Big Changes in Small Bookstore Business, Part Four

This is the fourth in a series of interviews with North Baltimore independent bookstore owners. Here are parts , and . Today's interview is with Royal Books owner Kevin Johnson.

How long has Royal Books been in business? How long have you been its owner?

The business was started in 1997, and I am the first owner. The store’s name is a family name. (“Royal” is my middle name and my mother’s maiden name.)
 
Whereas most book stores depend heavily on walk-in sales, Royal Books is primarily mail-order. Has this isolated your business from the evolution of the book industry? 
 
I should say upfront that I can only speak to secondhand bookstores. Retail booksellers (i.e., Barnes & Noble, Borders, or independent retailers) have a completely separate set of concerns. 
 
There are very few secondhand bookstores today that depend completely on walk-in sales. Nearly everyone relies either completely or partially on having some kind of Internet presence, which means mail order. The only exceptions I can think of are bookshops located in extremely busy consumer districts. So as a mail-order bookseller, we are hardly isolated. Just about every secondhand bookstore I know about in Baltimore has an Internet outlet, whether it be a website of their own, the Advanced Book Exchange, Amazon, EBay etc. 

How would you describe the changes over the last 20 years in the booksellers’ market? How has your business evolved in its time? 

For booksellers, the Internet basically happened in 1996. Prior to that time, the secondhand bookstore world was pretty simple: A bookstore would operate in a given city or town, and the people in that area would shop there. 
 
As Internet bookselling evolved, buyers followed the path of least resistance. Why look in bookshops endlessly for the obscure book you need when you can go right to the computer and find it at a small shop in Kansas, put it in your shopping cart and be done with it? Since 1996, everything has changed, and today only the heartiest bibliophiles actually set foot in bookshops. So booksellers had to go online—and the ones that didn’t generally suffered. The vast majority of bookshops that used to exist in major cities are closed today. But the booksellers aren’t necessarily gone; they are just operating privately now, out of their homes or out of warehouses.
 
Our shop is a little different. I owned my building from the beginning, and since we like the environment we work in, we’ve been able to stay open with no trouble. We do have a walk-in trade, but it’s very light and generally consists of serious rare book collectors, which is our main market. What you see when you walk in is a regular bookshop, but we are completely geared to operate as a mail-order business as well.
 
Do you see any difference between the strategies employed by the independent stores that have gone out of business and those of stores that have survived? 

The biggest thing, obviously, is whether or not a bookseller is willing to offer their books online. It’s a lot more work than just putting a price in a book and sticking up on a shelf. You have to describe the book, fill orders by e-mail, answer questions, by phone, and in our case, issue catalogs. You have to either be technically competent or hire someone who is in order to accomplish all that.
 
What further changes do you anticipate?

It’s funny: When we first started our own website about five years ago, we thought, “Who’s going to care about our little website when they can buy used and rare books from multi-dealer sites like ABE and Amazon? But to our surprise, we soon found that we had our own customers—bibliophiles who like browsing our bookstore just like in the old days, only via the website. And they don’t have to be in Baltimore—they can be in Timbuktu. People have a natural desire to be patrons.
 
In what ways do you think e-books will have an impact? What place might they have in independent stores? 

Even though it’s not my market, for retail books and inexpensive used books, the impact appears to be pretty huge. Still, every day, I see people reading books—so I think that even though the market for physical books is shrinking. There will always be folks who prefer them.
 
We sell rare books and first editions, and while those books are most definitely purchased by fanatical readers, they are expensive and more in the “artifact” category than the “thing you read” category. So e-books have not had a terribly big effect on our business. For us, I would say that the endless digital distractions of today’s world are a bigger concern. It’s ridiculous how people can’t get their heads out of their phones.
 
The big bricks-and-mortar chains, i.e., Barnes & Noble, have themselves been struggling greatly in recent years because of competition with online retail. What do you make of this? Do you think that a diminished presence of the corporate chains would be of general benefit? 

Well, just like the smaller booksellers, the big bricks-and-mortar chains are taking their business online, and just like in the physical world, they are tough competition. Their online services are generally very professional, and the challenge to the small bookseller is to make its offerings, website and customer service equally professional.
 
Have you found the rise of online retail to be a good thing for independently owned stores?

As long as a bookseller is willing to rise to the opportunity, yes, it’s a great opportunity. But it’s hard work, and requires much more discipline than operating a traditional open shop. And though there are similarities to the old model, the work aspect requires a very different mindset. A bookseller in 1980 wouldn’t know what the word “infrastructure” meant; a bookseller who operates online is required to know what it means.
 
How do you conceive of locally owned bookstores’ present relationship to the surrounding community? Is their importance different now than in the past?

My customers today consist of many Baltimoreans, but many others call me on the phone from wherever they live. We talk about first editions, new arrivals, movies, sports and all kinds of things. I’m on the phone and return e-mails all day long. It’s really no different than an old-fashioned bookshop—except that my storefront is open to the whole world in addition to my local community. To survive, and hopefully thrive, I have no choice but to cater to both. Fortunately, the new world has been pretty enjoyable so far.

Royal Books is at 32 W 25th St, Baltimore, MD 21218