by David Kornhaber
I’ve always found it a little ironic that tourists from all
over the country, even all over the world, often come in droves to
see the famous Harvard Coop Bookstore. Seen as one of the
world’s great bastions of learning, Harvard University is
undoubtedly expected by these tourists to have one of the finest
university bookstores around. How disappointed they must be to learn
that they can find almost all of the same books that are sold at the
Coop at their neighborhood Barnes & Noble. And why not?
A
s
we all know, the Coop is owned by Barnes & Noble. If these
tourists are looking for some interesting, hard-to-find books to
bring home, they’d probably be better off at the
independently-owned Harvard Book Store just down the street, or for
that matter any of the other independent bookstores in Cambridge.
While the Coop’s book selection may not prove that Harvard is a unique center of knowledge, the presence of so many independent bookstores certainly does. In so many communities, no bookstores can survive except the superstores like Barnes & Noble. Independent bookstores, with their unique selections of books both new and old, are more and more coming to be replaced by superstores that offer increasingly homogeneous selections of bestsellers and established favorites. The question this leads us to ask, of course, is "What exactly is happening to literature today?"
This question is certainly not a new one. All the way back in 1888, Matthew Arnold addressed it in his essay "The Study of Poetry," commenting that "an era is opening in which we are to see multitudes of a common sort of readers, and masses of a common sort of literature; that such readers do not want and could not relish anything better than such literature, and that to provide it is becoming a vast and profitable industry." But Arnold took solace in the fact that great literature "never will lose supremacy. Currency and supremacy are insured to it, not indeed by the world’s deliberate and conscious choice, but by something far deeper--by the instinct of self-preservation in humanity." Amazingly, Arnold’s century-old descriptions still holds true for the modern literary world on at least one account. A brief perusal of the books most prominently on display in almost any major bookstore --from the latest Danielle Steele bestseller to the most recent celebrity "confession"--can erase any doubt that we currently are, like Arnold was, living in an era with "masses of a common sort of literature." Unfortunately, a close look at current trends in the publishing and book selling industries indicates that Arnold’s second contention, that great literature will never lose supremacy, is less certain. Although market concerns certainly played a strong role in the publishing industry of the late 1800s, Arnold could never have imagined the extent to which such concerns would some day come to dominate the book publishing and book selling worlds. A day when the sale of books would be dominated by only three corporations would have been unfathomable to him. Nor could he have imagined an age during which some of the most respected publishers and booksellers in existence would close within years of one another. But this is the world in which we live: a world in which the economic ascendancy of book superstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders has produced a crisis in the literary world.
The nature of this crisis is actually fairly simple. Writers can only publish what book publishers are willing to buy from them. And book publishers, in turn, can only publish what bookstores are willing to buy. In the past, there were literally thousands of independent bookstores across the country, each deciding for itself which books to buy from publishers. A large number of these stores, in fact, were dedicated to selling the works of emerging writers, to taking a chance on an unknown name. Thus, there was a market for a great variety of literature.
Today, however, the landscape has changed. Three bookstore chains control three-fourths of all book sales. Each of these chains has only one or two people in charge of buying books from publishers. Instead of thousands of independent buyers looking for books, there are now only five book purchasers who determine which books are sold in the vast majority of the nation’s bookstores. Publishers who cannot sell to these five buyers are now more than ever finding themselves in financial dire straits. And thus, writers who are trying to express a vision that doesn’t appeal to these buyers are finding themselves without publishers. The rise of book superstores, in short, has threatened the literary life of our country. In a world where publishers are being forced to determine the worth of a book by the number of copies it can sell instead of its inherent merit, the outlets for authors of serious literature are dwindling. As the type of books being bought by bookstores (and thus the type of books that get published) become more and more based on mass-market appeal, literary innovation will inevitably decline.
Sure, people will keep reading "the classics"--there are probably more people interested in classic literature today than ever before. But this doesn’t help new writers trying to create new classics. Whenever a writer tries something new in literature, there is always a high chance it won’t sell very well. And that is a chance corporate book buyers aren’t willing to take. Thus, everyone stands to lose if book superstores continue to dominate the book market because everyone loses if there is no literary diversity in our culture. As writer Lance Olsen mused not long ago, "I can’t help wondering what the ethics are in giving up interesting fiction for fiction that sells, or fiction that Oprah sells, or mainstream Wonder Bread fiction that doesn’t offend or challenge our preconceived notions of language and experience but rather simply reinforces what we already know about the world, ourselves, and words. In such a socio-historical context,… Marcel Proust, Jorge Luis Borges, Gertrude Stein, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, TS Eliot, Peter Handke, Samuel Beckett, William Gass, and Carlos Fuentes would remain verbal ciphers to us all." It is the general public, not just writers and publishers, who are being affected by the crisis in American literature.
How can we be sure, though, that the rise of book superstores is causing a crisis in American literature? The signs are not hard to detect. Independent bookstores are closing at an unprecedented rate. Publishers Weekly reports that "hardly a week goes by without a sales report of a store going out of business or about to do so," and a recent survey of industry experts concluded that "the situation is on the verge of crisis with remaining independent stores holding on in a survival mode." And it’s not just the minor independents that are disappearing. In 1995, Shakespeare & Co., one of New York City’s most famous bookstores, closed only a few years after a Barnes & Noble was built across the street. Even Denver’s Tattered Cover Bookstore, called "one of the greatest bookstores in the world" by the American Bookseller’s Association, is on the verge of ending its 20 year existence owing to the insurmountable competition posed by book superstores. What this means is that there are now far less bookstores for publishers to sell to, and thus less diversity of what can be sold by publishers. The independent bookstores that are closing are the major buyers of literary genres--genres that chain bookstores have proven largely uninterested in. Without their business both independent publishers specializing in those genres and big publishers committed to printing literary fiction are suffering.
Sam Hammill, editor of the Copper Canyon Press, has gone so far as to predict that because of independent bookstore closings "within the next five years more than half of the independent publishers in business now will have ceased operation." Even large publishing houses are feeling serious repercussions. In 1997, HarperCollins lost $270 million on books they couldn’t sell to bookstores. Simon & Schuster, Random House, and Penguin Putnam have suffered similar losses. In addition, HarperCollins recently closed Basic Books, its esteemed academic label, and Addison Wesley has announced a decision to decrease the amount of literary fiction it publishes in favor of more lucrative genres.
Of course, if publishers can no longer sell literary genres at the same rate that they used to, the avenues open to new writers in these genres are severely limited. Vivian Gornick, a noted memoirist who has published a total of eight books with prominent publishers like Simon & Schuster, exemplifies the obstacles faced by literary authors. In 1996, when she tried to get her two latest collections of essays published, seven different publishing houses told her: "We love them, but we don’t think they can sell. We cannot publish books that we know in advance will sell under 10,000 copies." Gornick is far from alone when it comes to publishing problems. In 1997, HarperCollins canceled the contracts of 106 of its authors, and Addison Wesley closed the trade-publishing operation that had broken out authors like Robert Bly, author of Iron John. With more frequency than ever before, those writers who cannot guarantee high sales are being rejected regardless of the quality of their work because the buyers for chain bookstores are simply uninterested in them.
Ironically, in the midst of this crisis, book sales have been increasing by 4 percent per year for the past four years. The problem is not that the public is less interested in buying books these days, but that book superstores like those built by Barnes & Noble and Borders have come to dominate the book industry. Since 1990, America’s major book chains--Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Books-A-Million--have opened about 700 new stores. As of September, 1997, Books-A-Million had 93 stores nationwide, Borders had 180, and Barnes & Noble (whose public relations department proudly states that "a new Barnes & Noble superstore opens every 4 1/2 days") had 440 stores.
The sheer number of superstores in operation today has given these three corporations an inordinate share of the book retail market. While in 1972 independent bookstores controlled 84 percent of the market, by 1983, shortly after chain bookstores first began expanding, that share had dropped to 71 percent. By 1994, the market share of independent bookstores had fallen to 41 percent. Today, independent market share stands at 25 percent, leaving only a few corporations in control of 75 percent of the book retail market. Market studies indicate that this trend will continue in the future. In 1996 alone, as the independents’ market share continued to plummet, sales at book superstores rose 36 percent, to $3.27 billion. It is not hard to foresee a day when independent bookstores have only a negligible presence in the book retail market.
What this means for writers and publishers is simple. As late as 1983, publishers could get away with selling most of their books to independent stores and still turn a high profit. In other words, they could get away with publishing new and innovative fiction by relatively unknown authors because there were stores willing to buy it. Today, though, it is impossible to survive as a publisher without selling most of your books to chain bookstores. If those chain bookstores aren’t interested in buying new, experimental authors, then publishers can’t afford to publish their books. The reasons for the ascendancy of book superstores are manifold. One of the main factors involves the prices at which these superstores can afford to sell their products. Run by corporations worth billions of dollars, stores like Barnes & Noble can offer discounts that independent stores, with their limited budgets and assets, could never hope to match.
Of course, the main advantage of the book superstores reaches far beyond economies of scale; in fact, the main advantage of book superstores is downright illegal--they have been getting better deals from publishers. In 1994, the American Booksellers Association (ABA) sued five publishers--Houghton Mifflin, Penguin USA, St. Martin’s, Rutledge Hill, and Hugh Lauter Levi--for violating federal anti-trust laws by paying chain bookstores for prime display space without offering the same payments to independent booksellers. A federal court ruled that independent stores had to be offered the same options as chain bookstores in such promotions. In 1997, the ABA sued another three publishers--Penguin, Viking, and Random House--for violating the Robinson Patman Act, which prohibits unfair business deals between suppliers and sellers. In direct violation of the 1994 court ruling, these publishers were asking for only 80 to 90 percent payment on invoices to book superstores, while they required full payment from independent stores. The lawsuit resulted in a $25 million settlement, the largest anti-trust settlement in United States history. As large as this sum is, however, it cannot change reality. Book superstores, who for many years were aided by deals with major publishers, now dominate the book retail market, and independent bookstores, publishers, and writers must deal with the consequences.
What exactly is the problem with chain bookstores, though? They’ve probably increased the total number of bookstores in the US, and they seem to offer a wide variety of books. What is important to publishers, though, is not the number of bookstores in the country, but the number of book buyers. Every independent bookstore in America has a person or group of people in charge of deciding which books to order from publishing companies. Thus, if there are 500 independent bookstores, there are 500 autonomous buyers placing orders, and publishers can sell them a wide variety of books because they all have different tastes. Corporate bookstores, however, only have one or two book buyers for the entire chain. So although there are 400+ Barnes & Noble stores in the country, there are only one or two people deciding what is being sold in all of them. In fact, the chain bookstores that control 75 percent of the book market have a total of only five buyers deciding which books are being sold. So while the total number of bookstores may have increased, the number of potential customers for publishers has decreased. To make matters worse, Barnes & Noble recently announced plans to purchase Ingram Book Company, the largest supplier of books to independent bookstores. Thus, not only will a few corporate representatives be deciding which books most Americans will be able to buy in their own stores, but they will also control what Americans can buy in independent stores.
Clearly, if the decline of independent bookstores continues and America is left with only five wholesale buyers in the future, those buyers will have an enormous say as to what types of books get published. The threat to new authors--especially those in respected but non-lucrative genres like literary fiction--is obvious. If they wish to get published in the future, writers will have to tailor their work to the demands of corporate buyers. While the cry of "censorship" may be too extreme for this situation, it is not as far from the truth as it sounds. As Susan MacDonald, co-owner of Printers, Inc., asks, "What is going to happen when there are only a few major chains left, and they can say, ‘We don’t want that book in our stores. It’s too controversial,’ or ‘We can’t sell a million copies of that book, so we don’t want to carry it’?"
Such a scenario is not too far-fetched. For example, when a fatwa was placed on Salman Rushdie for Satanic Verses, American chain bookstores refused to sell it. Independent bookstores continued selling the novel, helping to solidify Rushdie’s status as one of the major writers of our time by making his work accessible to a variety of interested readers. Even recent bestsellers like The Joy Luck Club, Angela’s Ashes, and Cold Mountain were sold at independent bookstores long before they reached the chains. Only after independent stores put these books on the New York Times’ bestseller list did chains begin to carry them. What will happen when there aren’t independent stores to put these books on the bestseller lists in the first place?
Clearly, independent bookstores play an important role in the spread of American literature, and yet their current plight has gone largely unnoticed by the general public. The decline of independent bookstores and publishers has received very little national coverage apart from articles in trade publications like Poets & Writers and Publishers Weekly and at a number of independent websites. Most of the country’s major sources of news have close ties with the major chain bookstores and thus have little interest in portraying them in an unfavorable light. For example, The New York Times Corporation has allied itself with Barnes & Noble, granting it special favors like a feature on The New York Times’ website that allows readers to order books reviewed in the Times directly from Barnes & Noble’s website. Borders is one of the largest contributors to National Public Radio. Thus, the American media has been silent on this crisis in American literature.
Hope for a solution comes from two distinct areas. The first lies in spreading information about what is happening. Independent bookstores, publishers, and especially writers must inform the public of the crisis that is occurring. The clout carried by the Toni Morrisons, John Updikes, and Norman Mailers of this country could be a powerful force against chain bookstores. Even if that is not enough, there are ways to sidestep the obstacles presented by the ties between chain bookstores and the media. Presentations can be made on local radio and TV stations, at universities, or even on an individual community level. The public must be informed, and we must be encouraged to support independent bookstores on a large-scale, national level.
The second hope for the American literary community lies in the National Endowment for the Arts. Funding for the NEA, which in the past has helped keep independent publishers and writers solvent, is only 0.01 percent of our national budget, or less than 32 cents per person per year. The NEA has seen its budget go from $170 million to $100 million in the last four years, dropping 40 percent in 1996 alone. For the price of one stealth bomber, the government could fund six NEAs. A fraction of that amount would be enough to help keep independent publishers and bookstores financially afloat for years to come. The public must pressure the government to increase the NEA’s budget enough to assist struggling publishers and bookstores. American literature is in crisis, and some action must be taken.
It is fair to assume that Matthew Arnold would not be pleased with the state of literature in America today. But how could he, living in the late 1800s, even imagine the contemporary literary crisis? We live in a country where three quarters of the book-selling market is controlled by only three corporations. We live in a world where only five wholesale buyers are making the majority of choices as to what books should and shouldn’t be sold in America. We live in a world where the very stores that established some of the most successful authors of our time are closing. We live in a world where in the midst of this turmoil, the government is drastically cutting funding to the NEA and the public is largely unaware of any crisis. We can only hope that Matthew Arnold’s 19th century assessments will still hold true in the contemporary US. Maybe great literature will never lose supremacy to "common literature," even amidst bookstore monopolies. Maybe "the instinct of self-preservation in humanity," the drive to write and record in new and meaningful ways, really will ensure literature’s continued existence, despite the dismal present. But we can only maintain such hope if great new literature continues to be sold to the general public in the US. Under current conditions, this does not seem certain to happen.