Bookbook and the Beast

Bookbook is not a bookstore in the modern sense of the word. It does not consist of three stories, no one sells e-readers, and the store is not equipped with a fleet of staff members. The shop’s inventory is marked with hand-written price tags and owners Chuck and Carolyn Epstein work behind a small register that sits across a shelf labeled “Children’s Books.”

In a market where many people purchase books online or read electronically, retailers like Bookbook are rare. More and more, independent booksellers in New York City are forced to shut their doors due to high rent and competition with larger retailers. In 2009, after over 20 years of business, repeated rent increases forced the Epsteins to move their store, formerly known as Biography Bookshop, to a new, more affordable location. Bookbook employs a series of strategies unique to smaller businesses to attract customers and sustain itself in a neighborhood where rent is high and location is paramount.

Before moving to its current location at 266 Bleecker St., Bookbook was located at 400 Bleecker St. The store’s former spot, on the corner of Bleecker Street and West 11^th Street, was ideal for the bookstore, Carolyn Epstein said.

Epstein said the corner provided ample space for sale tables. The new location, in the middle of the block, provides less space for sale tables that attract much of Bookbook’s business.

“We get at least as much traffic if not more but people would buy eight or 10 books in the old location instead of one or two here,” Epstein said.

Bookbook sells much of their inventory at reduced prices. By buying remainders from publishers, Epstein said, Bookbook is able to sell books at a fraction of their normal retail price. At Bookbook, The Age of Extremes, by Eric Hobsbawm, sells for $5.58, as opposed to its $19.00 list price.

The main ways Bookbook attracts shoppers is with low prices and continual discounts. Hardcover books are always 20 percent off and all New York University students are given 10 percent discounts. Epstein said that larger retailers could not implement these types of discounts. “It is something a smaller store can do but volume is important,” she said.

Epstein said she hopes these kinds of discounts will attract more customers, allowing her to keep prices low and maintain a profit. “Business is good in the new location but it needs to do better,” she said.

For independent bookstores across the country, maintaining a profitable business has become more and more difficult. According to a study conducted by the Small Business Development Center in 2007, the number of independently owned bookstores decreased from 4,700 to 2,000 from 1993 to 2004. In the span of eleven years, almost 60 percent of independent stores were forced to close.

Jeff Milchen, of the American Independent Business Alliance, said selling books is one of the most competitive businesses in today’s market. He said this competition is due to online sellers, major retailers and the new trend of e-readers. “Bookselling is definitely one of the most challenging businesses you can run independently,” Milchen said.

Booksellers across New York City have experienced this competition firsthand. In an e-mail interview, Chris Doeblin, a founding member of the Independent Booksellers of NYC (IBNYC), wrote that few independent shops have been able to sustain their businesses in the current economic climate. “Much of the battle is a question of real estate,” he wrote. “Those of us in pockets where the rent allows us to compete manage to survive.”

But Milchen said it is not necessarily all bad news for booksellers. “The encouraging thing for bookstores is that they’ve become the most proactive independent businesses in the

country,” he said. By working together with other businesses and joining community alliances and trade associations, many bookstores are able to sustain their businesses and gain community support, Milchen said. Bookbook is a member of the IBNYC, which works to promote the value of independent stores in their communities.

But despite the use of discounts and membership in community alliances, Bookbook was confronted with rent increases that afflict many small businesses. “The rent went up eight times,” Epstein said. After these increases, Epstein said Bookbook had no choice but to relocate to a less expensive area of the West Village.

On September 3, 2010, Marc Jacobs, whose women’s wear store is located on 385 Bleecker St., opened a bookstore of his own, BookMarc, in Bookbook’s former location. In an e-mail interview, Scott Gray of Marc Jacobs International wrote that when 400 Bleecker St. became available, Mark Duffy, president of Marc Jacobs International, thought it would be a perfect place to sell the small selection of books the company carried in their apparel stores.

BookMarc, unlike Bookbook, is not independently owned but part of Marc Jacobs International. The store’s inventory is vastly different from Bookbook’s. BookMarc sells fashion, art and photography books, as well as some first editions, Gray wrote. Joseph Weiner, a sales associate at the store, said, “We definitely wanted to branch out away from any other bookstore.”

Weiner said that since its opening, BookMarc has been drawing crowds. “People associate this area with the Marc Jacobs name now because our women’s store has been there for so long,” he said, “it definitely helps being a Marc store in the neighborhood.”

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