According to the owners of the independent mystery bookstore formerly
in Dupont Circle, Washington, DC, 9/11 killed their business. They had
not realized how much of their business had actually been
tourist-based. Other independents have gone and some remain. But the
reasons may vary. The economy is likely to be having a bigger impact
that the bargin stores or online.
On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 1:14 PM, Patrick King <abrasax93@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Fred, the problem is it may not be possible for the two to co-exist. 10 years ago there were 5900 independent bookstores in this country, now there are 1200. We've also lost half the chain stores. And guess what--bookstores are still closing, just read a blogger today writing about how the last 2 bookstores in Springfield, Ohio are closing. It's actually pretty simple--if enough people move to e-readers where the remaining bookstores lose enough customers where they have to close, then we got no more brick & mortar bookstores. And guess what happens as bookstores close--other than the fact that more readers will feel compelled to move e-readers that they didn't really want want--the publishers (both independent and corporate) who depend on these bookstores either shutdown or scale back dramatically. John Grisham and others have also been making these same (to me obvious) observations- -that a minority of people moving to ereaders could force everyone to
> move ereaders as bookstores close.
-- Anthony Dauer Annandale, Virginia
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 20 Dec 2009 EST