In light of Amazon’s decision regarding Print-on-Demand services that are not their own, and the mutterings of “anti-trust” and grumblings of “lawsuit” following that decision, an article in the Washington Post last weekend caught many a Bitchery reader’s eye. Thanks to Jill and Mary for giving me the heads up about this story: who battles whom in the bookstore wars?
Used to be that independents battled the Big Book stores. Now, the Big Books are in danger, as well as the independents, as shoppers start taking a look for books at Target, Costco, and other very inexpensive vendors.
Costco, Target, Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club aren’t just moving in for the kill with big discounts on the latest Stephen King or John Grisham page-turners. They are also engaging the culturally connected, targeting readers who delight in cocktail or book-club conversation about the latest titles. About 34 percent of book buyers made purchases at such locations last year, according to the Simmons National Consumer Survey.
Costco, I admit, sucks me in with their big long table of books, like a potential discount trough of paperback and hardback possibilities. Costco, in my experience, is half a good deal and half the illusion of a good deal. I think I’m getting a better deal by buying 47 pounds of tatertots, but ultimately, it’s the same price, or fractionally less, for just more product that I have to find room for in my house.
But the Target part, that fascinates me. Most analyses that I’ve read of Target’s shopping demographic show an affluent core of customers who can pay more for various items, but repeatedly visit Target for day-to-day needs. It’s like a grocery store for some food staples, basic appliances, and most sundries. So if book shoppers are headed there, and their selection is more than just the top 10 books from any given best-seller list, Big Book retailers will certainly feel the loss:
Costco regularly hosts authors to promote books. Those who have appeared or are scheduled to appear with new books at Costco stores include Ken Burns, Bill Clinton, Barbara Walters, Jose Canseco, Harlan Coben and Newt Gingrich.
Seth Gitell, a Boston journalist and political analyst, wrote on his blog last year that he had dropped by a local Costco “to purchase some delicious whitefish salad” but noticed a sign promoting, of all things, a book signing by Burns. Gitell “couldn’t believe that Burns would be making an appearance here of all places,” he wrote. “But here he was. Burns sat dressed neatly in a blue blazer in front of a large display of Vizio 60-inch and 42-inch big-screen HDTVs as eager fans lined up to meet him.”
One of the points I remember from Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed is that in the US, the affluent have the luxury of driving farther to pursue a bargain. So it makes some sense that the money in sales is to be found at the discount stores, even and including for books. So the terrain of the war for book sales shifts yet again – and I wonder what will happen to the independent bookstores in this country.
For the past two or three years, I’ve gotten 95% of my leisure reading books from paperbackswap.com (PBS). I always look at the book racks at the grocery store, Target, Walmart, Costco, and Sam’s. They never have the variety I like, and I never want to pay what they are asking. I write down the author/title and request it from PBS—All things come to those who wait.
For the 5% of books that I can’t get through PBS (usually research books), I order them from Amazon. Every once in a while, I exchange some books at a local used book store.
Ha! What gave it away, Charlene?
McMurray is actually home for me; we moved here when I was 4 (WAAAY back in the early 70’s), I went though all my schooling here, and mostly like it. It sure has changed a LOT in the last ten years, tho’.
work48. Yeah, like 48 hours per day.
I think it was the first sentence. So have you had the 17 inches of snow (to this moment) we’ve had in Calgary today?
It’ll be 21C on Saturday. I love spring.
Target has never had a really comprehensive selection…maybe in their Greatland stores now, but never in their regular stores.
I don’t shop WalMart or Costco.
My books…Amazon.com or I try to get them on Paperback Swap. I can usually wait for a book.
My local Target recently (within past 3 months) discontinued carrying category romances. I keep checking to just make sure it wasn’t a fluke, but it looks like the crossword/suduko books that took their place are here to stay. Plan to complain to customer service. My dream is to buy MY book in Target someday. (Okay, first have to sell my manuscript, but still…)
I love Target.
Alison
I get more books than I should through Amazon, though I always feel guilty about it, since I am sure that the authors aren’t getting paid much. I try to read library books as often as possible, but too often I realize I need a copy of that book, so I go to Amazon. I also love to browse my local USB. I go to Borders, sometimes, and I enjoy this feminist bookstore that is far enough away from me that I can’t go very often.
It has been very interesting reading these comments, and the one thing I have not seen mentioned are e-books.
I have had a B&N membership for going on 10 years, and this year I am not going to renew as it has just barely paid off this year.
I have actually bought more e-books this year than paper/hardbacks. So, at the first of the year, I bought a membership to Fictionwise.com, and I think that will pay off for me.
I also have a subscription to Audible.com and I get 2 audiobooks from them a month.
If I find a book I can’t get as an e-book, Wal-Mart, Target, King Soopers or B&N works for me. Whichever store I find it at with a decent discount is where I buy it at, as it is not worth the gas to drive to every bookstore in the area looking for the cheapest prices.
Other than that, I have a list of authors I listen to, and they come from the library.
I blogged about the Costco thing back when Diana Gabaldon touched down in Canada to promote her latest. Her only Toronto appearance, to my knowledge, wasn’t even in one of the Costco locations downtown, the central core, or even within the city proper. It was in a relatively small suburb of Toronto’s Costco location. I didn’t manage to go so I have no clue how many attended.
Teresa, I’ve read e-books, but I don’t like to. Mass-market paperbacks are my medium of choice. They don’t strain my eyes, they fit in my purse, I can hold them in one hand (reading while eating), I can easily hold them above my face while lying on my back, and they don’t electrocute me when I drop them while reading in the tub.
Charlene, isn’t spring exciting? Drove through a white-out blizzard a couple of weeks ago, but now the snow is nearly gone, and I’m just waiting to see if the river will flood when it breaks. On the plus side, there hasn’t been a tornado up here in living memory. Look out, you folks out east!
At current I get almost all of my books from paperbackswap.com or Powell’s.
I’m lucky enough to live near enough to Powell’s to get to go to their store, though their online services aren’t bad either (plus you can order something and arrange for pick up at the store, which is nice to not have to pay for shipping.) Also since Powell’s deals in new and used books, I can sort through the stacks (or the listings online, which will tell you every version they have of a book) and find that one copy that’s $4.95 instead of $7.99. They’re also a great source for random academic books. There’s a feature on their website where you can get daily updates on used books in particular categories that have entered their system, which can be extremely useful (how else could I have gotten all my back copies of the Journal of Medieval Archaeology?:) I feel extremely lucky that they’re in my community. I hate buying from box stores, so I’m glad that I have other options.
And also (since I’ve lived in Portland for long enough) I sometimes even think of Powell’s as a behemoth and now try to search out other independents.
I buy a few books at Wal-Mart, mainly because I work there, but they get very few of my wish list. Borders is way at the other end of town where no one from this end wants to go due to traffic, lol. But on this end, we have this nice little independent…half used books, half new. They’ll order anything in print for you. I love it there.
I only buy these days at half-price or used bookstores, like the Salvation Army thrift store in my town. It has otherwise out-of-print romances I like (like Andrea Kane’s historicals) and costs me very little.
Hell, forgot to mention my local charity thrift shop, where I’ve often gotten a grocery bag full of books, hardcovers and paperbacks in any and all genres, for $2-$3. It’s exciting, let me tell ya. Library book sales really trip my trigger, too. Better yet? My money is going to two good causes.
New books online mostly. Local bookstores not impressive although we now have an Empire News & Books which might be a chain but I’ve never seen one. Nice ambiance though.
Used book stores are my favorites—big, musty ones with books stacked on every surface and out of print treasures waiting around every corner.
Re e-books, I bought a few EC e-books last year. The problem is I spend all day at work on a computer. When I get home, I want to curl up in bed or on the couch, and read. I don’t want to sit upright and scroll and scroll to read. Plus, it hurts the eyes after awhile and it just doesn’t have the visceral satisfaction that a hard copy book has.
RE Amazon…I use Amazon only for out of print stuff. Like old old Sherri Tepper or Keri Arthur or Fredrick Pohl. Stuff that most stores don’t carry. I really just use Amazon to keep track of stuff I want and new releases.
Mplsgirl: I hear your book plight. I made a bookshelf in my bedroom and it’s already nearly filled; because my living room’s one wall of bookshelves was already full. I am now at the point that I have books sitting all over the place. But I can’t seem to stop buying them!
BTW: I’m headed to MN tonight and it;s supposed to snow all weekend. How is that fair when it’s 70 here in Philly? Damn you, frozen tundra, damn you…
I’ve bought books in Costco, but 1. the savings isn’t really much better than Barnes and Noble or Borders with my member’s cards and coupons (it used to be a steeper discount, I think) and more important 2. the selection is TERRIBLE. The overall experience of B or B&N (browsing, coffee, meeting fellowgeeks) or even of Amazon (access to nearly everything if you can wait a bit, plus free shipping if you can wait a bit longer; and an account that’s valid even foreign countries) blows Costco, Sams’ Club or any of the K-Mart clones out of the water, at least for what I want. (Although I will buy my DVDs there.)
I guess that’s the thing—I generally go into a bookstore knowing what I want. I’ll pick up an extra thing or two in general, because I am a sad, sad addict, but if I don’t find what I originally went in for I’m likely to leave entirely, emptyhanded.
Oh, and I do hit an independent comic/sci-fi shop probably once every week or two—they have a decent selection of just-out books, and for ever $100 you spend, they give ou a $20 credit.
(The city in question here is NYC, and environs, by the way. Possibly it’s local taxes and things that make the Costco book experience not worth the pain?)
I fell in love with Powell’s in Portland. (I have so many books I need to GET RID of, and I don’t want to swap, that is undue temptation and defeats the purpose of “cleaning up.” :-D) Wish we had something similar. We have the Strand, but it’s not as accessible.
(Aw, “love64”…)
(I was devastated when Coliseum books closed. Large independent shop, had EVERYTHING, plus coffee and readings from controversial political people. While it was around, it was so convenient I never saw the inside of a B&N. And was constantly broke. Coincidence?)
Randi, welcome to Minneapolis, the land of snow and ice. Today it’s around 35 degrees with freezing, slushy rain. The weather dude says it might be 70 on Sunday, I hope you can stay the whole weekend and see this place when it’s sunny and warm.
Speaking of ebooks, I’ve purchased fewer than 10 this year. Like Randi, I spend all day on a computer and don’t necessarily want to read a book on one for leisure.
I work next door to the original Powells and live about a mile away from the new Beaverton location, so Powells is my default book buying spot. I’d shop there even if it weren’t so convenient – a little *too* convenient, truth be told – because I love, love, love it, pretty much for the reasons Kate gave. Plus, I just love the way it smells. I think I may have a problem. . .
I do hit Borders from time to time, when Powells doesn’t have a book I want. I will also buy at Target if I see something I want, but I don’t go there for the purpose of buying books.
Oh, Pegs, the Powell’s scent! A billion books in one place…I breathe deeply and feel satisfied…
I’m studying aboard in the UK specifically in Brighton and there are plenty of independent bookstores around which is good considering that the only Borders in town is a load of crap. From the look of this store it’s no wonder that borders is have the shit kick out of them. Borders often gives me the filling that I should get my book and hit the road. I’m not as comfortable walking around and just looking the way I am at Barnes and Nobles. Plus their bargain section isn’t often all that wonderful.
Since coming here, I’ve gotten a lot books off of ereader.com and read them on my computer or I buy them from one of the two books sellers that come on campus for the Marketplace on tuesday. I also go to the library. I don’t like sticking to a specific place, if i go in and I find something I want to read and can afford it, I get it.
Internationally, Indy shops have taken a hardcore dive in the last decade (We sold out our shop, of 11 years, in Nov.). Same story all over, chain shops, bigger discounts, plus overhead costs going up, while book prices did not rise to match it. Frankly, there ain’t a lot of money in selling books, unless you are a big ass/have pull shop. The profit margin is finite, and to make up extra cash, you have to cut your overhead down, which isn’t always that possible.
Now, down here in AU, we have long had the Target, Kmart Big W issue, of the hot best sellers hitting there first, selling at wholesale. This slashed straight into our bookshop sales. They started adding in more books, our sales slumped more. We stopped getting a lot of the random book buyers coming in. Why should they? They could now get the book right at Kmart, while they picked up socks. When the Target up the way added 2 shelves into their book section, and upped the cooking and kids book sections, I saw our sales take a good $1000 a month hit. It wasn’t even that they sold the books cheaper, often, they didn’t, it was that it was easier to just buy there, than to walk down to our shop. It sucked, big time.
I should add, that not even the chain bookshops here can, or seem to even try anymore, to beat the Target, et al. price drop. When the last HP book came out, they pre-sold theirs, at a good $10 more than what Target put theirs out for. Since no one knew how much the book was going to be, people pre-paid at the chain, saw how cheap it was at Target, and then took the book back, headed back to Target, and bought it there. Target, sold the HP book at wholesale. They made no $$ on it, it was just a way to get people in the store. (this from one of the publishers sales reps)
While I am all for buying books a good prices (hell, I owned a damn shop and still got irked when a fav author went HB, because I didn’t want to pay that much for the damn book), I try to be mindful that, each mass chain sale, hurts the Indy shops, the ones that carry more title range, can and will get backstock, have people in them that really know books, who are part of the industry that helps new authors stand out and are often, the ones to spot a new, hot genre that is about to breakout.
If the trend continues, its only going to come back at the readers. Publishers will continue to bend over backwards to please the chains, publish what they want, ignore what doesn’t match and that leaves writers and readers screwed over. (yeah, its already doing that, but its only going to get worse, not better)
Remember, Wal-Mart didn’t carry Jon Stewart’s “America” book, nor did they carry George Carlin’s latest rant. Imagine if you will, 15 years down the road, hardly any Indy’s left, half the chain bookstores close, and Wal-Mart is deciding for the rest of us, what will be published and what will not? In the case of my examples, there were plenty of other types of shops that did carry those books and they were NYTimes best sellers…but once half of those shops are gone…are the publishers really going to tell Wal-Mart to go to hell? Nope, they sure as shit won’t.