It doesn't take a genius to realize bookstores are dying. They have been on a slow, lingering death for almost ten years. It is surprising that the patient has lasted this long but they have a terminal disease which there is no treatment for.

I saw signs of problems when I worked at a bookstore many years ago. In the almost ten years I worked there I saw a fairly good business model change from a community focus to corporate focus. We used to be able to make changes on the fly, from recommendations and observations we saw with our public. Soon, we have to clear things with the corporate office because they wanted to make sure 'branding' (it wasn't a term used frequently back then but it was the concept) was in all of their stores.

The thing is what works in San Diego might not work in Kansas, or Ohio or New York. The best example I can give would be the Jewish Book Fair we would sponsor. An employee saw there was a lack of Jewish books in our store relative to the Jewish population in the area. Customers even commented about this. On her own this employee started ordering more Jewish books and they sold well. At the same time she learned of a local bookfair that occurred during the Jewish holiday around December. She was able to get our store to supply books for the event. Now, by this time things were turning to the corporate mindset and there was resistance to offer books to the event. All sorts of cost analysis studies were mentioned but somehow this employee was able to convince our manager it was a good thing to do.

That first year the bookfair gave the store an extra $10000 during the holidays. Nothing to sneeze at but when the event came up again for the next year, again there was resistance to do the event, claiming there were difficulties from the last event. The truth of the matter was instead of listening to the event organizers about the quantity of books needed, our manager went along the corporate model, which didn't offer a wide selection of topics for the event. When the second year arrived, the employee did what she always did, worked an end run around the manager so the books the event organizers wanted were there.

That second year the store made $75000 over the holiday estimates, which now included the figures from the last bookfair.

There were other incidents where corporate thinking was slow to react to what we saw 'on the field.' Personally, I was in charge of the science fiction section and it took tactics similar to what my friend did to get graphic novels into our store. I was told they wouldn't sell but I continued to order copies in, which I might add sold. By the time the corporate people opened their eyes to order graphic novels, they did what any corporation would do and ordered what they thought would sell. Amazingly, the graphic novel section of this bookstore chain is huge now, and that's not including the manga section (which if it were up to me would be gone but that's my own little bias against most manga books).

What brought up the thinking about bookstores, and I think business in general, was seeing an article in the LA Times where a large bookstore chain is closing a flagship store in Westwood. The article was nostalgic, as most stories about bookstores and record stores closings, about the events and selection of these stores. What isn't mentioned is how the large chain bookstores are losing out to other ways of obtaining books and, this is the often not mentioned part that is sad, how we as a nation are less likely to actually read a book.

Book lovers, if they really want to buy a book, are going to order it online. Even if the book they want isn't on the order of Meetings with My Father (I made up the title for the sake of illustrating a title with gravitas) it is less complicated and in many cases cheaper to order a book online. There was a book I wanted to get for a long time which cost $30 in stores but was $20 with shipping included online. While I get the rush you feel getting the book right away in a store, I had gone to a number of bookstores and not all of them carried the book. So for me to get the book 'live' I might have to call around to a number of stores to see if they had the book, then get to the store and hope the person held the right book for me and for that privilege pay $30. It is far easier to go online and in 10 minutes or less find the book, order it and in a few days have it arrive to me in the mail.

Now when you look at a bookstore as a box industry, like Target or Wal-Mart, the community isn't going to care where they get the book. They are looking for savings and online will beat brick and mortar every time.

Even if you could get the chain store to become more community friendly, you still have the bigger issue of people just not reading as much as they did. Forget all those numbers you see about large book sales. How many people do you know who read Sarah Palin's book? How about Chelsea Handler's? George Bush's? How about knowing anyone who has read any of the books about the election of Obama, either pro or con? Anyone read any good cookbooks lately?

Sure you will see pundits on news shows talk about the hot political book, or you will see some celebrity or expert guru hawking their latest 'best seller' but you will rarely hear regular folks talk about a book they read unless the book is or has been made into a movie. Despite the tossing of the word 'best seller' not many books sell into the hands of customers. The term 'best seller' has lost meaning just like the a hit TV show of today isn't a hit of let's say 20 years ago. Today a hit show could have a many as 6 million viewers, but 20 years ago a show with those numbers would be ripe for cancellation. Like television, there are too many options working against books for people to read like they did when sales were huge. Yes we have devices where it is easier for people to carry around books, such as the Kindle, but the growth sales of those items are greatly exaggerated. People do read, but they're reading articles and magazines, not books in huge levels.

I don't know what the future has in store for bookstores. The chains are probably on the way out because they aren't sustainable as a huge network. That might not effect big cities like San Diego, New York or LA, but like the box stores like Wal-Mart, the chain bookstores have driven out the smaller stores which could adjust to the new market model. When the big stores pull out of a small market, there won't be a small bookstore to take up the void. The communal aspect of the bookstore, the element killed by the large chains, will disappear.