Describe a recent author event.
We just had Robert Sabuda, who’s the most famous pop-up bookmaker in the world, during Sinterklaas. [To read Sabuda’s recent interview with Almanac Weekly, go here: https://ulsterpub.wpengine.com/2014/10/31/paper-engineer-robert-sabuda-releases-new-book-readies-10-horse-art-center/.] The store was packed and we sold a lot of books. We want to give our community access to artists and authors they never would see unless they went to New York City.
Do you sell e-books?
Yes, through our partnership with the American Booksellers’ Association. They had a partnership with Google to provide e-books through our website, but Google ended that program and the new partner is Kobo, which is among the top five e-book sellers. People can buy an e-book on our website, and it’s not much different than going to Amazon: We have the same books and the same prices. We don’t make money off it, since we get only five percent.
Do you still view Barnes & Noble as your prime competitor?
They’re no longer our enemy, because now they’re struggling – maybe more than the independent bookstores. Having a 30,000-square-foot store is extremely expensive to rent and fill with merchandise. They’ve been struggling trying to figure out the digital market, and their Nook business is not doing well. Borders closed. I no longer think of them as a competitor; in fact, they are providing books to a lot of communities that don’t have an independent bookstore.
You don’t have a café.
There’s a lot of great cafés in the village, and I don’t want to compete with my neighbors. I like to sell books, not make coffee or spill coffee on my books.
Are you concerned that e-books will eventually supplant physical books?
I read the bookselling trades every day to keep up with the trends. E-books have taken a percentage of dollars people spend nationally on books. The amount was going up fast, but then it started to plateau. Out of 100 people, 20 have converted to digital only; the other 80 people had a chance to convert and decided they didn’t want to. So it looks like the people who have converted to e-books have already done so.
I read digitally, too. I have an iPad and read a lot of digital advance copies of books.
What’s the difference in price?
The retail price of a brand-new hardcover book is about $28, whereas an e-book sells for $14.99. The hardcover price drops by $3.99 when the book is several years old. The industry prints the price on the item; that’s how publishing is.
Do you sell books at a discount?
We don’t discount. We have a large bargain and sale section, and mark down hardcover books when they’re out in paperback. The bargain section consists of remainder books: excess stock the publishers have. Books we don’t sell, we return to the publisher. If we haven’t sold any copies of a hardcover book after it’s on the shelf for five or six months, it’s probably going back. There won’t be any more publicity and people probably don’t want it.
How well are you doing?
We’re modestly profitable. We’re pretty smart businesspeople who’ve been in business long enough to know what we are doing, and we can be agile. Two thousand eight was a really hard year, and coming back was challenging. But this year at the Rhinebeck store has been the best year ever. Part of that is related to the village becoming bigger every year.
Given the enormous amounts of time people are spending on their computer, are you concerned about the future of reading?
As far as the future of reading goes, we’re in a cool position. Not only are books still here after hundreds of years, now there are so many new ways to read and publish content. You can read essayists who have both print books and write on Tumblr. I’m not worried about books and appreciate the many ways we are consuming the written word. Social media and all its different platforms make this a really good time to be a writer and reader.
However, many published writers have found it’s much harder to make money at their craft.
Artists have always had trouble making money. It’s hard no matter what your specialty is; if you’re an indie-rock band, it’s hard.
What are your reading habits? Any new books you can recommend?
I read pretty broadly, mostly fiction. I read at night for an hour before I go to bed and read on my lunch break. A new novel came out [recently] called Descent, by Tim Johnston, which is absolutely brilliant. I’m calling it “John Irving meets Gillian Flynn”; it has that absolute twisting and turning, gut-wrenching thing Flynn does, but also the incredible artistry and character depth of Irving.
We’re talking about how many copies to buy and where to place it. We have 18 staff and hand-write [descriptions of many of our books by featured authors]. A big part of what we do is hand-sell the book. We ask who was the last author you loved, and then recommend other books.
Any particularly exciting event coming up?
We’ve booked an event March 10 with Erik Larson, author of the huge best-seller Devil in the White City, for his new book about the sinking of the Lusitania, called Dead Wake. He lives in Seattle, but we’ll be the host of the launch event of that book and the first stop in his national tour. We send off requests to big authors, and in this case we got an e-mail back. We’ll be renting space at the Culinary’s Marriott Pavilion, and the price of a ticket includes the book. It’s the largest adult event we’ve done.
I hope in ten years we’re getting people like Toni Morrison and John Irving, or I’ll be mad. We’re putting Rhinebeck on the map as a literary destination, and publicists are starting to get the message that we want authors to come through here.
Oblong Books & Music, Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m., Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m., Sunday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., 6422 Montgomery Street, Rhinebeck; www.oblongbooks.com.
