Book Junkie: Southside bookseller about to bite the dust?

Columbia City, undoubtedly proud of the fact that they re-instituted Seattle Bookfest in October, must be singing the blues knowing that a bookstore within their midst is struggling.

I recently received an email from Jim Holmes, owner of Bookworm Exchange: "After six years of struggle and almost no pay, I will most likely be closing up in March," he writes. "People in the South end of Seattle are not inclined to support a local bookstore." Rent is $35,000 for 2,000 square feet. He has three part-time employees working a total of thirty hours a week. Holmes works the other thirty for free. "At the end of the year, hardly anything is left over for myself."

He laments about the myriad factors for his soon-to-come demise. There are plenty of libraries in the area (four within three miles of the store). A giant Goodwill is nearby carrying thousands of books, most under $3. Yard sales don't help. "The most destructive sector," he writes, "is the internet; and Amazon is a big contributor by allowing anyone to sell on the site. Many books are listed for under a dollar and some for a penny." He asks why go to a bookstore, then, when you can buy your books online for a dollar and have them shipped right to your door? "I see people with these online scanners going through piles of books at thrift stores and yard sales. They have no store, thus no overhead, other than storage."

Offering a suggestion he says, "If these Web sites — Amazon, Alibris, Abe, etc. — would only allow actual bookstores to sell on their sites, I think the book business would do fine. But of course they don't care, as long as they get their 20 percent."

So his place on Rainier Avenue will go dark soon. "A decade from now," he foresees, "when only the mega-bookstores at the mall are left and, of course, the internet, people will reminisce of the old days when independent booksellers were in their neighborhood!"