DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK The reports of independent bookstores’ collective demise have been greatly exaggerated
By Craig Manning Independent bookstores weren’t supposed to make it to 2021. For decades, this embattled segment of the retail marketplace has faced one existential threat after another. First, it was the invasion of big box bookstores like Borders and Barnes & Noble, sneaking in and stealing market share because they were able to stock more books and charge lower prices. Then, it was the rise of Amazon.com, which got its start as an online marketplace for books, transformed the reading world in 2007 with the Kindle e-book reading device, and has subsequently reshaped the entire retail landscape. A decade ago, the prediction was that e-books and tablets would put the final nail in the coffin of indie bookstores, if not physical books in general. After all, digital technology had completely altered patterns of consumption in music listening and was in the process of doing the same for television and films. Why would books be immune to the same digital revolution that killed CDs, DVDs, and other relics of physical media? Even last year, predictions of doom and extinction for indie booksellers weren’t hard to come by. “Is This the End of the Indie Bookstore?” asked a New Republic headline in April 2020, as the rise of the novel coronavirus hit brick-and-mortar retail like a bomb. Bookstores, especially, seemed unlikely to survive, given their status
as places for people to gather and linger — not to mention the fact that browsing for books has never exactly been a touchless experience. Improbable Growth But the reports of independent bookstores’ collective demise have been greatly exaggerated. Despite everything — the big-box boom, the arrival of e-readers, the Amazon factor, and even COVID-19 — indie bookselling is actually … growing? Just look at the data from the American Booksellers Association (ABA), a nonprofit trade association that exists to promote and support independent bookstores. In 2009, the ABA spanned 1,401 members and 1,651 store locations. At that time, ABA’s numbers had been dropping every year for the duration of the 2000s, and for the majority of the 1990s before that. But in 2010, ABA tracked its first membership increase in almost two decades: 1,410 members. Improbably, those numbers continued to increase over the course of the 2010s, with dozens of new member bookstores opening each year. By 2019, the ABA’s membership had swelled to 1,887 and its number of member stores was up to 2,524 locations. Of course, bookstores did take a hit due to the pandemic. ABA’s 2021 numbers are sobering, as membership has fallen to 1,700 this year and store locations are down to 2,100. But with many parts of the economy stabilizing again after 2020’s unprecedented shutdowns, it’s likely that most of the bookstores that have held on this long will live to fight another day.
14 • December 20 & 27, 2021 • Northern Express Weekly
Several of those bookstores are right here in northern Michigan, and they’re not just surviving; they’re thriving. Despite years of upheaval, uncertainty, and talk about their obsolescence, the region’s local bookstores have survived for a range of reasons. The Northern Express spoke to four of those stores — Brilliant Books and Horizon Books, in downtown Traverse City; McLean & Eakin Booksellers, in Petoskey; and Cottage Book Shop, in Glen Arbor — to learn their secrets to outlasting all the extinction-level events that were supposed to wipe them out. A Brilliant Business Model “The whole reason for Brilliant Books is because everybody thought that [digital was going render physical books obsolete], and I didn’t,” says Peter Makin, owner and founder of Brilliant Books. That business got its start in 2007 in Suttons Bay, before expanding to a second location in downtown Traverse City in 2011. In 2013, Brilliant Books lost its Suttons Bay lease and has since been a Traverse City-only business — at least in terms of physical storefronts. Since early on, though, Makin has been branding Brilliant Books with the slogan of “Your Long-distance Local Bookstore” — five words that help explain why this particular bookstore proved its early doubters wrong. “There was a movement afoot when we started that said, ‘Bookstores are brick and mortar things, and Amazon is online and evil,’” Makin says. “[Independent bookstores] felt that only brick-and-mortar bookstores were any good. And I just thought
that was nonsense. So that’s why we’re now the nation’s ‘Long Distance Local Bookstore.’ Because people do want to buy things the way they want to buy things, and that might include online. And online doesn’t have to mean Amazon or big box. It can mean anyone who’s got an online presence, and we have a very strong one.” Makin says he was “shouted down in conferences” for suggesting that a brickand-mortar indie bookstore could shed the traditional bookstore business model and move aggressively toward modernization. To this day, Makin notes that it’s not uncommon to find a local bookstore with little to no web presence. Brilliant Books, meanwhile, has gone all-in online. The store’s website frequently highlights book recommendations from staff members, including blurbs arguing in favor of each chosen title. An active email newsletter keeps readers far and wide in the loop on the store’s latest events, deals, and book recommendations. And a comprehensive online database allows readers to order virtually any book they can think of from Brilliant Books and get it shipped to them for free (though locals can also opt to pick up orders at the store). Most crucial of all, Makin says, is the Brilliant Books Monthly subscription service, a “highly personalized book selection service” where readers fill out a preference card and then get one book – hand-selected by a Brilliant Books bookseller – sent to them each month for a year. Every month, Brilliant Books ships out subscription boxes
