Books: Not dead yet

While I was sorry to read the article in the Jan. 5 Seattle Times that M Coy Books will be closing, I was disturbed by the tone. The local media are quick to mark the demise of an independent bookshop and say once again how it is nearly impossible for a small independent to survive. Difficult, sure. But not impossible.

When we moved our shop, the Seattle Mystery Bookshop, over the Memorial Day weekend in 2005, we sent out a press release saying how here was a story about a small, independent bookshop that was doing so well that it could move to a larger space after 15 years, and no one in the local press paid any attention. Two and a half years later, business is terrific; 2007 was our best year yet, a 6.5 percent increase in sales over 2006.

Michael Coy is a great bookseller. He was one of my instructors when I was sent to the American Booksellers Association's School in Portland, years ago. He's a savvy businessman. But the economic forces on his shop — his location in a high-rent area of downtown, his particular landlord, the fact that the shop is a general bookshop — do not automatically translate onto every other independent bookseller.

If you want to know how independent booksellers really are doing, come ask us. Reacting to the closing of one bookshop by saying it is another death-knell of an industry simply isn't fair or correct and can be counterproductive. It can also mislead customers and drive more into the hands of the corporate Big Boxes, encouraging the difficulties that small independents face. Why not do a story about how some independents are doing fine because of their customers who want to support small businesses? Isn't there a story in that?

Again, I am sad to hear that M Coy is closing and that another small bookseller is leaving the scene. But I wish the local press, you included, would pay as much attention to those booksellers who are doing well, surviving and succeeding.

— JB Dickey, owner of the Seattle Mystery Bookshop, Seattle

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