Wal-Mart, headquartered in Bentonville, Ark., dominates the retailing scene—including the book market—in its home state, where it has 92 outlets.

With only one bookstore (indie or chain) for every 70,589 residents, Arkansas—the 33rd most populous states—has the fewest number of bookstores per person of any state in the country. [When big box stores are factored in, the ranking changes to 12th lowest—see chart.]

Of the 25 independent stores, 18 are Christian , and almost all of them are small.

The chains, for their part, have been careful not to overreach: Barnes & Noble and Borders have five outlets each, while Books-A-Million has just four. Hastings, however, has a strong presence in the state, with 11 locations.

The average Wal-Mart stocks a few small sections of bestselling hardcovers along with a lengthy rack of mass market paperbacks—and almost all its books are substantially discounted. The stores also carry Christian titles, a smattering of remainders and, in some markets, a dedicated African-American books section. The largest Wal-Marts, dubbed Supercenters, stock twice as many hardcovers and an expanded selection of trade paperbacks.

John Robichaux, co-owner of Treasure House Books in Harrison, Ark., said his strategy for competing is to "stock what Wal-Mart does not," such as manga, and to focus on backlist titles and special orders. He said his 3,000-sq.-ft. store depends partly on tourist traffic driving through to Branson, Mo., 40 miles north.

Arkansas's best-known independent is That Bookstore in Blytheville, opened by Mary Gay Shipley in 1976. Her store has managed to persevere—despite a rural, out-of-the way location and thin local customer base—in large part due to her extensive author series, which gets a big boost from Arkansas native John Grisham, who routinely makes That Bookstore in Blytheville his first stop on any book tour.

When Madison Avenue advertising executive Maryalice Hurst moved to Arkansas and wanted to open a bookstore, she found a mentor in Shipley. "Mary Gay is an island, a rock," Hurst said. "Without her I would have never opened the store." Hurst's store, in Conway, Ark., is modeled on Shipley's to such an extent that she adopted the name: it's called That Bookstore at Mountebanq Place.

Like many Arkansas booksellers, Hurst needs all the help she can get. Her business is struggling, five and a half years after opening on September 1, 2001. Similarly, at Paper Chase Bookstore in Batesville, Ark., owner Mayfan Thomas admitted, "The last three or four years, there's been a decline in business." She added, "There are a lot of good readers here, though we only have 9,000 residents. I just hope it's cyclical."

Arkansas is a difficult place to operate an independent bookstore partly because of Wal-Mart, but also because it has one of the lowest average household incomes of any state in the U.S.

"When I started, in the mid-'70s, there may have been five or six bookstores in the state. Now there are just a few more. This is not a state that has a population that can really support a lot of bookstores—it never has been," said independent bookseller Rod Lorenzen.

Nevertheless, Little Rock, the state's capital and its biggest city, with a population just shy of 900,000 in the metropolitan area, has three independents. These are Tyler & Tyler Booksellers, a small store in North Little Rock that specializes in Southern topics, and a pair started by Lorenzen—WordsWorth Books & Co., which he opened in 1974 and ran until 1986 before selling, and Lorenzen & Co. Booksellers, founded in 1990.

Despite the tough bookselling climate, hopeful entrepreneurs continue to enter the market. Cottage Bookstore of Melbourne, a 750-sq.-ft. store, opened in November 2005, and Nightbird Books opened in Fayetteville in March 2006.

Bookselling Health Index
Household Income: $34,246

Population: 2,753,000

Independent Bookstores: 25

Chain Bookstores: 14

Total Bookstores: 39

Big-box Stores: 97

Total Stores: 136

Stores per Capita: 1 per 20,243

Per Capita Rank: 12