And then there were … none?

Internet sales and soaring rent are driving out Lakeview’s classic bookstores

By Ross Kennerly

Last week I picked up a copy of Kathleen Dean Moore’s The Pine Island Paradox at Bookworks in Wrigleyville. I found it on my own — no internet search engine, no “If you like Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, you might also like…” auto-generated recommendations. It was a lucky find, one of a thousand titles to pick from, and I got it for half of what I would have paid a couple of blocks south at Borders.

In the first chapter, Moore is hunched over in an Alaska rainstorm, sipping whiskey, listening to a wolf howl, miserable. She is comforted by the thought that “(s)omewhere people are laughing in brightly lit places that smell of books and coffee.”

As recently as 15 years ago, when there were more than 18 used bookstores like Bookworks on the North Side, Moore could have been writing about Chicago. But when Bookman’s Corner, a rare book dealer at the intersection of Clark and Wellington, closes its doors for good this coming August, Bookworks, located at 3444 N. Clark, will be one of only five remaining Lakeview booksellers.

Like record stores before them, second-hand bookstores are quickly becoming the next casualties of a rapidly growing online marketplace.

“(There is) a whole subcategory of what we call ‘hobbyist booksellers,’ ” explains Bob Roschke, owner of Bookworks. “People that don’t have a shop, don’t really have that much interest in books, but are able to buy books at a thrift store and put them up online. And it affects (us). They used to bring them to us to sell, and now they’re putting them on eBay.”

Ronda Pilon, Roschke’s longtime partner at Bookworks, says that in addition to driving down prices and reducing store sales, this usurpation is damaging the prestige associated with being a bookseller, which poses a problem for bibliophiles and rare book dealers alike.

“It means a little bit more ‘Buyer beware,’ because an amateur could easily misidentify a first edition,” Pilon says. “Just because it says ‘First edition’ on the back of the title page doesn’t mean it’s a true first. You really have to have experience and know what you are doing to accurately identify a book. So that’s where I think the buyer has to be careful.”

“On the other hand,” she quickly adds, “I would have to say that the internet has opened for us a global audience that we didn’t have access to before. We had a library of geneology books, and a lot of them were specific to families. What are the chances that that particular family is going to come in here? It was perfect to put them online; we were able to sell them really well all over the world. So (the internet) works for and against you.”

Bookworks, which has been in business for over 22 years, has thus far been able to persevere with online auctions, maintaining a catalogue through Amazon.com and, in general, adapting its selection to fit the changing neighborhood — all of which, Roschke notes, is sustained by what customers bring in to sell or trade. But for struggling storefronts like Bookman’s Corner, whose annual in-store sales have decreased 40 percent since 2003, internet sales and reduced prices (on average 50 percent of retail) aren’t enough to compensate for another, exogenous factor: rent.

“It used to be, when you started up in this business, there’d be a marginal area in town where the rent was fairly cheap and the customers wouldn’t be afraid to go to,” says John Chandler, owner of Bookman’s and a former Detroit librarian. “But I don’t think there are any places like that (in Chicago). If there are, they’re places the customers won’t go to at all. There’s just no cheap storefronts anymore. It’s a nice gig in a small town, when you want to retire, and you own the building or the rent is just dirt cheap. But aside from that, I don’t see how anyone can afford to (own a bookstore).”

Some second-hand book vendors are able to avoid the inflating rent, like Bill Fiedler of The Gallery Bookstore, who bought the condominium which houses his establishment (at 923 W. Belmont). “That was a smart move on his part,” praises Chandler, who will retire Aug. 1. Roschke, however, has no plans to close his storefront. In fact, if he had the space, Roschke would even consider offering author readings, which he says would help to draw the reading community together.

“I don’t foresee giving up the storefront, because it’s such a resource,” he says. “If you don’t have this sort of setup, then you’re sitting there elbow to elbow with someone at a library sale, battling it out, trying to get the right books. So for us, it’s just amazing that we are able to get through.”

The key for bookstores to survive, according to Chandler, is to find a niché and dig in for the long haul. Bookworks keeps new copies in stock of every in-print title from beat writers including Kerouac, Bukowski and Burroughs. Although Fiedler denies that The Gallery has a niché, over 25 percent of his shop is dedicated to mystery, science fiction and horror. He even boasts that The Gallery has been referred to as “the best and last store for mystery and science fiction in Illinois.”

Booklegger’s, a used bookstore at 2907 N. Broadway, collects large amounts of sheet music, and Powell’s Bookstore, at 2850 N. Lincoln, is a repository for remaindered works — brand new books which have been reduced in price, either because the publisher only has a few copies left or they have not sold well.

Despite all the challenges local bookstores are currently facing, the market isn’t suffering for lack of readers, which should provide some comfort to book sleuths who still appreciate a good deal and a warm place to read.

“Reading is really still really viable,” says Pilon. “Now whether people are going to continue to read books as opposed to all the magazines, blogs and anything else that is available, that’s something I’m not so sure about.”

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