NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Used bookstores are having a rough chapter.
At least six used bookstores in the Nashville area have closed over the last three years: the beloved BookManBookWoman in Hillsboro Village, Ms. B’s in Hendersonville, the Granny White location of Rhino Booksellers, Grapevine Books in Gallatin, Book Den in Franklin and now Book Attic in the Rivergate area is preparing to shut down after more than 30 years in business.
Should we blame digital readers, competition from online retailers, or are people just not reading as much as they used to?
The consensus among store owners is that the demise is due to multiple factors, but there are some bright spots, with a handful of small, independent store owners hanging on despite significant challenges.
And there are some notable exceptions, like the behemoth McKay’s in Bellevue, which conducts 1,000 or more transactions a day; the 14-year-old Landmark Booksellers that is thriving on bustling tourist traffic around the historic Franklin Square; andBooks at Cummins Station, which gets a boost from downtown development.
-’The future is tough’
“No one is in the used book business for money,” Defunct Books owner Greg Delzer said. “It’s a labor of love, and sometimes only love.”
Defunct Books’ sales are down 50% to 67% from its peak, said Delzer, who has owned the bookstore for 16 years.
“The future is tough for used bookstores. We’re not only up against the online market, which serves to depress prices, and digital readers like Kindle, but, really, reading as a form of entertainment, escape competes with everything from Netflix to social media to cellphone use, and the subsequent shorter attention spans,” Delzer said. “Even those bookstores which are surviving are fragile and susceptible to a simple rent increase, for example.”
Teresa Hamlin, who opened Book Attic in 1987, echoed Delzer’s pains. She said competition from online bookstores and increased popularity of e-books impacted her business, which she is in the process of closing.
Saralee and Larry Woods closed BookManBookWoman in 2016, and they now sell books online and offer book reviews on NewsChannel5’s Talk of the Town.
“Closing when we did was the right thing to do,” Saralee Woods said. “What I know from 20 years experience is that retail is really, really hard. I think people get into the bookstore business with a romanticized vision of what a bookstore is. It’s tough to make money, no matter what you do.”
-Keys to success
Store owners say it’s no mystery that location, having a niche market and the ability to do volume sales are crucial to success. Most of the stores buy or offer store credit for books, and a couple also do appraisals.
Randy Elder, whose Elder’s Bookstore lays claim to being the oldest bookstore in the state, says his niche of rare and old collectible titles, as opposed to current titles or mass paperbacks, has served him well.
“I couldn’t exist on ordinary books. It is the rare stuff that keeps me going,” Elder said.
While only 10-15% of books Elder sells are in the “rare” or “old” categories, 60-70% of his revenue comes from those sales, he said.
The giant McKay’s, which employees 50 people, stays busy seven days a week dealing not only in books, but also buying and selling vinyl, movies, games, electronics, instruments and select toys.
“We have propped up book sales with other things,” McKay’s owner Andrea Jacobson said, adding the additional categories increase sales and give the store a bigger draw.
Jacobson said approximately three quarters of McKay’s daily transactions include books. A recent daily store count showed 325 purchases of books only, 400 of books and other merchandise and 275 of other categories but no books.
Joel Tomlin, who owns Landmark Books in Franklin with his wife, Carol, said his location has been a boon.
“We have just had the best six months in our 14 years here. Most of our business is tourism, and tourism in Franklin is up,” Tomlin said.
With a beefed up social media plan and the new Harpeth Square hotel and apartments going up around his building, Tomlin said the future for his bookstore looks brighter than ever.
Brock Mehler also said Books at Cummins Station has benefited from nearby hotel development - and the the fact his shop is the only downtown bookstore left.
Amy Jo Bradford knew what a challenge she was getting into when she opened Black Dog Book Co. on Granny White Pike two years ago, but she has found that by being a one-woman operation with a fierce determination to keep costs down, she can stay afloat.
“The majority of people who do this do it as a hobby, or are independently wealthy, or need a tax write-off. But this is my dream,” said Bradford, who is hoping for a happy ending.
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Information from: The Tennessean, http://www.tennessean.com
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