Turning the page

Clarke and Stone technical bookstore on the east end of downtown Spokane closed Thursday after more than 17 years in business. The owners are marketing the business with hopes someone new might carry on the tradition of providing manuals for the health care and construction industries.

Second Look Books on the South Hill is being offered for sale after 24 years in business, with the owner citing a need to slow down due to ill health.

And New Dawn Books, a metaphysical bookstore on the ground floor of the Ridpath Hotel in downtown Spokane, recently announced its plan to close after 19 years in business.

At least three other longtime Spokane bookstores, stretching from downtown to the Garland district, have been sold in the past couple of years, with the owners retiring and taking decades of experience with them. Others, such as the Spokane Book Center and SunTree Books, have simply closed. And Arthur H. Clark Co., a Millwood-based publisher of books about the American West, was sold to the University of Oklahoma Press in the spring.

At a time when national statistics show independent booksellers gaining ground on their national chain counterparts, and when sales of books are rising, Spokane’s independent bookselling industry appears to be wildly in flux. Some bookstore owners say it’s just a coincidence that so many long-time business owners are checking out at the same time, some citing a need for a change, others blaming ill health. But others say it’s a sign that Spokane consumers shun independent businesses in favor of national chains and corporations. That has made the bookselling industry too difficult to compete in and has caused a mass exodus of business owners, they say.

“Spokane is going to get what it desires as far as businesses. If it’s not going to support small independent businesses, independent owners are going to close or move. There’s no reason for them to put energy or money into a town that’s not going to support them back,” said Gregory Delzer, who bought Defunct Books at 123 S. Wall Street three years ago. The business has existed, in some form, for 50 years, Delzer said.

Julie Clarke, co-owner of Clarke and Stone, said she is leaving the bookselling business because her husband retired and they want to focus on developing the remaining two floors of the Globe Building, at Division Street and Main Avenue. The building has housed the technical bookstore for 10 years. But Clarke also acknowledges a shift in the industry.

“We have had a bit of a generational situation here locally that people have come to that point where they either need to do, or want to do, something else and cannot find a successor,” Clarke said. “I would want the community to think about that.”

This is happening at a time when statistics say independent booksellers are gaining ground nationally. Citing an Ipsos BookTrends study, the American Booksellers Association reported last May that independent and small chain bookstores’ market share rose to 9 percent in 2004, up 2.1 percent from 2002. And the Indianapolis Star reported recently that consumers spent $52 billion last year on books, up 5.6 percent from 2004.

Oregon-based Powell’s Books reported last May that the book industry is undergoing a cultural shift, in which the demand for used books is growing faster than that for new books. With 95 percent of all books out-of-print, Powell’s has redoubled efforts to buy and offer used volumes, the bookstore said in a news release. That information would seem to bode well for sellers of used books, the focus of many independent booksellers in Spokane.

However, bookstore owners describe a battle for sales that they must wage on many fronts. They cite increasing challenges in competing with the advertising dollars of national chains, while providing online sales and keeping up a storefront that is appealing enough to tempt in passersby.

“That’s what we’re all in these days, is the entertainment business. You’re not marketing books, you’re marketing the experience of coming to Auntie’s,” said Chris O’Harra, owner of Auntie’s Bookstore in downtown Spokane. “You just never can coast. It’s always trying to figure out one more way to squeeze a little more out of the sale.”

It’s an industry in which each item – individual books – must be marketed separately as opposed to the mass marketing of items such as digital cameras or cashmere sweaters. And in Spokane, it’s an industry that’s home to two national chains, Borders and Barnes & Noble, and one regional chain, Hastings.

“We’re having probably one of our toughest years. There is just so much competition. People can get books in so many different places,” said O’Harra, citing the availability of books everywhere from grocery stores to Costco. “That just makes it so difficult for the independent.”

Hal Moos bought Booktraders, at 907 W. Garland, two weeks ago. The 2,200-square-foot store carries everything from antique books to collector comic books and western-themed magazines. The previous owner retired after 24 years in business. Moos said he bought the business for his daughter, a Las Vegas Realtor who wants to retire to Spokane. However, he has no illusions about the industry’s potential.

“Unfortunately, most of them are going out of business. It’s a terribly tough industry because of the Internet and the great big giant bookstores,” said Moos, who personally owns 310,000 paperback books, which he says is the world’s largest collection.”If we come close to breaking even, we’ll be very happy.”