Today the sad news broke that another bookstore will close its doors.
Jim Huang, the owner of the independent bookstore The Mystery Company, announced that he will close the Indiana bookshop after seven years. His sad blog post laid out the problems facing bookstores of all sizes, as literary believers struggle against a recession, online outlets, and lagging sales. Huang will continue to publish the “the occasional mystery publishing project” through Crum Creek Press.
Here’s more from the post: “We’d hoped to see a boost from our involvement in Bouchercon 2009; the convention was a great success and we did sell a lot of books at the convention. But the costs of our participation — in terms of both time and money — were overwhelming, and we’ve seen no residual effects on our sales — no additional walk-in business, no additional internet/telephone orders, nothing. (That’s been kind of a shock to us.) Finally, we hoped for a good holiday season, but our sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year were once again disappointing — our second straight poor holiday season.” (Via Sarah Weinman)