Some light jazz played softly in the background, its sounds occasionally disrupted by the roar of a Big Blue Bus storming past on Wilshire Boulevard.
“They have a great collection and the prices are better,” Martin said.
Martin, who has visited the store three times since moving back to the Westside from the South Bay two months ago, comes to the bookstore to take his time and browse. When he wants to find something specific, he’ll head elsewhere. As someone who has only been able to visit the store a few times, Martin said he was disappointed to hear it was closing.
For now, Wilshire Books is one of the few old independent booksellers remaining on the Westside, once home to businesses such as Midnight Special in Downtown Santa Monica and Change of Hobbit at Lincoln and Pico boulevards.
But over the years, the number of such sellers has fallen, victims of the area’s notoriously high rent, competition from industry powerhouses like Barnes & Noble, Borders and Amazon.com, and even a perceived decline in readership among the young generation.
Every bookseller has their own story as to why their business is struggling.
MORE ‘IDEAS’ NEEDED Husband and wife duo Andrew MacDonald and Irene Coray chose the city by the sea as the perfect place to relocate their used bookstore business that had flourished in Washington D.C. for 17 years before, located in a tiny space in the Adams Morgan neighborhood.
KULTURAs opened on the 1700 block of Ocean Park Boulevard in January and, about eight months later, the couple opened its second shop on Fourth Street.
Less than two months later, the owners are seeking a tenant to take over their space in an attempt to consolidate the two stores. Rent has turned out to be a killer. “(Santa Monica) appeared to be one of the more cosmopolitan and busy districts,” MacDonald said on Wednesday.
The Fourth Street location, according to MacDonald, is barely supporting itself, relying on a constant flow of foreigners from Britain, Italy and France.
“I thought with this kind of traffic, it would be replicating the traffic in Washington D.C.,’ MacDonald said, pointing to the cars and pedestrians outside his door.
But unfortunately, on the Westside, with the beautiful weather and access to natural resources, there’s too much to do aside from sitting inside and snuggling up with a book, MacDonald believes. Whereas in Washington D.C., where the season changes are noticeable and the fall and winter months are actually cold, east coasters like to stay inside and read, he said.
“Los Angeles is a city of entertainment, whereas D.C. is a city of ideas,” he said.
The Sunset Park store is “surviving,” MacDonald said, receiving a good flow of customers. He attributes the volume of customers to the demographic — mostly families.
Because KULTURAs is a secondhand bookstore, MacDonald doesn’t believe he’s in direct competition with the big-time retailers. If a customer is looking for the new Harry Potter book, they’ll refer to their local Barnes & Noble. If they’re looking for an early edition novel, they’ll turn to a used bookstore.
Though independent bookstores suffered a setback during the early 1990s with the proliferation of the chain bookstores, there has actually been a resurgence, said Meg Smith, the chief marketing officer for the American Booksellers Association, a non-profit trade organization promoting the profitability and survivability of independent bookstores.
Over the last three years, approximately 250 independent bookstores have opened and joined the ABA, Smith said. The organization is open to all bookstores, but caters mostly to the taste of members that sell both used and new books. With about 2,000 members, the organization represents about 80 percent of independent booksellers in the country.
Smith believes that the sudden interest in opening a bookstore can be attributed to the so-called “shop local issues” and backlash against the big boxes.
“We’re just on that part of the wave,” she said. “If people are exploring opening a bookstore, it’s not as discouraging as it might of been even five years ago.”
Independent booksellers face the same threats that any retailer faces, including real estate factors, Smith said. The bookstore might also be family-owned with no descendent to continue the operations.
Real estate was a factor that once threatened the livelihood of Dutton’s Brentwood Books, located in the Barry Building, which was recently landmarked by the Los Angeles City Council. The owner of the building originally intended to redevelop it into condominiums, but following public outcry, modified the plans to be a retail destination designed around the bookstore.
Manager Ed Conklin, who has worked at the store for more than 20 years, believes the primary reason why it has survived is the loyal and well-read customers.
But it’s getting harder to survive, he said, especially with competition from the Internet and the increased number of places where books are available, including the big box retailers like Costco and WalMart.
“You don’t have that instant gratification and you also don’t have that serendipitous find where you stumble on something and think ‘this looks good,’” Conklin said of shopping at a independent bookstore.
Despite all obstacles, the independent bookseller continues to live in the Westside, with stores like the Friends of the Santa Monica Public Library Used bookstore, Angel City Bookstore in Ocean Park and Beyond Baroque in Venice.
Located in the old City Hall, Beyond Baroque opened in 1968 and focuses primarily on poetry and chap books, which are hand-made limited edition copies. Half of the non-profit organization is a bookstore while the other half is an archive containing the books by authors that have spoken at the Beyond Baroque.
Fred Dewey, the executive director, agrees that the Internet has been devastating to the industry and adds that some used bookstores have managed to stay alive by keeping a catalogue on the Internet.
“There is no replacement for the experience of visiting a good bookstore,” Dewey said. “It’s totally different from the experience of shopping on the Internet.”
SAYING GOOD-BYE Peffer put his blood, sweat and tears into the independent bookstore, building the shelves that hang on the walls and selecting the collection along with Hathwell, who got to know the owner in the 1980s when he came by as a customer selling books.
Peffer, who lives in Ventura, will most likely reopen at a location near his home.
Hathwell believes a combination of factors led to the bookstore’s ouster from the Westside, traffic being the biggest culprit. Many of the old customers that have moved out of town don’t want to make the drive to Santa Monica because of the traffic, he said.
“Once the regulars move out of the area, we don’t see them as much,” he said.
But even if Wilshire Books wasn’t asked to leave, Hathwell said the business wouldn’t be able to sustain itself for too much longer since it’s been operating in the red for quite some time.
To Peffer, the business isn’t even about making money. As long as he’s able to balance his accounting records, he would’ve been willing to continue operating in Santa Monica, Hathwell added.
At its peak, the business would make about 10 transactions an hour. Today, on a typical weekday, the business has slowed to only four or five.
Hathwell, who splits time with Peffer managing the store, said he’ll miss the daily interactions with customers the most, the discussions of politics and life in general.
“I’ve formed attachments to the customers over time,” he said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 2, 2007. Read the original PDF.