Slashdot Mirror
Kindle or Not, a Resurgence In Used Bookstores
The growing availability of books via internet (whether instant, in the form of downloads from Amazon's Kindle store or the Google Play store, or in physical form by post) puts pressure on conventional bookstores. The Washington Post reports, though, that some bookstores are thriving, and some new ones are getting started, in a particular niche: used books. The phenomenon springs in part from the disappearance of many large chain bookstores, leaving gaps that smaller and nimbler shops can fill; as the article points out, a used bookstore in many places is the only one around. Nonetheless,
It is by no means an easy business. Many used-book retailers — with either bad management or bad locations (or both) — still struggle against the digital headwinds.
For one, Amazon is still just a few clicks away. But some used-bookstore owners have made a shrewd move: widening their customer base by listing their inventories on Amazon’s third-party marketplace, an idea many new-book retailers despise. (The Washington Post is owned by Amazon founder Jeffrey P. Bezos.)
My favorite bookstores have mixed stock (used and new), serve coffee, and specialize -- the process of discovery is still easier at a place like Ada's Technical Books in Seattle than it is browsing through Amazon recommendations.
Brick-and-mortar used-books stores have never seemed like a niche to me here in the Netherlands.
Well, not until the biggest with stores in many cities, went bankrupt recently. I wonder why that happened..
Got a gem on the solar magnetosphere from the local one yesterday, based on a summer course at Imperial. If you know where people dump their collections, you know where to wait to pick them up :D. And of course you're paying £1 to £3 for something that might have cost £10-£40 new. There's also no profit motive, which winds up the capitalists to no end.
Let's face it, the real problem is DRM. eBooks with DRM are evil. I have nothing against eBooks otherwise, ofc., though I prefer reading paper - I'll just find a torrent/equivalent of the PDF/ePub/whatever once I've bought the paper version.
This is 2015. Why are books still being printed on paper?
I buy from Libraries whne they change out books, I have shopped in many locations over the years:
"Green Apple Books" in SF: nice restaurants near by and great selection of Scientific works
"On the Square Books" in Oxford, MS. Actually like 7 buildings / store fronts. each with a theme. Collector both signed and not, Children's books store also with high end/special toys, an old movie theatre filled with boxes of books still needing to be sorted.
"Half Price Books" in Lexington, KY. Small but college based, with used records, movies and gaming items.
There is nothing better than spending a rain day browsing looking for that missing item.
CON: many many books to move...
Everyone's got a shit ton of them, every thrift store is 1/3 used books, and other than thrift stores you cant give the damn things away. Now you think if you fill a building full of stuff no one wants, you will be able to sustain anything?
no, no one cares about buying used paperback romance novels, so you better have a specialty, like antique rare books. Are most used book stores mismanages, your damn right, they opened a used book store!
Gift giving. When giving gifts for birthdays, holidays, whatever, tangible things seem right.
Status/virtue signaling. I think people like to flash the book cover of whatever they are reading to everyone around them.
Will be when someone figures out they can attached digital books (and other media) to a block chain. Allowing new copies to be charged as the rightsholder wants, and used digital copies distributed at fair market prices.
Silence is a state of mime.
From a conversations with a used bookseller I know. for the last 7 or 8 years at least, many used booksellers in the UK have been kept afloat by ABEBooks, to the extent that many have shut their retail shops and gone to 100% online sales, moving their stock in a cheap-to-rent storage unit.
I'm in a town with a couple used bookstores and they really are great, if overpriced compared to used bookstores in bigger cities (but they'll buy the books back for half price when you're done if they're still in good shape). The problem is selection - if you're looking for something specific, going to one of those stores is a total crapshoot, unless you're looking for a recent release, in which case it is of course utterly hopeless. I end up buying from Amazon more often than not because there's nowhere else to go anymore. (We actually have one very good local bookstore left that sells new books, but the old lady there gives me the stink eye and then interception/subtexted "excuse me, can I help you?" every time I [a man] wander through the children's section. Fuck you, lady, my nephew will learn to love opening Amazon boxen!)
"...but some used-bookstore owners have made a shrewd move: widening their customer base by listing their inventories on Amazon’s third-party marketplace, an idea many new-book retailers despise."
New-book retailers: "But won't someone think of muh profits?!"
That's one reason they hate the idea of "real" books- there's no DRM, so they can be resold, traded, or loaned without interference.
And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Amazon eventually either forbids the resale of used books in their marketplace, or else makes it so unprofitable that people just won't do it.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
1. You are stuck with the company you bought it from. You cannot move it to another device or program.
2. Electronic media is stressful on the eyes. Tablets are bright and cause insomnia. eReaders with eInk or whatever it's called are slow and expensive.
3. Electronic books have actually become MORE expensive than dead tree versions - and when you add in the cost the gadget to read the thing, it's a horrible deal. It's even stinks when the electronic version is just a couple of bucks cheaper.
4.I purchased a bunch of ebooks that I read once, they sucked and pretty much that's it. I can't sell them. I can't give them away. It's the end of the road for those books. With a dead tree book, I can donate them to the library to sell or add to their collection.
5. I can loan out paper books.
Once the zombie apocalypse happens, paper book stores will be the only way for us to get information on how to use baseball bats (cricket bats in the UK) along with chain saws and other weapons to kill the walking dead. That is until, or unless, we can get enough infrastructure back to be able to read ebooks again. Come to think of it, I hope some of those books will be on acid free paper. No telling how long a supernatural event featuring the undead will last once it gets started.
Don't stop until we burn all the books. Vote Trump.
Let's Not Forget that a pre-requisite for owning a Used Book Store is the proprietor must be clearly insane. I don't mean that he or she would "have to be crazy" to be in the used book market in a "market" sense ... I mean that if they were not certifiable lunatics, they would not even consider possessing large quantities of used books sufficient to offer them for retail sale. Plus, the inventory multiplies like rabbits, since they sell one used book for every 20 used books they buy.
One of the big issues Used Book Stores have to deal with are commercial leases ... they are not necessarily ideal tenants because the weight of the product they sell is probably higher than just about any other product, and that includes New Books, since resellers of new books generally make an effort to have the inventory look good, versus stacked 10 rows high covered in dust with extremely narrow shelf pitches making browsing difficult except for the super skinny.
What they have going for them as tenants is they are very reluctant to move. So shady landlords love them, since the leaseholder is putty in their hands. Want to raise the rent? Go ahead, and make it unreasonable while you're at it. 50/50 they will pay rather than move.
I'd never buy used books, they are just bacteria-colonies from somebody else's bathroom.
And every sickness they have is transferred to the book, by licking the finger and turning the page.
No thanks.
If I wanted that, I'd read the magazines in the doctor's office, at least 250 sick people have licked those pages.
Powell's City of Books in downtown Portland. A full city block, multiple floors, of new and used books (and maps and book-related kitsch). So big (and popular) that they had to expand their technical books to another storefront nearby.
On many days, the place is backed with shoppers - and it's a huge store. They even have a map of the store, so that you don't get lost. The store is divided into general subject sections: Reference, Mystery, SciFi, Art, Languages, Magazines, etc.
It's such a trip to browse, and find, practically any book you can think of. And, if it's not on the shelf, go to their website and see if they have it in their warehouse. (You can check their website from any of the many terminals set up throughout the store) If they do, you can buy it and have it appear in Will Call at the main store.
You can sell them your old books at their buying counter. (I've sold a couple hundred there myself...)
If you're into books (the kind that are made of paper), you should visit this place at least once.
(I'm not associated with the place - just a customer for the last 20+ years)
I hope this generation of independent used bookstores learned the lesson of the ones which went out of business in the past. It's really easy to accumulate junk inventory. Books come in, but they don't go out. As your inventory fills up with junk no one wants, the buying public moves on. Hint: Never accept anything with the words "Neil Hancock" on the cover as trade-in!
I don't need my bookstore to be shiny new. I prefer a used bookstore to buy my new books because they have some experience with customers.
imagine that, apple.. amazon.. steam.. ea.. microsoft..
people should be able to sell their used digital goods they dont want anymore.
If you don't like ebooks, you can get used books for free. Many places have free bookshelves outdoors or in cafes where you can take and leave as many books as you want. (OK, mostly bestseller crap but I've found some gems.) There's also bookcrossing. Antique bookstores are nice for browsing, but I haven't visited one in years and I haven't bought anything there for more than a decade. To buy a specific book that's not available for free, bookfinder is much better than a brick and mortar store.
Don't use Amazon recommendations and actually look for the categories you want.
or say a coffee shop/small casual diner with 1000s of book available to read and for sale. I'd probably make it two levels, the bottom floor where everything is served/bought and with seats for people to eat/talk and upstairs where people can browse books and read them all day long while they drink coffee/beverages/food.
Reason i say two levels as it''ll probably be cheaper to for rent 1000sqf bottom with a large mezzanine then say 1500sqf on one floor.
Now I'm not a book reader and haven't read book for years but still for me there is something strange and calming when I visit second hand store with a large book selection.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Independent bookstores have been gold to me. They know their clientele and more importantly their clientele trusts the proprietors with their entertainment dollar - if they recommend a book, that recommendation carries some weight. They give me great shelf space, arrange signing events, serve cookies! I support them with flexibility of stock and sell books to them at below wholesale. National bookstore chains (and sure as hell Amazon) don't do squat for me. Independent bookstores, at least those close to me, survive on those relationships. Incidentally, the local hardware store is surviving despite a Lowes and Home Depot within 10 minutes, also with personal relationships.
They can be a huge time pit because browsing through one can find all kinds of interesting publications that never knew existed. And many times I've bought publications which typically takes up space at my home.
mfwright@batnet.com
When shopping online, eBooks typically cost just as much as the hardcover version. That is why there is not wider adoption.
eBooks would sell like crazy if priced $5 and under.
Just glancing at my bookshelf:
Stephen King - Cell (2006) New hardcover is $6. Kindle is $9.
Michael Crichton - State of Fear (2009) New hardcover is $6. Kindle is $5.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
This is people selling all the old paper books they don't need anymore (obviously, there are still people buying them at some low price). I think it's no more than a temporary resurgence.
Note there are drm free ebooks too.
True. But sticking to them will likely give you the false impression that the world hasn't changed since December 31, 1922, when the last clearly public domain book was published.
I not only love used books, but this last five years has been an absolute bonanza on IRL rare books that have a low consumer demand. That is, for me, technical books on conference proceedings where an idea was first germinated, or even figured out over beers.
Yes, I do use a rig w/an iPhone and GeniusScan+ to quickly PDF and OCR them, under Fair Use Rights. That is only to make them term-searchable, which is better than any index. I keep the physical copies.
Some seminal scientific breakthroughs were first reported in conferences forty years ago, when transcriptionists recorded every question-and-answer sessions of colloquia. Libraries are throwing these things out left and right, to the detriment of human knowledge. It's like a slow-burn in Alexandria.
Books and libraries, also newspapers & periodicals, are quickly becoming obsolete. With the internet, cellphones, Kindles, Tablets, Blackberries and a few other things... info has become easier and more plentifully obtainable (and more fun) than what a boring environmentally burdensome library or newspaper can provide! Say goodbye to books, especially phonebooks! This is the best example: We're all online reading news websites every day. We don't buy newspapers. This is more fun and more updated and more colourful and less messy and less burden AND it's interactive. We save money and the environment. These days, "libraries" are just about little more than free "internet cafes". People go there when their home PCs are on the fritz or they don't own one. This is the age of technology!
Hey, you realize that used book stores -always- look like they are closing... right? 8-)
Whadya get for a used bookstore these days?
I am currently beneath your threshold