I agree with most of what you say. Remember, I have little love for the big box stores, and I also love local bookstores. Aesthetically, I’m with you.

But I want to add something else. I deny that bookstores must become increasingly nicheified to be successful. They will definitely need focus: a bookstore that sells everything and anything (ie an indiscriminate bookstore) is doomed from the start. But I think that niche can be replaced by relationship. (What that means is another post altogether.)

Again, I’d really like local bookstores to start thinking outside the box. I think there are multiple ways that local bookstores can successfully compete with B&N-types. Positive ways. Approaches that don’t start with the hopeless “local bookstores are dying” attitude. Tactics that provide all the things big box stores can’t.

Honestly, I think it comes down to this: I want local bookstores to accept their big box competition as a challenge. It may be unfair, it may be a tough go, but it’s only insurmountable if you give up or resign the battle.

In other words change from the ground up means working within the system, not complaining about how unfair it is.

I don’t think anyone is going to disagree with you about bad local bookstores. Here’s the thing, though: bad local bookstores go out of business even without the big-box bruisers like B&N or Borders coming in to gobble up the market. Precisely because they don’t have the massive capital support, not to mention the gov’t subsidies, they will not be able to stay in business unless they have a clientèle that likes them enough to shop there. So are there bad local bookstores? Naturally. But I can’t imagine many scenarios in which those bad bookstores will survive indefinitely. The big box stores, on the other hand, can survive longer because of the immense capital backing. Then, if the corporation pulls the plug on an unprofitable branch 4-5 years later, they’ll leave town, having already put many of the local stores out of business. They have no inherent connection to the local community, after all.

So basically, I wonder if the question is posed in the wrong direction. No one is defending bad local bookstores. But here’s the thing: it’s incredibly difficult to sustain the good local bookstores that you admire in an economy dominated by B&N, Borders, and the rest. It’s possible, but for the venture to survive, it will have to become increasingly niche-ified. The only extant independent bookstores left here in South Bend (a Catholic university town!) are open maybe 2-3 days per week; they’re run by retirees who don’t need the income; and they stock only very specific genres. For it to be more successful, an indie store would have to be positioned like Auntie’s in Spokane, which survives because the downtown district has kept out the big-box alternatives.

Again, I’m not offering a moral argument, as such, but an aesthetic one. All things being equal, I think you’d agree: a good independent bookstore offers a host of aesthetic qualities that your cookie-cutter Barnes and Noble does not.