Death of the Bookshop
As an undergraduate studying English, one thing I can count on each and every term is the fact that I’m going to have a reading list as long as my arm. Being a student whose money situation can be summed up with the words ‘never enough’, having to buy 10-20 brand new books per term could end up costing me hundreds of pounds. I do have the option of course, of looking around the independent bookshops I know of, in order to find what I need at a lower price and in a friendlier environment. Unfortunately, the last time I went on such a foray, I found myself standing outside a clothes shop that I was certain had housed hundreds of works of literature only a couple of months previously.
That particular moment, dear reader, got me thinking. Why should it be that so many independent bookshops have to close down, never to be heard of again? As many of my readers probably know, I’m very much the supporter of smaller businesses, especially when it comes to booksellers. This article will therefore concentrate on uncovering the reasons behind ‘The Death of the Bookshop’.
Arguably, the biggest ‘threat’ to bookshops is the internet. Why go to all the trouble of going somewhere to hunt for a book they may not have, when you can simply order one from Ebay or Amazon for about the same price? The age of ‘getting stuff quickly and easily’ is definitely in full swing, and you can kind of see the point when it comes to people who don’t have that much time to be able to traipse around and search for what they want. Also, with pieces of technology such as the Kindle Reader and the iwhatever becoming increasingly popular, more people are reverting to electronic versions of books in order to save space and get what they want with relative ease. Even Google Books are still hard at work, putting up electronic versions of non-copyright books left, right and centre. (Personally, I can’t quibble at this, since I’ve been known to utilise this free service on a number of occasions due to my University degree).
This isn’t to say that this reason should technically make us assume that the Internet is as evil as a T-Rex with a headache of course, but those musings will take place in my next article, in order to save overlapping here.
Also, as I’ve covered before, it’s a pretty safe assumption that people aren’t reading as much as they used to…or at least, the younger generations aren’t. (Not for leisure, in any case). Obviously, less reading leads to less books being needed, which in turn leads to bookshops becoming places that don’t even register in peoples’ consciousnesses in between Primark and HMV. They aren’t even the type of thing people would tend to go in and browse, unless reading is actually one of their hobbies.
The last ‘main’ reason for the slow death which independent bookshops are now facing, is the simple fact that such shops are unable to compete with the bigger chain stores such as Waterstones and W.H.Smiths. The two mentioned companies are able to spend thousands on window dressings, promotion…and of course, they get all of the latest bestsellers on the shelves the moment they leave the presses. Most of the time all independent bookshops can hope to achieve in that regard is to get either very good second-hand copies of books, or to hope for bulk-buys of ‘B-List’ books from the publishers. Of course, this means that they’re hardly going to have the latest in the ‘Twilight’ saga, and therefore no queues of people eager to get their hands on the latest read.
I’ve only managed to cover a handful of what I believe to be the main reasons for the untimely demise of the independent bookshop. There are probably many more causes, but I think there are enough here for you to all ponder over for a while, dear readers. My next article will aim to focus on the potential ways in which bookshops may be able to dig themselves out of this difficult situation. In the mean time, I’m off to the market to pick up a nice paperback for myself.
My wife has been trying to choose between purchasing a Kindle DX or an iRex Digital reader. Any suggestions?