'We're not in it for the money'

At the other end of the spectrum, in the middle of recently hip and thriving downtown Los Angeles, is Julie Swayze's Metropolis Books. Opened last month on a strip that she says was once referred to as the demilitarized zone, Ms. Swayze sees both arty loft-dwellers and homeless residents of the nearby Midnight Mission as part of her customer base.

Broad Brook Books, meanwhile, opened in August, in the 150-year-old red brick building owned by Tarr's mother-in-law, who is also his partner. Monthly rent just covers taxes and utilities, which may be key to staying open.

In the training seminars that her bookstore-consulting company conducts, Donna Paz Kaufman says she advises would-be owners to buy their own building. "Real estate is one of the biggest hurdles," she says. Business at Paz & Associates has held steady over the past 15 years, with about 300 prospective booksellers requesting information each year.

But at the ABA, membership dropped from 4,057 in 1996 to 1,625 members last year. From the mid-'90s until two years ago, store openings could be counted on two hands, says Teicher of the ABA. He speculates that part of what's changed may be that entrepreneurial book lovers have spotted a vacuum for the type of services independents can provide.

Part of what these stores – and the larger independent community – are working to do is find a niche, a way to create an experience the warehouse-size stores cannot, whether through knowledgeable handselling, hosting author and community events, or carrying a particular genre.

The newest booksellers may also be a savvier breed, with a background in business or books, sharpened by seeing independent's decades-long struggle for survival. "Twenty-five years ago they would have leased some space, built some shelves, and opened the door," says Russ Lawrence, ABA president and owner, since 1986, of Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Mont. "Now they're getting a business plan together."

As for money, well, as Tarr says, "It wasn't, 'Let's open a bookstore and make a million dollars.' " Indeed. Lisa Sharp of Nightbird Books in Fayetteville, Ark., would love to earn a small salary. But if her store "can support itself and still be a contribution to the community," she says, "that would be enough." Her husband is keeping his job as an architect. Similarly, Tarr's wife is a payroll clerk across town. [ Editor's note:The original version misspelled Fayetteville.]

At least there's an upside to the lasting reports of the independents' demise. "In a way, it frees me up to make the bookstore the way that I want it to be," says Adam Tobin, an MFA poetry graduate whose Brooklyn, N.Y., store, Adam's Books, has, for the time being, become his "literary project."

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