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Elliott Bay, now Bailey/Coy: Why tech can save Seattle’s book stores

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With a bustling tech space and more book stores per capita than any other city nationwide, Seattle has become known as both a geek town and a book town.

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Michael Wells bought Bailey/Coy Books from Barbara Bailey in 2003. Over the weekend, the store announced it would shut its doors by the end of the month. (Paul Joseph Brown/seattlepi.com file)

But if something doesn’t change, one of its cultural hallmarks could defeat the other.

Just two weeks after the city learned of the financial troubles plaguing Elliott Bay Book Co., Seattle’s most famous book store, Publicola broke the news that the well known Bailey/Coy Books will close its doors at the end of the month due to lost profit.

As Capitol Hill Seattle pointed out this month, this might be just the beginning.

“The economic downturn of the past year, combined with the rapidly changing world of bookselling, has led us to believe that this is the most responsible decision,” read a Bailey/Coy Books news release.

Bailey/Coy thrived in Seattle for many of its 26 years, becoming a community hub at its Capitol Hill location and helping bring gay and lesbian literature into the local mainstream.

Recently, fortune has been kinder to another Seattle business — Amazon.

As independent bookstores struggle to survive the digital revolution, the creator of the Kindle has — by all accounts — been leading it: a Seattle company threatening an industry with roots planted most firmly in its own backyard.

INDIE BOOK STORES
Related stories

· Poets & Writers: Indie book stores face uphill battle
· Publicola: Capitol Hill’s Bailey/Coy Books to close

It’s hard to see a way out, even for nationwide retailers. Barnes & Noble, which this month released a reader to compete with the Kindle, has seen its revenue drop. Jumping in the digital book business, analysts say, might only speed the decline.

Meanwhile, Amazon’s third-quarter profit jumped 68 percent, with revenue rising 28 percent to $5.45 billion.

In the wake of the Elliott Bay Book Co. announcement, book bloggers like seattlepi.com’s Midge Raymond have urged readers to support their local indie store.

Even City Councilwoman Jan Drago joined in, asking those gathered at a banner unveiling in Pioneer Square on Friday to buy a book from Elliott Bay “because they’re in crisis right now.”

But while local support can help the indie book stores, it can’t save them.

Seattleites love both literature and technology. As far as they’re concerned, e-readers like the Kindle give them both.

Unless indie book stores up their tech appeal, more of them will fall, along with Seattle’s treasured No. 1 book-store-per-capita ranking.

Granted, there’s no easy answer here. But as seattlepi.com book blogger Michael Lieberman pointed out, Elliott Bay Book Co. lacks both a strong Web site and a social media strategy — things that have been proven to not only draw Net-savvy customers to small businesses, but also to build a community around them.

That — at least — could be a start.

Monica Guzman
http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2009/11/02/elliott-bay-now-bailey-coy-why-tech-can-save-seattles-book-stores/
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