Roy Schonfeld, a sales rep with the Abraham Associates group, declared, “Ohio isn't a strong market for independents. Years ago, there were so many stores, but Borders has really taken over. It's still a strong market, but everything is Borders, especially in northeastern Ohio.”
He's the not only sales rep who thinks so. “It's a tough market. It's not as bad off as Michigan, but it's been steadily going downhill for the past 10 years,” said Charlie Boswell, of the Heinecken & Associates rep group.
But bookseller Rita Williams offered this more optimistic view. “In the metro areas, booksellers are holding steady, but it's harder in the southern and more rural parts of the state,” said Williams, owner for 23 years of Books of Aurora, once a bricks-and-mortar bookstore, now an online business.
“Most of the stores here are settled,” she continued. “But I haven't seen new people coming in for the last couple of years.”
Indeed, the numbers bear out these mixed assessments of Ohio's bookselling climate. With 426 retailers selling books to its 11,459,000 residents, the nation's seventh most populous state ranks 38th on PW's bookselling health index, just below Illinois, and a few notches above Michigan (#42).
Of the Buckeye State's 207 bookstores, 53 are Borders stores. B&N has about half that number (27), and BAM operates five stores. While a 1996 ABA membership directory lists approximately 150 Ohio independents, there's one-third that number now—52 ABA member stores, down four stores since the beginning of this year.
While 52 ABA stores and 55 CBA stores dot the state, the ABA stores are clustered in northeastern Ohio, a densely populated region known for its blue-collar culture and liberal politics. CBA stores are concentrated in the more politically and socially conservative southwest, near the Indiana and Kentucky state lines.
The greater Cleveland metro area boasts a number of independents cited by reps as among the finest in the state, including Fireside Books, celebrating its 44th year, and Mac's Backs, approaching 30 years. But the region's shaky economy has had a ripple effect throughout northeastern Ohio.
“We've gone through a slow decline over the past few years,” admitted Liz Murphy, owner since 1983 of the 39-year-old Learned Owl Book Shop in Hudson, a bedroom community of 23,000 residents halfway between Cleveland and Akron. She said that before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out in August, sales at her store were down 10% for the year.
“People are more money-conscious. Everything is going up,” Murphy explained, describing current bestsellers at her store as being both business and children's books, reflecting local concerns about raising families and holding onto jobs.
Cincinnati, at the other end of the state, has fared better economically than the cities of northeastern Ohio.
“We've lost jobs, too,” said Boswell, who lives in a Cincinnati suburb. “But there's a lot of colleges here, and the city is headquarters to a lot of major corporations—Proctor & Gamble, G.E. Aviation, Macy's, some others. There's a lot of money around.”
While Neil van Uum, owner of the Joseph-Beth/Davis Kidd regional chain, called Cincinnati and Cleveland stagnating markets, he noted, “[Joseph-Beth in] Cincinnati is one of the higher-volume stores in the country.”
Though Cincinnati's prosperity has not completely insulated local bookstores from the vagaries of a volatile industry—after all, Montgomery Book Co. closed its doors in May—some bookstores are not just holding steady but thriving. In fact, Chris Weber, one of the four co-owners of Cincinnati's Bookshelf, reported $280,000 in revenues in the past fiscal year, up $100,000 from two years ago.
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