Big Changes in Small Bookstore Business, Part Three

This is the third in a series of interviews with North Baltimore independent bookstore owners. and focused on other indie bookstores in North Baltimore. Today's interview is with Red Emma's co-owner Kate Khatib.

 How long has Red Emma's been in business? Can you describe the ownership situation at Red Emma's?

We opened in November 2004 and just celebrated our sixth birthday. We're collectively owned and operated. In practice, what that means is that there are no bosses and employees at Red Emma's -- everyone you see working behind the counter is (aside from the occasional volunteer or prohe tspective collective member) is an equal owner of the business. We all share in the day-to-day management of the store and we participate in the collective self-management of the workplace. There about 15 of us right now.

How would you describe the changes over the last 20 years in the booksellers' market? How has your own business evolved?

We started out anticipating that our cafe would sustain the bookstore (i.e., we thought the cafe would pay the rent and the bills), and the bookstore -- the reason we started this project -- would just kind of sustain itself. But over time, as we've grown in our selection and curation of our stock, our sales have increased, and we now find that the cafe and the bookstore balance each other out, which is exciting.

There's been an interesting swell and contraction in the market. There was a moment when it really did seem like the Barnes & Nobles and the Borders of the world were going to put every indie store in the country out of business. The consumer trend was to the bigger, more mass-market oriented stores. But consumer trends change, and there's been an increasing shift back toward local, independent stores in the past year or three -- and that's been exciting to see. As the big stores start to focus more and more of their energy on e-books and online sales, indie retailers like Red Emma's, Atomic Books, Normals etc. with real people curating real stock for physical customers are going to start seeming a lot more special. Hopefully, all of our various supporters will recognize that and help us to stay afloat.

Do you see any difference between the strategies employed by the independent stores that have gone out of business and those by the stores that have survived?

Not necessarily. With any small retail business, margins tend to be so slim that the slightest variation can drown you. It's essential to pay attention to your finances and make adjustments (change ordering patterns, try to negotiate better deals, do different types of outreach) to address problems, but you also have to recognize that there are going to be fluctuations based on the slightest little thing. For example, the first rainy day in a week, business will almost invariably be bad. But by the third rainy day, people have adjusted, and started going back out, so business will be back to normal. And with our small business, that one or two days of variation can make the difference between a good week and a catastrophic one. Sometimes you get lucky ... and sometimes you don't.

What further changes do you anticipate?

What's helped to sustain Red Emma's has been our investment in building a sense of community in Baltimore. We're a bookstore (and a damn fine one, if we do say so ourselves), and we value that identity and work, but we also try to do a lot of other things. The cafe portion of the storefront helps to create a more welcoming space, gives people socially responsible nourishment while they browse, brings in people who might not normally spend a lot of time in a niche bookstore. We host events sometimes every night of the week -- that's essential to fostering a community of readers. And we also don't limit what we do to our storefront; we encompass three spaces in all: the bookstore and cafe; a large-scale events venue where we host readings, lectures, workshops, and other events too large to fit in the bookstore; and the Baltimore Free School, where anyone can teach anything, and take classes, for free. In all of our projects, we're working to provide a resource, to build new communities and to strengthen those communities that already exist in Baltimore.

This is essential in our eyes; it's the reason that people continue to support Red Emma's, even though they could probably find most of the books we carry somewhere else online for less money (though not always). At Red Emma's, you can be an anonymous shopper and just run in and grab the books you need and run out. We want people to have that choice and we want people to feel comfortable in the space even if they don't feel like conversing. But you also have the possibility of becoming a part of that community of readers -- of coming out to events and discussing the books with their authors, of leading a reading group at the Free School, of finding recommendations from the collective members or the other customers for the issues that interest you most. That's what's missing from a Barnes & Noble.

In what ways do you think e-books will have an impact? What place might they have in independent stores?

E-books already have an impact on the market, definitely. But it's going to be a long while before every small, independent publisher makes their entire front and backlist available for the iPad. And we specialize in those types of books. We specialize in keeping track of what's coming out from the publishers that don't make The New York Times bestseller list, who aren't in the Amazon Top-100. We carry some of those books too. But much of what we do carry isn't available in e-book form. Yet.

Do the changes in the market reflect in any way changes in readers and readership?

Readers and readership change in every era, and this one is no different. Bookstores (and libraries) have to continually adapt to the needs and demands of their readers. It's going to take a while before we really see how the current trends are going to force indie stores to change their models.

Any thoughts on the so-called `death of the printed book'?

It's a pretty far way off. But one thing that's interesting is that as e-books become more prevalent, it may have the effect of forcing publishers to put a little more consideration into the print editions that they produce, using better materials, putting more care into design, really turning the printed counterpart into objects that you want to have and to keep. That would be an unexpected outcome of this e-book revolution, but it might not be a bad thing: You buy the e-book in place of the mass market paperback edition that you're going to read once on an airplane or at the beach and the printed book for things you want to keep, to build a library from etc.

The big brick-and-mortar chains have themselves been struggling greatly in recent years because of competition with online retail. What do you make of this? Do you think a diminished presence of the corporate chains would be of general benefit?

Yes and no. It would be nice if there was a simple, resounding yes, but the fact of the matter is that corporate chains are often the only ones with enough capital to get into regions of the country that have less infrastructure or less contact with the outside world. Of course, computers are changing all of that, but there was a time that the closest Barnes & Noble was the only place you could find a book by a left political author in certain rural areas. It would be great if every city had a good, independently owned bookstore that carried a range of books published by independent presses, but the fact of the matter is that those don't exist right now, and it would take some access to money to make it possible. Bu if a Barnes & Noble closes in a city that has a few indie bookstores who are willing to order titles they don't carry for customers, then that's not a bad thing.

Have you found that the rise of online retail to be a good thing for independently owned stores?

We don't do much with online retail these days because all of our energy is focused on our physical spaces in Baltimore. But a lot of people find out about us online, and we do list our inventory online, so people can check to see what we carry before they come in, and that's helped our sales tremendously. We may start offering online ordering in 2011, but we're still on the fence about it. It would definitely increase sales, but it's also quite a bit of extra work when you already maintain a physical store.

How do you conceive of locally owned bookstore's present relationship to its surrounding community? Is their importance different now than it has been in the past?

As I said, it's a cornerstone of our business and of our business model. But we're not doing anything new. Bookstores have been gathering places, places to meet and discuss, to learn new things, to form communities, for a very long time. We're just the contemporary version of a very long tradition.

Red Emmas is at 800 St. Paul St., Baltimore, MD 21202