Rare Book Monthly

Articles - March - 2017 Issue

Amazon Bookstores to Spread Coast to Coast – Is This Good or Bad for Booksellers?

An Amazon store (from Amazon website).

An Amazon store (from Amazon website).

Amazon has announced the planned opening of four more traditional, bricks-and-mortar bookstores for later this year. They join three already open on the west coast, Seattle, Portland, and San Diego, and one previously announced, but not yet open, Chicago. Now, Amazon bookstores will be found coast to coast. Amazon has announced that they will take Manhattan, and three other locations, one across the river in Paramus, New Jersey, and two in the suburbs of Boston – Dedham and Lynnfield. How many they will eventually open is unknown, maybe even to Amazon, and certainly to everyone else. Some speculate hundreds, some thousands. Meanwhile, the motivation behind this move into traditional retailing, which elicited a "what-the..." response when first announced in 2015, is becoming clearer.

 

The bookstores will only generate peanuts in terms of sales for the mammoth online retailer. Still, there are some evident ulterior motives. The stores now offer Amazon electronic devices, such as its Kindle e-reader, tablet computer, and probably most important of all, Echo, its hands-free personal assistant. And maybe even more important, it enables Amazon to personally sell subscriptions to its Prime service, which, for an annual fee, lets you purchase everything from Amazon at a discount. If they can get you to pay for Prime, they know you will buy lots more from them over the course of a year.

 

Of course, Amazon began its existence as a bookseller. Once they became the largest online bookseller, they morphed into something much bigger, the largest online retailer of just about everything else under the sun. They didn't make much if any money, but they grew like Topsy. Books, in a sense, were a loss leader. Perhaps that is what they will be again. The bookstores will undoubtedly help drive traffic to the website, as well as making sales on the spot. And one more thing – as big as online shopping has become, and as huge as Amazon's market share of online shopping is, the reality is that more than 90% of merchandise is still sold through traditional retail. Their share of this 90% is 0%.

 

Amazon recently opened a test site for grocery shopping in its home town of Seattle. The catch to their concept is that products will automatically be scanned as you put them in your shopping cart, enabling shoppers to avoid check out lines. Amazon evidently has an eye on that other 90%.

 

What is the impact of all of this on booksellers? Those most in fear are the shops that sell new books, as this is where Amazon directly competes. Those in the rare and antiquarian trade don't seem so obviously affected, though Amazon's online model turned even the rare book trade upside down in the 1990's, so who knows where this leads?

 

However, some independent booksellers are starting to warm to the idea, and they have more to fear than rare book sellers. Amazon only carries a limited number of books on site. Their books are displayed face out, significantly reducing the number on display. Amazon uses online buying habits to pick the most popular titles to sell at each location. They offer the cream of the crop, but the independents can offer more variety and specialization. They also can give the browser a better experience thumbing through titles to find books of interest they never knew about before. The Barnes & Nobles of the world long ago took away much of their best-seller trade, so Amazon is likely to be more of a threat to these large retailers than to independents.

 

All of this brings us to one more factor which may make rare and antiquarian book sellers feel better about these Amazon stores. Many have believed their stock in trade, the printed book, is on life support, their demise being tolled by the beeps of electronic readers. Young people have less connection to the physical book than earlier generations, simply because there are alternatives available. Some may rarely touch a physical book. They can read books by downloading them onto an electronic device without ever knowing the sensation of a physical book.

 

In an Amazon store, even if they buy an e-book, they will not be able to avoid the presence of printed ones. They may be tempted to touch one, open it, experience what their forebearers did. You cannot experience invisible electrons dancing on a chip. Tomorrow's collectors almost inevitably will come from today's readers of physical books. Amazon stores may be where the young first come to experience printed books. Everyone is always asking from where the next generation of book collectors will come. Maybe Amazon stores will be one of the answers.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Freeman’s | Hindman
    Western Manuscripts and Miniatures
    July 8, 2025
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
    Now through July 10, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Sotheby’s
    Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
    Now through July 10, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.
  • Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
  • DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
    DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
    DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
    DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
    DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800

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