Book business is strong

But beware: Rising real estate costs pose threat

also continues to grow, both in terms of the number of stores and overall sales. The National Booksellers Association reports that there are 40 percent more independent bookstores today than in 2009.

However, not all the news in Bookworld is positive. Barnes & Noble is, according to CNNMoney, “in serious trouble.” Its CEO, Demos Parneros, was fired in July following charges of sexual harassment, and its same-quarter sales are down more than 6 percent.

But even the troubled times for Barnes & Noble suggest a silver lining. Bookworld is communicating what people want in their physical stores: something local, curated and appropriate to the place in which it operates. Mass retailing seems inconsistent with what readers want, as anyone who has set foot in one of those bricks-andmortar Amazon abominations knows.

As rosy and wonderful as this picture of Bookworld is, there is a threat on the horizon, and we must be vigilant.

That potential threat? Real estate. Writing recently at Electric Lit, Erin Bartnett highlights the plight of New York’s McNally Jackson Bookstore, which has had to leave its longtime Soho location because it no longer can afford the rent. As the economic recovery drives up the value of real estate, businesses that may be profitable, but run on a low margin, are squeezed out.

Bartnett highlights a series of tweets from Lexi Beach, the co-owner of Astoria Bookshop in Queens, N.Y. Beach identifies a fundamental problem confronted by neighborhoods and neighborhood businesses: When the real estate is owned by people who do not live in the neighborhood, they do not care about maintaining the kinds of spaces that make neighborhoods most livable. As long as maximum rent is being paid, so be it.

What we in Bookworld must remember is that, in many cases, these independent bookstores were early on the scene because they had to go where the rents were low. The mere presence of the bookstore attracts other businesses and more people, starting a process that may ultimately price that bookstore out of the neighborhood it helped revitalize.

The solution, as Beach says, is in seeing bookstores and other local businesses as part of the community and developing policies and practices that make it possible for small businesses to thrive.

Our communities are ecosystems; they benefit from the presence of bookstores. The problem is going to be especially acute in places like New York City, but it could happen anywhere, including Chicago.

Times are good in Bookworld, which is why we need to be planning for a future when things aren’t so robust.