Independent bookselling expanded again in 2022, with new and diverse stores opening

[DGUtley]

Independent bookselling expanded again in 2022, with new and diverse stores opening nationwide..

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Near the end of 2021, Jessica Callahan was living in Columbus, Ohio, working as a social science researcher and wondering if there was a better way to support herself. Her friends Julie Ross and Austin Carter had similar thoughts and a similar solution: Open a bookstore.

“I think a lot of people re-evaluated what was important to them during the lockdown and we realized the place we were always happy to be at was a bookstore,” says the 30-year-old Callahan, who with Ross and Carter last year founded the Pocket Books Shop in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, close to Carter’s hometown. The roughly 1,000-square foot store is located on the main floor of a Queen Anne style house where Callahan and Ross live upstairs.

“We looked at our lives and thought, ‘Why not?’ Nothing else felt guaranteed anymore so why not just try to be happy,” she added. “We’re not getting rich from this, but we’re able to pay our bills and pay ourselves.”

The new direction of the Pocket Books owners helped lead to another year of growth for independent sellers, with membership in the American Booksellers Association reaching its highest levels in more than 20 years. The ABA added 173 members last year, and now has 2,185 bookstore businesses and 2,599 locations. Three years after the pandemic shut down most of the physical bookstores in the U.S. and the independent community feared hundreds might close permanently, the ABA has nearly 300 more members (under stricter rules for membership) than it did in 2019, the last full year before the spread of COVID-19.


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[Peter1469]

How long will they last> E-books are taking over in much of the book space.

[Chuck]

The two Half Price Books near me are still open, but yes, with digital books having a large market their selection of paper books is dwindling, as is their used CD markets. They never offered me anything reasonable for the chess openings book collection I took in to sell once, so I gave them away instead. Chess openings sell as fast as you can put them on shelves in most cases. They offered about a dime apiece for them. lol no way. I'll burn them first. ever bothered to take anything back, mot even worth the effort to load them in the car at those kinds of prices.

[Collateral Damage]

How long will they last> E-books are taking over in much of the book space.

I use kindles for the most part, since our local library is only open 4 days a week and closes at 5:00pm. If I commuted up from Knoxville to home, an hour+ ride, I still wouldn't make it.

I do still visit book stores, the library if I can, and used book stalls. I like the feel of a book in my hand that I can stop and start at will without having to charge it and boot it up, nor the toll they can take on my eyes.

I am not alone on this. I say give it a go and see if it flies.

[Peter1469]

I use kindles for the most part, since our local library is only open 4 days a week and closes at 5:00pm. If I commuted up from Knoxville to home, an hour+ ride, I still wouldn't make it.

I do still visit book stores, the library if I can, and used book stalls. I like the feel of a book in my hand that I can stop and start at will without having to charge it and boot it up, nor the toll they can take on my eyes.

I am not alone on this. I say give it a go and see if it flies.

Kindle Paperwhite is my e-reader. The only real books I buy these days are travel guides, atlases, and reference material.

[Chuck]

I use kindles for the most part, since our local library is only open 4 days a week and closes at 5:00pm. If I commuted up from Knoxville to home, an hour+ ride, I still wouldn't make it.

I do still visit book stores, the library if I can, and used book stalls. I like the feel of a book in my hand that I can stop and start at will without having to charge it and boot it up, nor the toll they can take on my eyes.

I am not alone on this. I say give it a go and see if it flies.

Same here. I also still buy the Weekend Wall Street Journal off the rack to read when I do my Saturday breakfast run. I don't usually get it all read in one day, so it is good to be able to leave them laying around until I feel like getting back to them without having to worry about toting something expensive around to get stolen or broken or needing charging. WSJ's don't break when they get dropped or sat on, and nobody steals them these days.

[Standing Wolf]

The two Half Price Books near me are still open, but yes, with digital books having a large market their selection of paper books is dwindling, as is their used CD markets. They never offered me anything reasonable for the chess openings book collection I took in to sell once, so I gave them away instead. Chess openings sell as fast as you can put them on shelves in most cases. They offered about a dime apiece for them. lol no way. I'll burn them first. ever bothered to take anything back, mot even worth the effort to load them in the car at those kinds of prices.

I've spent enough time in our local Half Price Books that I pretty much know what they stock and what they'll buy. (There were two in the area, but one closed up a year or two ago.) I was culling out and downsizing my library a while back, and I picked out twenty or so books I thought for sure they'd want; they took four of them and paid almost nothing. The kid doing the "offers" said that what they don't want to buy, they recycle. I asked, "You mean, you donate them somewhere?" He said, "No, we toss them in the recycling bin". When I regained consciousness, I took the rejects back. I ended up contacting the folks who hold the Visiting Nurse Services book sale and they came out and picked up 35 boxes. When I have the time, I need to go through all the shelves, stacks and boxes and get more out of the house. I could probably do another hundred boxes and never miss them.

My favorite independent bookstore in Scottsdale is The Poisoned Pen - a mystery bookstore, if you couldn't guess - which has been around since '89. They've created a loyal customer base, in large part because the owner knows personally most of the big names in detective, mystery and suspense fiction and they all come here to the store to sign whenever they have a new release. Even Lee Child used to come at least once a year before his popularity made the logistics of his doing a book tour impossible.

[Collateral Damage]

I've spent enough time in our local Half Price Books that I pretty much know what they stock and what they'll buy. (There were two in the area, but one closed up a year or two ago.) I was culling out and downsizing my library a while back, and I picked out twenty or so books I thought for sure they'd want; they took four of them and paid almost nothing. The kid doing the "offers" said that what they don't want to buy, they recycle. I asked, "You mean, you donate them somewhere?" He said, "No, we toss them in the recycling bin". When I regained consciousness, I took the rejects back. I ended up contacting the folks who hold the Visiting Nurse Services book sale and they came out and picked up 35 boxes. When I have the time, I need to go through all the shelves, stacks and boxes and get more out of the house. I could probably do another hundred boxes and never miss them.

My favorite independent bookstore in Scottsdale is The Poisoned Pen - a mystery bookstore, if you couldn't guess - which has been around since '89. They've created a loyal customer base, in large part because the owner knows personally most of the big names in detective, mystery and suspense fiction and they all come here to the store to sign whenever they have a new release. Even Lee Child used to come at least once a year before his popularity made the logistics of his doing a book tour impossible.

When cleaning out (and THAT was a huge undertaking) a house we bought at foreclosure auction, we had about 5 big Rubbermaid totes filled with books. Went and talked to a used book stall owner at the local flea market, and he said he could pay 10-20 cents a book. Figured that would be about $25. Sounded reasonable, since he charges between 50 cents and a dollar on paperbacks. I've bought and traded with him many times.

Loaded them up, drove down to the market, and told him we had the books we had discussed. Now he says he was full up and couldn't pay us for them, but we could leave them if we wanted to.

Really? Sorry, but not only are you not getting the books, we will no longer be doing any business whatsoever. We took them down to a local rescue ministry and donated them for them to sell.