Faced with high rents and the Amazon juggernaut bookstores are struggling to survive. 'Use it or lose it' is the message

The news that The Travel Bookshop is set to close is for those who still believe in the importance of such transactions, upset and even more for the employees losing their livelihoods, but it 's an announcement that after a number of closures comes and gloomy headlines for booksellers. Independent bookstores are struggling for a long time now (more than 100 closed in 2009), but shown as the closing of borders in December 2009, chain booksellers are in real trouble too. Borders 'closure left Waterstone' s in the perfect position in the market yet Waterstone 's has still hold to a foreign investor to trade to find. Doubting Given these types of developments, it' s easy, whether brick and mortar bookstores great future at all.

The bookstore I work at, has Housmans in London 's King' s cross in order for more than 60 years, and over this time has had several brushes with the closure - to a certain extent the pressure is nothing new. An expensive libel action, and the closure of adjacent businesses during the King 's Cross "Renovation" dispute were particularly stressful times, especially for us, but all the independents have the storms of the rupture of the net book Weather agreement (which may be used for the heavy discounting of books from mass retailers) and the online market dominance of Amazon, whose practice of price-squeezing publishers and authors to readers may have unrealistic ideas about book prices.

On a day to day, the greatest burden for bookstores is overhead, namely, rates, invoices, wages (almost always very low), and above all to rent. The open insane rental prices in London can be great for landlords, but are crippling many small businesses and workers alike. André Schiffrin 's book Words & Money (Verso 2010) examines the crisis all areas of publishing, and gives some interesting initiatives in France and Germany, where politicians are about the importance of the book trade as part of the broader social fabric in agreement and have for discounts in rates and rents by law to maintain order in bookshops alive. All small businesses are in the shadow of the growing dominance of an oligopoly of corporate dealer sorry, but bookstores particularly at risk because of the profit from each sale is so much smaller than in many other areas.

Perhaps the book trade are themselves partly to blame. We 've hard about how to turn things, and haven' t avoid, self-critically about the work we do. People have high expectations for the bookstores, and we strive to meet them, and offer the services they want. Bookstores make it a hub for the community is important through in-store events and public relations, but also naive transformations and improvements might not be sufficient when added to the core numbers don 't.

On 6 October 2011 we 'll launched an initiative called the Alliance of Radical bookseller, a loose coalition of left-wing political bookshops in the UK. We hope that this will allow us to share ideas, support each other and better communication with the publishers, media and book lovers. It 's important that we get the message that bookstores need support "use us or lose us" is the motto of the day. The extra help may take the form of better deals from publishers, actions in the media, or even preferred terms of national or local government to take, but we would change all love to see the most would get more people through the door and will enjoy to browse and hopefully good advice and a chance to buy off the shelves of well-selected songs in a pleasant environment: Bookstores and what they have to offer.