Can’t make a living selling books?
This weekend one of the bookstores in my neighborhood (liberally defined here as “everything between my home and the nearest train station") went out of business. Earlier this summer, the same thing happened to a bookstore that really was in my neighborhood, right across the street actually. That’s two bookstores lost in the span of a couple of months. Worse, it means there are only two bookstores left in the immediate area. (I knew something was fishy when the prices on foreign books started dropping. It must have been a last-ditch effort to stave off the impending financial collapse.)
This is a disheartening trend, but I understand that a lot of bookstores in Japan are closing these days—mostly because of what is euphemistically known as “inventory shrinkage,” more commonly referred to as shoplifting. Perhaps this is true—and I don’t want to give the impression that I condone theft—but I think Japanese publishers, by the simple act of making so many palm-size books, actually encourage shoplifting. Sure, the small books are popular because they easily fit into a pocket, or a pocketbook, but that’s exactly why it’s so easy to choose not to pay for them.
By contrast, note that people almost never steal the big, hardcover books available in the public library. Is size the entire reason? I doubt it, but I can’t help but think it’s one of the contributing factors. I hope Japanese publishers will figure this out. I’d like to have a few bookstores left in my area around this time next year.
