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Not a goodbye for books
It takes a closer look to know that not everything is gloom and doom in the book industry. Bookworms are still around; they may just prefer a quieter hole to read.
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Umar Wirahadi Kusuma, owner of the Papat Limo bookstore in Blok M Square mall, South Jakarta, poses among piles of secondhand books on Sept. 8, 2022. Umar said his revenue dropped by around 70 percent over the last decade. (JP/Nina A. Loasana)
W
e were deeply saddened when we heard the news that Gunung Agung, one of the country’s oldest bookstore chains, was closing for good this year. After 70 years, the legendary bookstore is set to bring down the curtain on its remaining five outlets to end a decade of losses.
On the surface, it seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy of the digital era. Everything physical, music, books and even money, will turn virtual.
Gunung Agung is not alone. The United States’ Borders bookstore is long gone while Barnes & Noble Booksellers is closing stores. Singapore’s Kinokuniya is struggling to keep its shops open in Singapore and Indonesia.
It takes a closer look to know that not everything is gloom and doom in the book industry. Bookworms are still around; they may just prefer a quieter hole to read.
While the large stores that sell a large number of book selections along with stationary and knick-knacks for hobbies may be out of business, independent bookstores that run at low costs and have close connections with their communities have thrived.
In Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Denpasar and many other cities, many have blossomed, tying their shop with a café while operating as a small publisher. The same phenomenon occurs in the US. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, that forced many retailers to quit their business, new independent bookstore chains have emerged, focusing on the community, mostly immigrants and people of color, where they operate.
What may no longer be relevant is library-sized bookstores with enormous catalogs; the long lines of shelves which often take quite an effort to browse, especially when one already has one specific title to look for.
A large bookstore, which offers almost everything, along with comfortable sofas and sometimes cafés, used to be a recipe of success for Borders and Barnes & Noble and other large chains that follow. As the movie You’ve Got Mail puts so well, in the 1980s and 1990s the bookstore chains cannibalized their smaller contenders. The power of capital enabled them to offer a huge variety of books and comfort to customers.
These days, the wind is blowing in another direction. Decades after the advent of the digital era, people are used to shopping for their dream books online or by reading e-books.
In fact, it was the emergence of online shops that nailed the coffin for Borders in 2011. It chose to expand heavily on physical stores and its CD and DVD sections, and outsourced its online service to Amazon. Barnes & Noble opted to develop its digital business, investing in online stores and even developing its own e-reader, the Nook.
Fast forward a decade later, brick-and-mortars continued to struggle amid skyrocketing rental fees. And this is not only for books or publishing companies, but also for restaurants and electronics. As cities are getting crowded and travel is becoming more exhausting with a lot of congestion, it is easier and more convenient to shop from home.
The retail business for books seems to have evolved and adapted to the needs of communities and the people they belong to.
Amazon, the crusader of Borders that later had (ironically) also tried to establish physical stores that sell books, toys and home goods, closed all of its brick-and-mortar shops in the US and United Kingdom in 2022. It has chosen to expand its grocery and department stores.
In the case of Kinokuniya, after it closed down its beloved store in Plaza Senayan in South Jakarta, it has opened another, which is comparable in size and convenience, in Pantai Indah Kapuk, a new affluent area on the reclaimed land of North Jakarta.
So, this is far from the end of books and bookstores. It is more like another turn of the page. As the digital era has become the norm, we have also seen its drawbacks. Physical or digital books are no longer substitutes as both are complementary in our lives.
