The 2006 holiday season is one many independent booksellers will be happy to forget, as harsh weather, deep discounting by other outlets and the lack of a must-have title kept sales soft in December, despite the strength of a variety of books, including The Audacity of Hope, Peace Not Apartheid and What Is the What.
Independents aren't alone in their post-holiday blues—Barnes & Noble's sales rose 2.6% for the last nine weeks of the year, but same-store sales at superstores declined 0.1%, while Books-A-Million reported that holiday sales increased a total of only 0.7%, with comp-store sales off 2.1%. But that's little comfort for independents, especially those in Colorado, where blizzards essentially paralyzed the state during what should have been some of the biggest shopping days of the year. "We lost two to two-and-a-half real pre-Christmas days, which wasn't a pretty thing. The days customers were able to get to the store were robust," said Cathy Langer, head buyer for Tattered Cover. "But it's been bad. It's been pretty devastating for the whole Denver economy. We can't deny its impact."
Arsen Kashkashian, head buyer for Boulder Bookstore in Boulder, Colo., said the three feet of snow that fell on December 21 and December 22 ended hopes for a sales gain. "We were a few points up until the snowstorms. It's disappointing to think you'll do better, then to do worse because of the weather."
Of course, snow isn't the only kind of weather that can hurt business. "Our sales were marginally down from last December," said Linda Ramsdell at Galaxy Bookshop in Hardwick, Vt. "It didn't feel Christmasy to me. It was warm, and there were some pouring-rain Saturdays."
And sometimes, it's not about the weather at all. At The Bookery in El Paso, Tex., owner Margaret Barbara said, "Christmas was terrible—even people I really expected to come didn't come. I know it's way down—I sold maybe a third of what I did three years ago. In general, business has been awful in the last few months." She blames the downturn in part on a lack of grant money for teachers to buy books—a major part of her business.
Wendy Mayer-Lochtefeld, manager of the Capitola Book Cafe in Capitola, Calif., said, "We were busy but we were down from last year. I noticed that it started later, but we had a good final push. It wasn't earth-shattering down, but it was a little down."
On the brighter side, Jonathan Platt, co-owner of Nonesuch Books & Cards in Saco and South Portland, Maine, said mild weather and a longer holiday shopping season helped offset increases in operational costs like electricity and insurance. "The last week brought the nose of the plane up. If we had not had those, we would probably have had a down-trending season," Platt said. He called the holidays "not devastating and not great."
Similarly, Joan Grenier, owner of Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, Mass., said the holidays were "okay; slightly up for us. It's a tough economy; too much money going into war."
At Octavia Books in New Orleans, La., Tom Lowenberg said 2006 extended a string of year-to-year sales increases that even last year's devastating hurricane couldn't stop. "Books were a gift of choice here. Maybe because of the crisis we went through, it helped raise the value of books."
Even retailers who said sales were up this year had to rely on hand-selling a broad range of titles, unable to compete on bestsellers like You: On a Diet and James Patterson's Cross, which were widely available elsewhere at deep discounts. Asked about their strongest titles, booksellers mentioned dozens of different books, ranging from novels like Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics to local-interest books such as Moving the Chains, about Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
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