New England SCBWI
Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators

That downward trend isn't due to the big chains pushing out independent bookstores. The chains' sales are hurting, too. The two biggest chains, Barnes & Noble and Borders, recently announced disappointing fiscal years, as did some large regional and specialty chains.

For the year ending in early Feb 2007, Barnes & Noble's superstore revenue was up slightly, but sales at the existing superstores didn't grow (in fact, they shrunk by a hair). Sales at B. Dalton outlets fell 29%. B&N.com revenue, which was a little less than 10% of the superstore revenue, also fell a little on a "comparable-store" basis.

At Borders, the news was worse. Total revenue rose by less than 1% for the year, the company had a net loss for the year. Superstore sales were up only 1.5%, with comparable-store sales off 2.2%. Among Borders's responses will be:
* shrinking the Waldenbooks group by almost half;
* selling many of the firm's overseas operations, if possible;
* starting a retail program through Borders.com rather than directing those sales through Amazon;
* publishing more exclusive titles, as Barnes & Noble does;
* probably selling more technology in its stores (audiobooks, ebooks, and their readers); and
* "carefully trimming" the inventory in its superstores. New chairman George Jones told PW, "We have too much inventory in our stores."

That last step might be the biggest threat to emerging authors and illustrators. The rise and spread of the superstores has meant wider exposure for new books than in the past. If Borders and perhaps B&N cut back inventory to the titles most likely to succeed, the losers will be books from unknown creators or those without stellar sales records.

These trends may be part of a long-term leveling off or even shrinking of the US book industry. The Steamboats Are Ruining Everything blog offers a graphic glimpse of the problem, also based on US Census data. Even though the population and economy continue to expand, total book sales have not risen as fast, and in fact have gone down in the last two years.

What's happening? The American public is obviously continuing to take in stories and information. But people are spending more time online or on their computers and less with a printed book. The Census Bureau's methods might not be picking up where those readers are headed. But our job might depend on hunting them down.