Independent Bookstores Seek More Flexible Terms from Publishers—and Their Wishes Might Be Granted

Booksellers hope publishers will help preserve the entire book ecosystem and culture for future generations; publishers like Penguin Random House have indicated a desire to help

Within the last week, several events have discussed post-pandemic bookselling and the most pressing concerns of independent bookstores. As book publishers enjoy their biggest growth in a decade, the same success and profitability has not been realized by bookstores. It’s not just that lockdowns cut down on their business but that the shift to online ordering—even for those stores that have prospered through ecommerce—comes with serious tradeoffs that undercut their long-term value in their communities.

The two key discussions we attended were hosted by the Book Industry Study Group (moderated by its executive director, Brian O’Leary) and the US Book Show (moderated by Ed Nawotka of Publishers Weekly).

First, it’s important to realize, as Nawotka underscored: Every bookstore is individual. The industry is not monolithic. The concerns of a single, small suburban store will be quite different from that of a store with multiple outlets, like Tattered Cover in Colorado. Bookstores come in all shapes and sizes and have different ways of serving their communities. But, keeping that in mind, definite themes emerged in the panels.

Independent booksellers need the support of publishers to survive, and part of that support will need to be financial. Some booksellers would like to see backlist sold on more generous or flexible terms than frontlist—which requires a bit of explanation if you’re not in the business.

Retailers can order stock from publishers either as a returnable account or a non-returnable account. Independent bookstores tend to operate as returnable accounts: they can send books back to the publisher for credit if they don’t sell. However, non-returnable accounts get more favorable discounts. As of today, booksellers can’t switch things up from order to order—one returnable and the other not—but they want that flexibility with backlist in particular.

Emily Crowe, one of the bookstore managers at An Unlikely Story in Plainville, MA, said that some publishers offer a higher discount on backlist titles, which she loves—and that makes business sense, as bookstores rarely return backlist. Mark Laframboise, head book buyer at Politics & Prose in Washington, DC, agreed with Crowe. “Returnability is key if we’re taking a risk on a new title or author that doesn’t have a track record.” But if he’s stocking Jane Austen, he would prefer to buy that non-returnable. “I would never dare return any of those books.”

Elsewhere, James Daunt—CEO of Barnes & Noble and Waterstones—has said he thinks the future of bookselling is a firm no-returns policy. He told The Bookseller (subscription required), “Margins need to be adjusted to allow bookshops to absorb the costs that are associated with that, and it would save immensely on transport and all the rest.”

The pandemic, of course, has complicated the picture. Laframboise observed that frontlist has turned into backlist in a particularly problematic way during the last year due to low foot traffic in store. “You have to take things off of display while they’re still selling,” he said, to make room for new titles. He wonders if publishers could create a third category of title—in terms of discounting—that would help bookstores merchandise those books longer and prolong their shelf life, to make up for all the time that their customers weren’t around to browse.

Big publishers may in fact be open to more flexible terms for stores. In a May 24 conversation between Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle and author Adam Grant, Dohle said they’re working on “a big comeback of physical retail post-pandemic,” inspired by how resilient print sales were in 2020 and still in 2021. While Dohle emphasized that PRH is “channel agnostic” and the publisher wants to grow in all channels, they believe that bookstores are extremely important for the reading culture. “For people to really browse, to be able to discover our books, we need to make them visible, not only on the internet, but physically in bookstores. We have to keep them available. We have to fight for as many retail locations as possible in the US and globally to carry our books.” He said supporting physical retail means offering stores more financial flexibility in making payments, with more time to sell the books they order, to facilitate good cash flow.

So that brings us to the all-important question: Will more generous terms from publishers be enough to preserve the bookstore ecosystem? Probably not, and that’s because of Amazon. In the US Book Show discussion, four booksellers from across the country emphasized that their number-one customer service issue is explaining to customers why their prices aren’t as low as Amazon’s and why they can’t deliver a book to someone’s home in 24–48 hours (the equivalent of Amazon Prime). Danny Caine, owner of Raven Book Store in Kansas, said, “I would love to see more partnership on this Amazon problem with publishers,” with all stakeholders addressing it as an industry problem and not just a bookstore problem. Kwame Spearman, the CEO and owner of Tattered Cover Book Store in Colorado, said, “My concern with Amazon is that it feels predatory. … They can totally have loss leaders that are not normal for business. When someone is acting in that type of way, we literally can’t compete. If you want independent bookstores, if you want any independent retail, you have to be vocal, you have to talk to your local politicians about it, and we have to reform. … If we don’t stop it now, we’re not going to survive.”

Publishers are not eager to antagonize what is their biggest account, but there are signs they may be willing to do something. Going back to the Dohle conversation, he argued that it is necessary for PRH to support “all constituencies” in the publishing community (author, agent, bookseller, and so on) to ensure the ecosystem will remain stable and be positioned for future growth. But Dohle also made the business reality very clear: four out of 10 PRH titles are currently sold by Amazon on a global basis. (In the US, it’s five out of 10.) While PRH is investing in physical retail, Dohle said they are also “massively investing” in a new paradigm of marketing, publicity, and sales that can be successful in an online world where algorithms, not people, recommend books.

Some booksellers say their entire business model needs to be reconsidered. This was argued during the BISG panel by Jeff Deutsch, director of the Seminary Co-op Bookstores in Chicago, the first not-for-profit bookstore in the US. Deutsch said the model of bookselling that stores have inherited from decades ago, prior to the advent of ecommerce and Amazon, is “not built for us”; just facilitating more sales, more efficiently, is not the way for bookstores to survive. Moreover, the kind of bookstore that readers and publishers tend to patronize and idealize is not overly media driven. It carries a lot of backlist and helps readers discover new voices—which takes time. Deutsch said, “The publishing world and distributors—what you value is not our ability to sell books,” because independent bookstores can never sell in the same volume as Amazon. “Yet we all know how important bookstores are,” he said. He pointed to the patience required of both publishers and booksellers to support and discover authors slowly, over time.

While Deutsch didn’t express it in this way, it felt like he was advocating a philosophy akin to the Slow Food movement: not rushed, but deliberate; not focused on profit, but on the values and ideas being put into the world. Nina Barrett, owner of Bookends & Beginnings in Illinois (which has filed a lawsuit against Amazon) in fact did use a food metaphor to describe the awakening that needs to occur. “I think it’s like Alice Waters talking for decades about a sustainable food ecosystem and ultimately revolutionizing the food industry that way. That’s the point we’re at.”

Bottom line: Deutsch’s argument about rethinking the bookselling model—to be about more than just selling a book—could easily be seen as idealistic or unrealistic in the age of Amazon. But he has a practical and valid point because independent booksellers will lose every time if they base their worth on the mere transactional value of selling books. His stance—that bookselling has a deeper meaning and cultural value—is indeed how boutique and online retailers outside of the Amazon ecosystem are positioning themselves for success. Consumers are choosing more than ever to buy with purpose, and independent bookstores are well-positioned from that perspective. Deutsch said, “We should figure out models that support the work that we’re trying to do, not shoehorn this other model of retail that is really just about buying and selling and not about culture.” He also argued it is necessary to do this while making the profession of bookselling a sustainable and even prestigious one to pursue. “We all have vocational awe, but couldn’t we have vocational awe and still make a decent living?”