Shelf life During COVID-19, indie booksellers are working harder than ever to survive
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/04/2020 (1611 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Aimee Peake, the owner of Bison Books on Graham Avenue, is used to being independent, but she isn’t quite so used to being alone in her shop.
Hers is the kind of store where customers shop on a weekly, or even daily, basis, dropping in and browsing between the stacks. In the winter, it’s not uncommon for commuters waiting for the bus to come in for a few minutes of refuge, taking solace in tomes both pristine and dog-eared while trading opinions on the news of the day.
McNally makes most of online sales in outbreak
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On a typical day, McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location would be buzzing with staff as dozens of customers browse the shelves for books, records, accessories and more. Evenings would see the store hosting at least one author event per night; on the other side of the shop, meanwhile, Prairie Ink Restaurant & Bakery would normally be hopping with regulars grabbing a coffee or a bite to eat.
Now, Peake is the only one there, having laid off her staff and closed the doors to the general public. “No more philosophical discussions, no more political arguments,” she said over the phone Tuesday. But business must go on, even if in-store visits cannot.
For independent sellers, now is as crucial a time as ever to trudge forward, though it’s far from the first time the industry has faced adversity: since its founding in 1995, Amazon has become the globe’s most dominant bookseller, accounting for a growing wedge of the book-selling market, and e-books and audio versions have also cut into sales.
But with COVID-19, booksellers are contending with an unprecedented hurdle: Bison normally does about 70 per cent of its sales in store, with the remainder online. Ditto for Burton Lysecki Books, a labyrinthine South Osborne shop that last allowed customers in on March 18.
According to BookNet Canada, a non-profit focusing on the national book industry, the average Canadian independent bookstore is even more dependent on bricks and mortar: a mean of 87 per cent of all indie bookstore revenue in 2018 was derived from in-store purchases.
COVID-19 has effectively eliminated that segment, which sellers say is bolstered by browsing. BookNet also found most independent sellers had their highest return-on-investment as a result of book launches, public readings, speaking series and book fairs.
That leaves indies and corporate stores attempting to replicate the in-person experience in a digital realm, says Noah Genner, the non-profit’s CEO.
“Everyone is taking it on the chin right now,” Genner said. “I’ve been charting the business for 15 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Over the four-week period after stay-home orders began, the market for English books dropped 41 per cent compared to the same period in 2019; these numbers reflect sales for new titles, but offer insight into the difficulties stores will face moving forward.
Despite pre-COVID pressures, Genner said independent stores were standing on relatively solid ground in Canada. While physical book sales dropped by three per cent in 2019 compared to 2018, the independent market was mostly flat, showing resilience and community support, Genner said.
Free Press Book Club launching
The Winnipeg Free Press is launching a new virtual book club, open to anyone and everyone who wants to ride out self-isolation with a few page-turners in hand.
Each month, the Free Press Book Club will choose a book and, a few weeks later, host a live, interactive book club meeting online, featuring some familiar faces from the Free Press and McNally Robinson Booksellers and, when possible, the author of that month’s pick.
Our Free Press Book Club page is already live, so feel free to take a look and register to join the club. We’ll send you email reminders, discussion questions and other ideas to think about, as well as information about each month’s online meeting.
And if you look now, you’ll get a sneak peek of our very first book club pick.
We hope you’ll join us as we start something new to keep our Free Press community connected.
With COVID-19, that’s once again the case. Though the road forward is checkered, Genner said the indie channel has stayed alive thus far: of 170 independent stores that report to BookNet, nearly 95 per cent remain “open” and selling, while indie sales have increased week-to-week.
“Given the circumstances, some bookstores are doing reasonably well,” he said.
At Bison, Peake has implemented free local delivery and curbside pick-up, while increasing social media. Posting stacks of books on Instagram has proven a strong strategy; on Monday, Peake posted a book about sasquatches and quickly received three offers. Online orders have nearly doubled overall.
Whodunit, a mystery shop on Lilac Street, is also trying to sleuth out solutions. For bookseller Michael Bumsted, that’s meant playing the role of delivery driver: on Tuesday, his hawked wares included an Alexander McCall-Smith novel to St. Boniface, a copy of Owen Toews’ Stolen City to downtown, as well as an edition of The Wonky Donkey.
The store, Bumsted said, was enjoying a banner year after setting quarterly sales records consistently in 2019. It expected to continue growing at that rate, but that will require extra effort: instead of reduced hours, Bumsted is often working longer days than before.
Results have been promising: the store sold nearly 1,000 books since closing to the public, still more than the same time period last year. But of those 1,000, only 630 unique titles were sold, a direct result of the loss of browsing, Bumsted presumes.
At Burton Lysecki Books, co-owner Karen Sigurdson is feeling the loss of foot-traffic as well. “The fun of this store is browsing,” she said, and it’s true: the maze-like layout is tailor-made for exploration.
Since closing to the public on March 19, the store, which has been open since 1971, has been leaning heavily on its website, which has been used as a retail tool since the late 1990s.
While it doesn’t make up for in-store losses, Sigurdson said loyal customer support through the internet, combined with a granted application for federal wage subsidies, should sustain the store, hopefully, through to its 50th anniversary next June.
“I certainly miss the community and conversation. It’s a big reason why I have a brick-and-mortar store. ” – Burton Lysecki Books co-owner Karen Sigurdson
“We’re going to have a celebration, I hope,” Sigurdson said. “I think we’ll make it.”
Next year will also mark Peake’s 20th year selling books in Winnipeg, and she’s hoping to have people wandering in and out of the store just as they did a few long weeks ago as soon as it’s safe to do so.
“I certainly miss the community and conversation,” she said. “It’s a big reason why I have a brick-and-mortar store. I really enjoy being a part of a community, taking up a downtown storefront, paying taxes and employing people.”
One of her laid-off employees has stayed on to volunteer and help manage the workload, and loyal customers are coming through so far, Peake said, lending optimism that Bison Books will get through it.
“I think I’m going to survive,” she said.
ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca
Ben Waldman
Reporter
Ben Waldman covers a little bit of everything for the Free Press.
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