Maybe A Positive Sign?

In a recent article by the American Booksellers Association, retail sales in bookstores was up in June this year.

Retail sales at U.S. bookstores were up by 5.3 percent in June 2018 compared to June 2017, according to preliminary figures recently released by the Bureau of the Census. Estimates reflect sales of all types of participating bookstores, including trade, college, religious, chain stores (including superstores), and others.

As of August 6, the year-to-date sales among ABA member stores, as reported to the weekly Indie Bestseller Lists, are up approximately 5 percent over 2017.

I saw this and I immediately did what I am sure a lot of people did. I got excited.

But...

I had to put all of that in check.

The reality of the situation is that sure, book sales went up. But what we need to start seeing is not just that number to continue to rise, but the number of bookstores rise as well.

If you are in a city like mine, I have my one favorite used bookstore, but to get to a Barnes and Noble, I am looking at a 30 minute trip. Seattle is 45-50 minutes away and then I have to contend with the parking.

So, what about the other places we can get books? Walmart, Target, Fred Meyer (Kroger) and the like? They have books? Well, sort of. The problem, you see, is that their departments are located in or near the media aisle, and what is unfortunate, is that those aisles are expanding to make way for new game consoles, new streaming devices and new televisions.

The reality of the situation is that we need to break this cycle of simply being a get our information on our media devices only.

Yes, I have been ranting about this a lot lately, and it sounds like many of you also support this. But the rest of the world is really struggling with this. Even the POTUS according to a variety of news sources, only wants to see briefs of important things happening in the world and does not want to read the full report.

This is a problem.

I am personally trying to improve this in my life. I get up in the AM, watch a bit of news so I can know how bad the day is going to be, and then I am off of the tech. In the evening, I have even quit spending the last hours of the day normally watching anything on the TV and just grabbing a book to read.

So, let's all make an effort to keep those retail sales up. Let's push to support ANY new bookstore that opens up. Buy books! Buy a lot of books! Let's get back to reading.