Bookstore Survival

One of my greatest fears in this pandemic is kind of selfish.  I’ve previously written about how I love to just spend an afternoon browsing a bookstore, but with everything going on, I wonder how bookstores survive.

Regardless of what you think of all of these governmental restrictions – and I definitely have my own thoughts – they are in place, and many small businesses are not going to survive.  Bookstores in particular rely on casual traffic to make most of their sales.  After all, with Amazon and other sites online nowadays, people who have a specific book in mind usually just go online to buy it since it’s more convenient.  However, walking through a bookstore gets people interested in stuff they never considered, or reminds them, “Oh yeah, I forgot that was coming out; I’ll go ahead and grab it now.”  But if people can’t walk through a bookstore, they can’t buy from that store.

Now, there is a bit of irony in places like Barnes & Noble being the “small businesses” after once being the behemoths that ran small mom and pop stores out of business.  The entire plot of You’ve Got Mail revolved about a giant book retailer putting Meg Ryan’s tiny little shop out of business.  Now, unfortunately, the virus and online retailers are doing that to brick and mortar stores.

However, if that happened., I think we book lovers would lose a vital part of our lives.  Books are about more than picking a specific one and sitting down to read it.  They’re about finding the right tome in the midst of other tomes.  They’re about breathing in the environment, as one book may inspire you to find another.  Or maybe to find something you didn’t even know you were interested in.

Hopefully this ends soon.  When it does, go to a bookstore and find something you love.  Then buy it from that bookstore.  Otherwise you’ll lose something you love, and you’ll be at fault.