50 Independent Bookstores in 50 Days
It wasn’t that long ago that the fate of the independent bookstore seemed in doubt.
Amazon started selling books in 1995. Over the following five years, the number of indie bookstores in the United States fell by 40 percent. Then came the introduction of the Kindle in 2007, the rise of the e-book, and the Great Recession, all of which put additional pressure on local booksellers. The future looked bleak.
Reports of the Bookstore’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance. For full infographic, click here.
And yet, not only did many independent bookstores survive, there has even been a resurgence. Between 2009 and 2015, in the midst of the so-called “retail apocalypse,” the number of bookstores actually rose by 35%. Last summer, the New York Times reported that membership in the American Booksellers Association, a trade group for independent bookstores, is at a ten-year high. From the Times article:
The success of independent bookstores has offered a lesson for other brick-and-mortar merchants: Become part of the local fabric.
“As more people spend more time online, they are looking for deeper ways to spend time with the community,” said Ryan Raffaelli, a Harvard Business School assistant professor who has studied indie bookstores’ reinvention. “Independent bookstores have become anchors of authenticity. This is almost like a social movement.”
In a segment earlier this week on the public radio show Marketplace—a segment, by the way, that featured our friends at Zenith Bookstore in Duluth!—Raffaelli said independent bookstores have also benefitted from the Buy Local movement they themselves helped create.
Kea Wilson wrote on our own site last year that indie bookstores are a literal case study “in the power of small, incrementally-built retail to anchor our local economies and social communities.” According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, local bookstores create more than twice as many jobs as Amazon (47 versus 19) for every $10 million in sales.
In other words, the resilience of the independent bookstore is good news not just for readers but for whole towns and cities.
50 Bookstores in 50 Days
Many of us sing the praises of our favorite indie bookstores. (Author’s prerogative: My favorites are Third Street Books in McMinnville, Oregon and Powell’s Books on Hawthorne in Portland.) But few of us actually sing—or rap—about them.
Enter Mason Engel.
Mason Engel is a multi-talented writer, speaker, and filmmaker. He’s also a passionate advocate of local bookstores. Last spring, Engel undertook an audacious road trip, visiting 50 independent bookstores in 50 days. The trip, he says, was initially designed “with my interests in mind”—specifically, the promotion of Engel’s science fiction novel, 2084.
But as he encountered community in one independent bookstore after another, something changed. In addition to promoting his own book, he wanted to celebrate the indie bookstores he was visiting, and their unmistakable role in making their communities stronger.
How did he do it? He wrote and recorded a rap about the trip, working the names of all 50 bookstores into the lyrics. And the results are pretty great.
A New Project
Planned route for the new documentary.
Engel’s advocacy for independent bookstores continues. He is now planning a full-length documentary built around another road trip—this time with a full camera crew. The documentary will explore, in part, the community-building power of the independent bookstore. Describing the new project on his website, Engel writes:
Modern technology can connect us with people around the world, but it can also make us distant from people right beside us. This isolation can lead to to anxiety, depression, and other mental/emotional trauma. Finding community in the physical world, not just the digital one, is the best way to combat this trend.
To track the project, make sure to follow Engel on Facebook, Instagram, and his website.
Long live the independent bookstore!
Do you have a favorite independent bookstore? If so, give it a shoutout in the comments below.
Top image via Pj Accetturo.
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