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"We can't compete anymore," says Paperbacks Unlimited owner Fred Hughes. Stiff competition from big retailers has forced him to shutter the independent bookstore's doors Sept. 15.Local spotlight
Ferndale shop closes book on 32-year run
Squeezed by bigger stores, fewer customers, owner of Paperbacks Unlimited sells building.
Fred Hughes' store is one of several in Metro Detroit closing up shop. Hughes sold his building to a real estate broker.
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FERNDALE -- When Katherine and Jonathan Manning want to replenish their book stock, their mother, Mary Jo, drives past Paperbacks Unlimited in Ferndale to Borders Books and Music in Birmingham.
"We can't compete anymore," says Fred Hughes, owner of Paperbacks, an independent bookseller that anchored a block on Woodward since 1973. He plans to close his doors Sept. 15.
He watched the customer population dwindle in recent years. Now he sells his remaining stock for 60 percent off.
His store closing isn't alone in the book world. This month, Skip Rosenthal, owner of Books Abound in Farmington, next to the Civic Theater, is shutting his new and used bookstore in September after 20 years. Like Hughes, he plans to sell the building and retire.
Also this year, the Women's Prerogative Bookstore in Ferndale folded, the Mayflower Book Shop in Berkley closed after fire damage and the Little Professor Bookstore in Dearborn ended a 40-year run. Last year, the Little Book Shoppe on the Park in Plymouth gave up after 20 years.
Karl Pohrt, owner of the Shaman Drum Bookstore in Ann Arbor and a member of the board of directors of the American Booksellers Association, says the attrition trend continues to mount. When older owners want to retire, they can't find younger buyers to take their place.
"The last four years have been bad. We've been here 36 years and most of those are good years," said Hughes, 67, noting he had two offers on the building this summer and decided to take the money and escape the hassles. "I had a great deal of affection for the product I was selling, it always made me feel good to put a book in someone's hands and know I had it or I could get it."
But the work wasn't easy. "It was a labor of love, a great deal of labor, lifting, cleaning and shelving books," he said. "It's been gratifying to see how many friends the store has made over the years."
Even mega-selling books such as the latest Harry Potter novel couldn't boost the fortunes of most independent stores because most customers went to Costco, Meijer or Wal-Mart for the best deal. The truckload prices were lower retail than Hughes could buy wholesale.
Hughes couldn't make up revenue on the sale of perennial sellers because few people bought books they didn't see advertised or hyped up on television talk shows.
"Books come and go and push each other off the shelves as fast as they can. People don't buy anything that wasn't advertised recently. Before, they bought all types of literature, sociology and political science books to increase their knowledge," he said. Hughes said he plans to read more once he retires up north.
Nationally the American Booksellers Association pegged May retail sales at bookstores at $1,056 million, a drop of 1.4 percent compared with May 2004. For the first five months of 2005, sales at bookstores are down 3.3 percent compared with the same period last year.
Mike Whitty, a professor at the University of Detroit Mercy on sabbatical in San Francisco, says he was aghast to learn of Paperbacks Unlimited's closing. He often held lectures at the store and assigned students to cull reading material.
"Paperbacks Unlimited fed my soul. It had a peace sign in the window. Ferndale and Detroit will never be the same," Whitty said.
Maureen McDonald is a Metro Detroit freelance writer.
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