Borders and Independent Bookstores

Good article by Esther Yi on this important topic — for those who shop at bookstores.

Given the fraught history of chains vs. independents, such a prediction is understandable—but is it accurate? Mark LaFramboise is a book buyer at Politics & Prose, an independent shop in Washington, D.C., and he says that the shuttering of the closest Borders earlier this year, during the chain’s first wave of closings, has had no discernible effect on business. “Does this herald a renaissance of the independent bookstore?” LaFramboise says of Borders’ closing. “Probably not. Put me down in the ‘I hope so’ category. But stop short of the ‘I think so’ category.” Scott Abel, the general manager of Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe in D.C., says his store has not witnessed radical windfall either, though he has certainly spoken with a few customers who mentioned that they used to shop at Borders. …

This is admittedly not the exciting story of the hip, humble, hole-in-the-wall independent bookstore booming with business after the downfall of its monolithic, hyper-corporate, faceless counterpart. There’s a problem with this narrative: it can be tempting to see the two types of businesses as straightforward antagonists, but in the quickly changing landscape of book-selling, perhaps the superstore and the independent are not enemies but acquaintances that begrudgingly empathize with each other. Teicher says that brick-and-mortar stores—whether they are chains or independents—have come to recognize that they have more in common than they did a decade ago, including a shared rival in the form of online bookselling. Both superstores and independents would argue that currently, “the far bigger competition doesn’t come from each other, but from online sellers.”

… As online venues continue to take hold of the book market, independent shops may have to work harder to differentiate themselves as physical spaces for browsing books. Independent bookstores, many of their owners say, create an experience that can’t be mimicked online by providing author readings, knowledgeable staff that can make personalized recommendations, and a hand-picked inventory that caters specifically to the clientele. Abel, from Kramerbooks, echoes the inimitability of the bookstore experience, a space void of distractions and conducive to the primary task of pursuing interests and discovering new ones. “There’s a downside to the phrase ‘browsing on the interwebs,'” Abel says. “You don’t find things you don’t look for. In the bookstore, you’re freer to explore the space.”