Bookstores vie for space:
Show me the bookshelves

By Jay Corcoran, Yian Huang, Mathilde Piard, Veronica Zaragovia

The prognosis was bleak: the demise of the independent bookstore was all but declared when a Barnes and Noble pushed Shakespeare & Co. out of business 15 years ago on the Upper West Side. But now, the tide is changing, and it all comes down to space.

In New York City, several independent bookstores have been expanding and making steady sales while one of the industry’s behemoths hasn’t made sufficient revenue from book sales to sustain its space. Now it seems to be losing the rent war.

Last Dec. 31, the 32,000-square-foot Barnes and Noble store on Astor Place closed down and the 41,700-square-foot Chelsea store at 675 Sixth Ave., considered one of the larger ones, will close by the end of March according to signs hung on some of its windows.

Sarah McNally, owner of McNally Robinson on Prince Street, plans to open a 30,000- square-foot store in 2009, and the Strand Book Store acquired another floor two years ago. McNally said two-story book stores are easier to sustain than large one-level ones.

Across the country, the American Booksellers Association reported in January an increase in sales of 7.5 percent in 2007, and the association gained 115 independent bookstore members – the third consecutive year the number of new members topped 100.

Meanwhile, Barnes and Noble, the world's largest bookseller, announced in a press release earlier this month that it expects 2008 to be an “especially challenging retail year.”

An advantage wielded by independent stores is how they use their storage space to stock a wide selection of niche books that cater to their clients' interests. This is the Long Tail effect, a business model defined by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired: the more you satisfy customers’ specific tastes, the more money you make.

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