For independent booksellers, what's sold off shelf counts just as much: Small booksellers are filling niches and emphasizing service as they fight to stay in business.

Nov 08, 2009 (The Miami Herald - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- BKS | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- LABOR OF LOVE: Jenny Bell-Thomson, who has owned Cover To Cover Books and Gourmet Coffees in Tavernier since 2003, says she made a profit until the economy tanked.

The mystery bookstore sells signed editions over the Internet. The Jewish bookstore sells hand-painted yarmulkes and engraved Torah pointers. The old downtown bookshop still sells $2 used paperbacks, but the bulk of their business now comes from wholesaling Spanish-language books to customers including Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

As the Miami Book Fair International kicks off Sunday, it's clear that the written word is alive and well. And yet, it is a challenging time to be a bookseller -- especially an independent operator.

Chain bookstores are everywhere, Wal-Mart is selling hardcover bestsellers for nine bucks, Amazon boasts of "Earth's Biggest Selection," and e-books threaten to do to bookstores what Apple's iTunes did to record shops -- and what video-on-demand is now doing to movie-rental stores.

E-books may ultimately prove the most serious threat -- to independents and chain stores alike. Indeed, no Wall Street analyst is recommending that investors buy shares in Barnes & Noble right now, according to Bloomberg Business News.

Meanwhile, thousands of independent bookstores have closed in recent years. But many soldier on. And don't expect them to go gentle into that good night.

For the independents, the key for survivors is to find a niche that distinguishes them from the rest -- an angle, a twist, something extra -- or national competitors will eat their lunch.

FOR EVERY NICHE

In South Florida, the variety of niche shops is impressive: Comics and graphic novels. Evangelical Christian books. Catholic books. Jewish books. Creole and French. Spanish. Spanish Christian. Mysteries.

And then there are niches within niches.

At Murder on the Beach, manager Joanne Sinchuk sells a wide range of whodunits, thrillers and police procedurals. But the specialty of the Delray Beach shop is signed volumes by Florida mystery authors.

"It's a very, very narrow niche, but we are the experts in it," said Sinchuk, who moved the store to Delray from Sunny Isles Beach in 2002.

In fact, about one-third of her business comes from Internet sales of these books.

While mail-order has become an important component of Sinchuk's business, it has become the bulk of Raquel Roque's.

Roque's father, Jose Rabade, opened the Downtown Book Center, 247 SE First St., in front of a Miami bus stop in 1965. At first, he sold mainly paperbacks in English, but as more Hispanics arrived in Miami the store added more Spanish-language titles, from romances to the latest bestsellers from Madrid and Buenos Aires.

The store changed its focus again and again to keep in step with community needs and tastes. Over the years, the owners have sold everything from Spanish-English medical dictionaries -- to help Cuban doctors get licensed in the States -- to the current large stock of used paperbacks.

A major turning point came in 1989, when Roque persuaded the manager of the B. Dalton store at Dadeland Mall to buy some Spanish titles from her. After that, the chain's higher-ups noticed improved sales at Dadeland and started buying from Roque nationally. Since then, wholesaling of Spanish-language books has come to account for three-quarters of Roque's business. Clients range from small shops in Little Havana to Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

The wholesale business props up the store, which sells used $2 paperbacks and $3 hardcovers, as well as new books. Customers feel at home in the store, like the group of women who come in on their way to church on Sundays to discuss books about angels.

Like many booksellers, Roque says her business is about more than just money.

"I may be foolish, but I am very optimistic," she said. "This is my livelihood, this is my life, this is my passion. I'm going to change, but I'm not going to stop being a bookseller. They'll have to drag me out of here."

Other stores have had to reduce their reliance on books in order to stay in business.

When the Chosen Gift & Bookstore opened at 7146 SW 117th Ave. in Kendall in 1984, the owners quickly expanded into a neighboring storefront so they could increase their selection of Jewish-interest books.

Now it's mostly gifts, said Molly Ben-Chetrit, who owns and operates the store with her parents and sister.

Big sellers nowadays include mezuzas -- the store carries 400 varieties of the little boxes, which observant Jews attach to their doorposts to remind themselves of God's commandments -- as well as the inscribed Torah pointers and skullcaps that Ben-Chetrit hand-paints to order. Popular designs include University of Miami logos, although she can make a gator for University of Florida alumni, too.

She also does party planning and calligraphy.

The books she does sell are hard to find and are largely in Spanish.

"We try to have books that you aren't going to find in Barnes & Noble or other places," Ben-Chetrit said. "Thank God, we're still holding on."

While most independent bookstores seem to have become niche businesses, a few general-interest shops remain, like Books & Books, with stores in Coral Gables, Bal Harbour and Miami Beach.

Owner Mitchell Kaplan says the key to success for independent bookstores is showing customers that value isn't all about discounts. His stores hold 700 to 1,000 author appearances and other events per year. His staff members know their business and can offer recommendations to match customer tastes.

These features make independent shops more than just a business, Kaplan said. It makes them a cultural resource for the communities they serve.

"If we had to compete with Wal-Mart and Target and those guys on price, we wouldn't be able to survive," Kaplan added. "And then we wouldn't be in the community to do what we do."

NEITHER HERE, THERE

Kaplan is the book fair's chairman and co-founder, while Roque is another co-founder, and Sinchuk will have a booth at the event.

Amazon and the chain stores are tough competitors. Amazon has an enormous selection, fast shipping and was the first retailer to aggressively push eBook readers. Amazon shares have tripled in value over the past year, from about $40 to more than $120. Barnes & Noble has big stores in some of the most visible locations, although its sales were down a bit last year.

Borders, Barnes & Noble's biggest bricks-and-mortar competitor, is struggling, however. On Friday, Borders announced plans to close 200 Waldenbooks stores.

The Association of American Publishers estimates that its members' sales fell 3 percent from 2007 to 2008.

But independent stores remain valuable to publishers and aspiring writers, said Oren Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, agreed. Publishers court people like Kaplan becausehis recommendations can help start a buzz about a new title.

Likewise, mega-author John Grisham got started by driving from town to town in Mississippi and Tennessee selling copies of his first book to small shops, Teicher said. (Kaplan also recalled meeting the then-unknown Grisham at a booksellers' meeting in Nashville.)

"Some of the best-known authors began as obscure writers because a local bookseller loved that book," Teicher said.

That said, there's no doubt indy shops are threatened. Teicher's organization represented 4,000 such stores 20 years ago. Now it's half that, although they still have about the same 12 to 15 percent market share, he said.

And competition from Amazon and the chains aside, all media are undergoing a major revolution because of the Internet.

Most recently, e-book readers like Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook allow near-instant download of books.

Then there's the economy.

Jenny Bell-Thomson has owned Cover To Cover Books and Gourmet Coffees in Tavernier since 2003. Thanks in part to her location -- the nearest Barnes & Noble is more than an hour away -- she made a profit for the first few years. But then the economy went downhill.

"To be honest, we have not been profitable," said Bell-Thomson. "We have barely broken even for the last two years. When the economy started tanking -- it's one of those discretionary things that go out the door. At this point, it's definitely iffy."

Can local bookstores survive these challenges?

"I do believe they are an endangered species," said Sam Craig, director of the Entertainment, Media and Technology program at New York University's Stern School of Business. "They will survive but in greatly diminished numbers. They are either going to be niche players, selling books no one else carries, or they change the value proposition."

In other words, they are going to do just the kinds of things Kaplan, Sinchuk and the others are doing now.

Booksellers also have this going for them: customer loyalty.

"I always try to buy things in independent bookstores because I want them to stay in business," said Marilyn Wills, a retired math teacher from Tallahassee who was shopping in Books & Books at 265 Aragon Ave. in Coral Gables on Friday.

Although her home town has a chain bookstore, she sometimes drives 30 miles to an independent shop in Thomasville, Ga., to shop for books. When she travels, she makes a point of checking out the local stores, and she can rattle off stores she has been to in places like Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C.

"You're more apt to find interesting books you don't find in the chains," she said.

Books & Books customer Margaret Prusner of Coral Gables agreed. On Friday, she was sitting on a leather ottoman in the shop's fiction section, flipping through an Italian comedy magazine.

"For me, I really come here when I don't have a clear idea of what I want," she said. "I'll tend to look at what's there and find something on display."

Then there's the atmosphere.

"They have hardwood floors. They have better music," she said, gesturing at the room around her. "It's definitely got something."

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