Bookstores Fought Through the Pandemic. As They Have Before.

Back in the pandemic, bookstores citywide kept their shelves stocked and customers satisfied. Bookstores even grew in popularity during lockdown among public library devotees, the streaming-weary, or those exploring not only traditional books but graphic novels, cookbooks, and even puzzles for the first time.

Whether your favorite local bookstore closed for a millisecond due to a Covid-related setback, like Community Book Center did, or yours is a new store opened during the pandemic like Baldwin & Co. has, have you stopped to think: how big a role do bookstores can play in our lives?

Even if you don’t visit it, your local bookstore has played a role in how New Orleans’ economic recovery is faring in your neighborhood. Independent bookstores dot our map of local businesses in many of our walkable commercial districts --and attracting new customers has helped populate some of those areas when many businesses hadn’t fully reopened, or occupancy was limited.

Reading books might be a quiet practice, but bookstores are buzzing with book club members, coffee dates, new release book signings and live performances. Octavia Books’ owners Tom Lowenburg and Judith Lafitte enlarged their store, removing walls and creating multiple reading and gathering areas.Blue Cypress Books has already expanded its square footage to hold a large selection but also to create event space --moving only as far as across Oak Street to do so.

No matter their size or whether there is a dedicated parking lot, customers visiting our local bookstores frequently, to gain a lot from a little. They are enjoying spaces that are designed not just to shelve books but to invite thoughtful interaction, the kind that can easily be shared behind a face mask and without tickets or booked-weeks-ahead reservations.

It wasn’t always this way. There was a time bookstores were straining to see the very little light at the end of the tunnel. Amazon.com, the Goliath that today threatens every type of retailer with arsenal of strategies to choke out business competition on its e-commerce platform, originally set the local bookstores in its sights. 

Bookstore owners and advocates battled Amazon for bookstores’ fair share of the market, as Amazon first undersold books, then attempted to convert the reading audience to Kindle (which ironically expanded the popularity of print books, too). 

Bookstore owners engaged their communities and raised awareness of the threat. Indie sellers banded together, first sell books online via multi-store platforms, and more recently with store-specific e-commerce and curbside pickup.

The American Booksellers Association, Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), AMIBA and others have both fought against Amazon’s dominance for the past few decades, raising awareness with National Bookstore Day and #BoxedOut; tax fairness such as StayLocal fought to institute in Louisiana; and calling attention to the actions of corporations that stall innovation and squash independent businesses’ chances of competing fairly. 

At a 2022 national town hall hosted by Small Business Rising, 51% of owners of independent businesses--largely retailers-- indicated in an online poll that Amazon’s dominance of e-commerce has impeded their success selling online, and 72% agreed that large corporations have outsized power to shape government regulations.

The fight continues in Congress as bills are proposed for vote to make e-commerce fairer and the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) continues to investigate monopoly activity. The vitality of independent bookstores today remind us that Goliath is not in fact invincible, and David still has a lot of fight in him. Contact us at maryann@staylocal.org to join the fight, or subscribe to our e-newsletter here.