Has the time of the community bookstore passed?
Why did the little independent bookstore I opened fail? I've avoided this subject for a good six months now, afraid to take a look back at the past year to see What I Did Wrong. There's a very important reason I was afraid: because I was asking the wrong question.
When I first embarked on this adventure, it was with the "knowledge" that communities need indies. I put that in scare quotes for a reason. What I though was a truth was actually a perception. It was the perception of many people I knew, all of whom cherished the same things I did: literature, community, education, and a host of other good things.
There are a lot of things start-up business owners are told to assess before opening, but the largest is customer base. What the business folks imply but don't directly come out and say is this: Do people WANT your service/product or do they NEED it? The answer to that, I'm realizing now, is what directly affected my store's success and subsequent failure.
Americans aren't the best judges of what they want or need. Take, for instance, entertainment. People are willing to spend large amounts of money on certain types of entertainment, but nothing on others. The reasons for that have developed over millennia, but needless to say, movies and video games take up the largest percent of the spending dollars while books and the arts account for very little anymore. In most American minds, TV shows and movies are NECESSITIES. Netflix has capitalized on this perceived need, offering access to all of the shows and videos a person could ever want.
Books and various arts, on the other hand, have suffered in recent years, and are now relegated to WANT. Many people won't pay for books anymore because they've simply grown accustomed to borrowing them from the library, from friends, from school.
And so bookstores, libraries, theaters, and museums are relegated to the role of LUXURY. We'd LIKE to see the ballet, but we HAVE to see the new Johnny Depp film. So we happily hand over $10–$20 to see a movie in cinematic 3-D but balk at paying more than that to see something in real live 3-D up on stage. Need vs. Want.
Now is the part where I had these two things confused. When I first decided to open a bookstore, I narrowed the focus to kids and teens. Kids NEED books to become educated and learn creativity. The store I created would have a welcoming atmosphere, becoming a gathering space within the community and providing literary and educational services and opportunities to local families. I still consider this a NEED.
The general public, however, is increasingly viewing this as a WANT; something nice to have but not necessary to living a fulfilling life. Most of the people I told of my efforts said something along the lines of "That's what this area NEEDS." I took that to heart. Of course the community needs what I want to offer them.
I was wrong. Or at least I was wrong in the assumption that when people recognized that it was a NEED, they would be willing to spend some of their hard-earned cash at the store. After all, they NEED it.
What I didn't realize is that perception is king when it comes to spending money. Most people never saw it as a NEED; more, it was a cute little WANT that would be nice to visit if they ever had a spare moment. The problem is, not enough people found that moment of spare time to stop by, and even fewer of those people thought of books as NEEDS. In essence, I had created the perfect little place to sit, relax, and browse FOR FREE. They didn't have to pay to browse or enjoy the atmosphere, so they took the free WANT and spent their money on other entertainment NEEDS.
Another aspect to this is how people subconsciously consider it a WANT to have locally owned independent bookstores, but a NEED to get books cheap. There are many reasons this has happened, but for now I'll narrow it to the largest two.
Culture of Free: I can't remember the first time I went to the library. That's probably because I've been borrowing books there before my earliest conscious thought. In those days, it was my mom taking out books and reading them to me. Later, it became my very own library card, which I could use with abandon. And none of it cost me a dime. At that young age, taxes and community services didn't mean anything. All I knew is that I wanted to read, and I could do it all I wanted at the library. That isn't a bad thing because we NEED libraries as a society. All I'm saying is that with the introduction of FREE at such a young age, we become addicted to acquiring knowledge and finding entertainment without paying a conscious price for it. When we become adults, it can be hard to break from that habit and spend money on a book we'd LIKE but don't NEED.
The other big cause, which also receives a great deal of the blame—earned or not—falls into the realm of the Culture of DISCOUNT. Walmart, the business we all love to hate, filled the world with the concept of CHEAPER. It's not that we want to buy junk; no, we want to buy quality goods but get them cheaper than anywhere else. We won't pay full price for anything; it must all be at a DISCOUNT. Then Amazon entered the world with its religion of CHEAPEST of all from the comfort of your own home. No need to venture to a store. Click a few buttons and get it CHEAPEST—with FREE shipping. The world of CHEAP has reached its pinnacle. (At least I pray this is the peak of the cheapness curve. I don't know if society can survive if we push it much further.)
Now here's the key to the culture of CHEAP, which brings us back to the principles of WANT vs NEED: People are not willing to spend as much on a WANT when they know they can find it much cheaper somewhere else. Hence, an independent bookstore is a purveyor of EXPENSIVE WANTS, otherwise known as LUXURY. It feels good to spend on LUXURY every once in a while, but for the most part, we adhere religiously to DISCOUNTS and CHEAP.
That, then, was the fate of my bookstore before I'd even started, and I doubt it's something I would have ever realized had I not gone through the process of opening—and closing—Fire Petal Books. Sadly, I see the LUXURY of indies fading much too quickly for the good of our culture, though stalwarts will still fight on.
That's not to say I won't support my nearest indie whenever possible, but at 30 minutes from my home—passing one Costco, two Sam's Clubs, at least half a dozen chain bookstores, and innumerable Walmarts and Targets along the way—the voyage becomes one of LUXURY.
And so I, too, have become victim of the CHEAP plague. Without the income a business would have provided, I'm forced to make each penny bend and twist into unimaginable contortions. I WANT to purchase all of my books from indies, but in my current situation it is an impossibility. I'll never give up reading, and so for the next while I'll be forced to spend my money on NEEDS like food and housing while subsisting on the library's proffered FREE. What I WANT and NEED are at odds, just like it is for so many others. Right now, that's how it has to be.
Michelle Witte opened then later closed children's bookstore Fire Petal Books in Centerville, Utah, during 2010. She currently works as a freelance writer and editor.
