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Monday, October 12, 2009

Books / Retail Too Many Cooks?

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 12:22 PM

The L.A. Times has a story about Vroman's Books, a Pasadena bookstore that is the new owner of the great Los Angeles bookstore Book Soup:

Allison Hills, president of Vroman's, said the company intended to keep Goldman's legacy alive by preserving the name and direction that made the store famous.

"The hope is that the transition is invisible to customers," Hills said. "Book Soup will continue. Vroman's will just provide the behind-the-scenes, operational infrastructure to keep it going.

The most troubling news is buried a little deeper:

In August, Chicago accounting firm Grant Thornton predicted that 400 bookstores would close by the end of this year, a 500% increase over the number that closed last year.

In comparison, Seattle's independent bookstores have gotten by relatively unscathed so far—we've lost Epilogue Books but even The Couth Buzzard, which closed a while back, is reopening—and let's hope we can make it through 2010 without any more closures.

Comments (3) RSS

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Is the closing of bookstores higher or lower than the closing of all business retail establishments in the area?

I mean, look, we just avoided a Great Depression and are only now coming out of a Great Recession that has successfully been turned into just a severe recession. A lot of businesses closed their doors.

And unemployed people don't tend to buy books - they use the library.

Posted by Will in Seattle