Richard Palmer, Raleigh, N.C.
♦ As a Bookaphile of many years I found your recent article in the Rowan Free Press: “The Death of Independent Bookstores and Where to Buy Books CHEAP” to be a spot on assessment of the public’s changing book buying habits, where to find book savings, and the deaths of independent bookstores across the U.S.A. Despite all the protestations by IndieBound and the Institute for Self-Reliance, shop-local shills, the day of the independent book stores is over. They are going, going, gone. They tried hard to become community gathering places, selling coffee and having free entertainment for the sustainable fringe, but in the end even these people enjoy paying less for books and are drawn to the internet. It had to happen.
You said it well: “The dropout rate of independent bookstores accelerates yearly as these arthritic mastodons trudge to their tar pits. “True believers”, among the remaining few independent books retailers, attempt to zealously foist hokey in-house studies on the public, claiming their dead-end businesses are growing over the past several years. A casual perusal of this so-called research quickly demonstrates a conflict of interest and skewed numbers. Often the research is padded with “used book stores” and “book trader” establishments clearly not the same as “independent book stores” that try to sell new books at list price. Legitimate research is done independently and has no conflict of interest by being done in-house.
Since the advent of internet retail I don’t fork over list price for anything. For me “shop local” means the best deals possible on the world-wide web or infrequently in corporate retail shopping venues.”
The only fact I would take mild issue with in your article is that I see strong evidence that all brick and mortar bookstores, independent or corporate, face extinction. They can not hope to compete with the internet and its inexpensive book sources.
