Another Bookstore Chain Closing

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oldsparky

Re: Another Bookstore Chain Closing

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AJC KJHS M
Guest

Re: Another Bookstore Chain Closing

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I always liked the Book World chain. They weren't as good as a used bookstore like say Renaissance Books in Milwaukee nor did they have as many selections such as a Barnes and Noble but they weren't bad. I could almost always get a copy of the Economist in there and they did have different books. They also seemed to stock authors local to their area. I found a good alternate history author whose last name was Conroy in the one in Manitowoc. To me a town that has at least one bookstore is proof that the barbarians haven't won yet!! I hope at least some of them are bought out and maybe run under another name.
Guest

Another Bookstore Chain Closing

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I read in the news yesterday that Book World is closing all 45 of their stores at the end of the year. I have bought quite a few Great Lakes books from these stores during my travels over the years and will be sad to see them go. Talking to an acquaintance that is in the small press publishing business, however, reveals a trend in the book store business I had not noticed before. He showed me online about how Barnes & Noble, which has shuttered many stores in recent years, now only generated 60% of its income from selling books with the balance coming from games and toys and revenue generated by their cafes. In addition, the bookseller has opened 4 restaurants/bookstores in test markets that also serve wine and other alcoholic drinks with plans to expand them into 100 more of their some 640 remaining stores if good results are achieved. He also showed me the reviews of individual Barnes & Nobles in Michigan that revealed that roughly 3 out of 4 reviewers reveal the thing they enjoy about going to the bookstore is to sit in the café and read while having a coffee. That may not sound like a bad idea, but from a publisher's perspective a Barnes & Noble or other bookstore that allows patrons to take new books off the shelf and read them in a café setting is only going to result in a high volume of returns due to books being damaged that no one will purchase. He indicated to me that during the last few years that a major local distributor was supplying books to B&N, their return rate has skyrocketed with several returns coming back with coffee stains, etc., which due to a no questions asked policy between the distributor and the bookseller leaves the publisher eating the cost of the book. So in the end, the publisher is often supplying a book for reading material that generates income for a café and eating the cost in the event the book is damaged or becomes too worn to sell. I don't believe Book World ever had any cafes so this was not a problem with that chain. With the growth of online sales of books, it seems like booksellers are trying to concentrate on the only sectors of possible growth immune to online competition.
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