable lefty aura of independent bookstores. (Can you imagine
Politics & Prose replacing its supply of mocking anti-Bush
paraphernalia with, say, anti-Obama stocking stuffers? Neither can I.)"
So what has caused her to tout book buying for the holidays?
"Now it's no longer just precious, tweedy, bookstore-owning progressives
who are in trouble," she wrote. "The book business itself has entered a
new and frightening stage that even the arrival of mistletoe seems
unable to forestall. . . . Now, perhaps you don't care whether
bookstores exist, and maybe you are not, yourself, an avid reader.
Still--don't be indifferent. You live in a culture that since Gutenberg
has been more open and free because of the wide availability of books.
Even today, when we're all inundated with reading material, books stand
as a particular measure of liberty."