Lafayette
Book Store

OPEN LETTER TO OUR COMMUNITY

To the Lafayette Book Store’s family and friends,

It’s with regret that we announce the closing of our brick-and-mortar location in Lafayette, effective July 29th.  We will remain in business and continue to serve our literary community here, but without the beloved gathering place we’ve shared over the years.

Dave along with Linda will continue to provide overnight special orders, Book Culture discounts and events, book talks to book clubs, used book parking lot sales, and weekly staff picks presentations starting August 1st.  Also, Dave along with Angie will continue to provide custom bookstores for conferences, conventions, and school bookfairs out of our warehouse in Fairfield.  Meanwhile, Aleks, our used books manager, has proudly accepted an offer to enter a PhD program in comparative literature at the University of Minnesota in the fall. 

Most exciting of all, though, is our recent acquisition of "Big Blue," a decommissioned bookmobile that will allow us to be "An Independent Bookstore on Wheels."  To get more info, follow us at facebook by searching for "The Bay Area Bookmobile."

There are many reasons why we are closing the brick-and-mortar location, but the most salient is that our lease is up for renewal and our landlords were very aggressive in their negotiations.  Given the economic challenges to running a brick-and-mortar bookstore now and in the future, we determined it isn’t viable to relocate and instead will provide as many bookseller services to the community as we can without the benefit of a physical store location. 

While we won’t have our traditional place to gather, we plan to keep our literary community together.  Search for our page on facebook.com and click the “like” button to join our virtual gathering place and we’ll keep you up-to-date on our book recommendations, events, and more.

For more detailed information about all this, see our FAQ below.

Though sadly we won’t have the bookstore counter to meet across, here’s to continuing the many wonderful relationships we’ve cultivated through the years.  Whether there is a bookstore or not, it’s those relationships we value most.

Warmly,

Dave Simpson

Owner, Lafayette Book Store

 FAQ

When will the bookstore’s brick-and-mortar location be closing?

The Lafayette Book Store will be closing its brick-and-mortar location on Thursday, July 29th at 6pm. 

Why are you closing the bookstore’s brick-and-mortar location?

The reasons are many and varied:

1.  Our lease is expiring and our landlords (the Parks Family, along with Craig Semmelmeyer at Main Street Properties), have been extremely aggressive with us and with other tenants in our building.  We looked at the economics of moving to a new location in Lafayette and they don’t pencil out.

2.  With general economic conditions as they are, it’s a very challenging time for small business in general and for small retail in particular.

3.  Over the past 12 years, indie bookstores have been weakened by tremendous competitive pressures from:

            Chain bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders

            Mass market retailers like Costco and Target

            Online book sales from amazon.com and others

            Ubiquitous book sales at outlets like grocery stores, home                              improvement centers, etc.

            Book sales through low-overhead, volunteer-run non-profit                                                 groups such as libraries and thrift shops

            Downloading of books to e-readers, kindles, and others

            Print-on-demand technology and direct sales by authors

4.   There are significant competitive pressures on the horizon:

            Google Editions will release this summer, which will eventually                                      enable readers to purchase just about any book and download it to just about any electronic reader or computer

            Significant growth in downloading of books as ipad infiltrates the                                     market

5.  Book readership is down.  The time and money once spent on reading is now in competition with cable TV, DVD’s, video games, the internet, and more

6.  Book publishers have not adapted their terms of sale to help indie bookstores remain competitive, and in general have made things more difficult by tightening credit lines and returns policies.

7.  One of the major chains, Borders, was near bankruptcy recently, and there are predictions that Barnes & Noble will close many stores nationwide in the next few years.  This will have many negative implications for the book business, especially impacting publisher budgets for the marketing of new books.

Why are you closing the brick-and-mortar location now?

If our lease lasted another 3 years we’d probably be here another 3 years.  But because our lease is up for renewal now we have to consider whether it’s financially responsible to invest in a brick-and-mortar location given the competitive pressures going forward.  Running the numbers makes the decision a bit inevitable.

How will the Lafayette Book Store continue to serve the community?

Even though the brick-and-mortar location is closing, the Lafayette Book Store will live on and continue to serve the community in a number of ways:

We will continue to grow our expanding offsite events business, providing custom bookstores for conferences, conventions, fundraisers, school book fairs, and author events.

Book Culture members and others can continue to order books to arrive the next business day by emailing us and picking them up after August 2nd at Fastframe of Lafayette’s new location at 1020 Brown Ave. in Lafayette.

Linda, our store manager, will appear weekly after August 2nd at Fastframe of Lafayette where she will feature her staff picks and make recommendations.

On Saturdays during the summer we will have our Used Book Parking Lot Sale at Fastframe of Lafayette’s new location on Brown Ave.

We will continue our Book Culture program offering a 40% discount on books, exclusive author luncheons, and more, at a cost of $10 per month.

We will continue to give our popular talks to book clubs.

What will happen to Linda, Aleks, Angie, and the rest of the staff?

Linda will continue to work with the Lafayette Book Store making recommendations, speaking to book clubs, writing reviews, and making her staff picks table available once a week at Fastframe of Lafayette.

Aleks has proudly accepted an offer to enter a PhD program in comparative literature at the University of Minnesota. 

Angie will continue to run our offsite events program exactly as she has been.

Is there anything we can do to prevent this from happening?

We knew you’d ask that.  Knowing the generosity of our community we anticipated there might be offers of money, protest, and free labor, but frankly all that would fly in the face of what we see as the lack of economic viability of traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores going forward.  We’d rather help invent the bookstore of the future than perpetuate the bookstore of the past.

What you can do for us is to remain an active part of our community, and the first way to do that is to search for our page on facebook.com and click the “like” button.

Did the opening of the new library affect the decision to close the brick-and-mortar location?

We didn’t know it would, but it did.  The library had always provided a book room to raise money, but in its new iteration it marketed itself as a new bookstore in the community, competing with us not only for sales but also for used book inventory.  We experienced a measurable drop in revenue when the library bookstore opened, and the realization that it’s difficult it is to compete against a bookstore with no rent or labor costs certainly influenced our decision.  However, we remain supportive of the library and its efforts in the community.

What if I have a gift certificate?

We encourage customers to use their gift certificates prior to our closing on July 29th, however as we will still be in business we can easily honor them on special orders after that time.

What if I have a used trade slip?

We encourage customers to use their used book trade slips prior to our closing on July 29th,  however as we will still be selling used books at our Used Book Parking Lot sales on Saturdays at Fast Frame on Brown Ave., we can easily honor them on used books after that time.

What if I’m a Book Culture member?

We hope you’ll remain one!  We’ll continue to provide a 40% discount on new books (with the same caveats) at a membership cost of $10 a month.  We’ll keep your credit card on file and charge the monthly fee plus any purchases you make to the card, making it easy to order books and pick them up the next business day at Fast Frame on Brown Ave. in Lafayette.

Will there be a party to mark the closing?

Yes, we’ll host a party to mark the closing of our brick-and-mortar store on the evening of Thursday, July 29^th.  Details forthcoming.

How can stay in touch with the Lafayette Book Store community and stay informed about events and happenings?

Our community is going to gather around our facebook.com page, so search for Lafayette Book Store and click our “like” button.  We’ll keep you in loop with book recommendations, events, reviews, and more.

Copyright 2009 Lafayette Book Store. All rights reserved.

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