When Peter Aaron closes shop in Pioneer Square and brings his book store to Capitol Hill this spring, he’ll be exploring uncharted territory. Elliott Bay Book Co. will become the Hill’s largest retailer and likely a compass of the area’s economic strength. But the trail isn’t completely unexplored. There are harbingers to consider and learn from. Here are a few thoughts about the new world of book retailing from Capitol Hill shop owners who shared their insights in comments.

First, a roster of what has come before and what bookstores are operating on the Hill today:

Welcome EBBC: here’s your competition

(Try and play nice. We’d hate to hear you ruined the neighborhood).

So for book retailers: we’ve got Spine & Crown, TwiceSold Tales, Quest Bookshop, HalfPriceBooks, City Books (at 1305 Madison), and might I add Bauhaus, Seattle U bookstore on 12th, SCCC bookstore on Broadway, Travellers on E. Pine, Cathedral Shop at St. Mark’s & (for certain younger crowds) Izilla Toys. Pilot books is also alive and well, for the elite literatti. And Gamma Ray Games for the folks that like dice with their books.

And are Pistil (that went online), Fillipi, Fun Time Inc, Edge of the Circle & Multilingual Books still around??

Library-wise we’ve got the SPL Susan Henry, as well as the painfully unique ‘Zine archive at Richard Hugo House.

Comment by CapHillBookLovers

Today:

• Spine & Crown
• Twice Sold Tales
• Half Price Books
• Pilot Books
• City Books
• Louis Collins Rare Books
• Edge of the Circle
• Quest Book Shop
• Broadway Video (cinema books)
• Bauhaus
• Seattle University Book Store
• Seattle Central Book Store
• Travelers
• St. Mark’s Gift Shop
• Izilla Toys
• Horizon (online)
• Pistil Books (online)

Come and Gone since ’93 (courtesy Pistil’s willieopal):

Red & Black Books

Pages (in the same space as Red & Black)

Beyond the Closet (on Pike)

Dundee Books (this was around for only about a year on Pike St.)

Horizon Books (used books on 15th, moved to 10th and online)

Fallout Records (they had comics and zines)

Automotive Books (specialty store on 12th Ave.)

Co-op Books (little leftist store on 18th Ave.)

Pathfinder Books (socialist bookstore on Madison)

Warehouse Books (in the Broadway Market)

Chameleon Books (on 15th)

Boticelli Books (where Spine & Crown is now)

Bailey/Coy

And now a few observations from the pathfinders.

Kristofor Minta finally got to see Spine and Crown make the pages of the Stranger as Elliott Bay’s move put the Hill’s book retailing culture in the spotlight. While his analysis of brick and mortar book retailing shared in our CHS comments is mostly hard-edged and matter-of-fact, there is a warm and fuzzy message of hope buried in there. Somewhere. Dig:

First a shout out to the late, lamented Confounded Books (formerly sharing space with Wall of Sound Records.) Zines, indie comics, books, artsy and hipster fodder – no one has filled this niche- it was a place that made Seattle feel more cosmopolitan and so a double loss.

As for the end of book shops (shops dedicated to selling books – not corporate media stores selling a smattering of what’s currently in print alongside DVDs, CDs, blank journals, coffee, internet kiosks, tote bags, magazines, etc.), the check is in the mail. I run Spine and Crown, and I can tell you that independent book shops stay open through sheer will power, a very little money, and nothing else. If will or money falter, the shop is gone.

Yes, books will still be around in the future, as will booksellers. But don’t confuse the phenomenon of the book shop with the phenomenon of the book trade. The book trade, thanks to the internet, can now continue happily on without shops. I sell a lot online. In fact, I would make more money if I closed my shop. And it’s not the economy – my through-the-door trade has rarely ever exceeded my rent and often fell under it. So what keeps it going? Will power. The belief that a book shop has an important role to play in a community. But it won’t take many more bumps in the road for us to go the way of Pistil. I often think of them with envy. They travel, and I think I’ve seen Sean and Amy having fun once or twice. I work 6 days a week and can’t afford to get away. (Poor me! Could be unemployed, like everyone else!)

So. Bookselling will always exist (catering to an ever smaller, aging market), and book shops may always exist – but very few will in cities. Not unless rents come down (around the time pigs fly) or we find landlords more concerned with culture than profit (not unheard of, but rare as hen’s teeth.) Book shops will NEVER be able to pay Starbucks money for a retail space. Given the prospects, I see running a book shop primarily as a big middle finger aimed at all the trends in society worth opposing. But it’s mostly that: an impotent gesture.

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originally uploaded by quaziefoto.

And while I’m at it, what no one wants to acknowledge, but that booksellers seem to understand well is that few people actually seem to LIKE reading anymore. I cater to the hardcore reader, the person who would buy books even if it meant they’d go hungry. There used to be a lot more of these people. Most of the money in the book trade today is made selling middle of the road, middle-brow stuff to a sleepy majority who read half a dozen books individually per year. These people can take or leave reading. They’d be just as happy on their xbox or watching a movie. Happier, even. Business-wise, I don’t care about those people. I don’t care about their books.

A way of life is passing – for better or worse- and most people won’t notice until it’s all over. Shoe repair used to be a really common business, back when shoes weren’t disposable. One in every neighborhood. There are still a few around, so people, if they ever think of the topic, don’t lament the widespread loss of these shops. The shoe repair trade is only vastly diminished, not extinct. It’s not considered a tragedy because circumstances simply changed – shoe repair became mostly unnecessary. Welcome to the future of book shops.

Comment by Kris

Here’s what Summer Robinson of Pilot Books had to say in response:

I can’t agree more with the comments from Kris of Spine & Crown. Like Louis Collins, Seattle Mystery Bookshop, Open Books, Wessel & Lieberman, and others, (including the shop I run, Pilot Books), we’re all going after special readers. What we offer in-store can’t be duplicated online. It’s not a tragedy that books (or any form of communication/knowledge/experience) are available to wider audiences online. Independent bookstores will just have to change shape and forget “middle of the road” books as money-makers.

Bailey/Coy’s closure has definitely made me sad and nervous. (Whenever I knew one of their first-lines, I would stop whatever I was doing to go inside and usually bought more than one book.) BUT! As far as I’m concerned, my business has practically no relation to the Barnes & Noble best-seller display. Even less to the Costco/QFC/Big Lots paperback aisle. They need to exist, and so do I. Because we’re so different, we can co-exist. Hell, I can’t blame anyone but myself if my business fails. And even then, I don’t think “blame” is the right word…

From what I can tell, any kind of small business is a force of will. Bookstores, cafes, restaurants, clothing boutiques, we’re all in the same boat. And the results are the same. How many small businesses blink in and out of existence on the hill and throughout Seattle? They’re fragile not only due to thin margins and market pressures, but because they’re usually dependent on one or two owners (read: masochists) to keep them going.

I say, love (read: patronize) your local small businesses while they’re there, miss them when they’re gone, but don’t despair. There will always be something new. Books might be the new vinyl, but then, we still have a few record shops kicking around, don’t we? Don’t we?

Comment by Summer

Now that you’ve heard the owners of Spine and Crown and Pilot Books agree on all the things that are wrong about running a book store, here’s Bailey Coy’s Michael Wells on why he thinks Pilot — and stores like it — might be getting it right:

More advice from the comments:

It’s probably true that fewer people have the time or courage or available attention to read, oh, The Death of Virgil, unless it’s assigned in a course they’re taking. But my sense (I’m a writer and small-time publisher) is that there are a number of restless readers looking for the sort of books that will never get on Kindle. The problem for them is how to recognize a book that will repay the investment of time (and money), when it’s not a best-seller by a known author revising some dead author and adding zombies or sea-monsters. A book needs a frame more than just the curly fonts that declare that it’s for young women. So my proposal to indie bookstores is to become curated bookstores. I don’t mean “staff picks,” and I don’t mean that the whole shop needs to specialize in one area, but that creating shelves or whole cases of books that contextualize each other, so that a potential reader buyer can see how the title fits in to some sort of conversation, might lower the anxiety threshold that we always feel in bookstores.

Comment by Tom La Farge

And don’t let the bathhouse next door scare you:

3) only the gays and the in-the-know straights will realize there is a bathhouse next door. I still encounter people who LIVE on the Hill who don’t know that there’s a sex club on that street. Most people are oblivious to the unobvious…like the tourists in Times Square who ate at Howard Johnson not realizing a notorious gay strip club The Gaity was upstairs…

Comment by Michael Strangeways

Don’t worry. Nobody knows it’s there.