Booksellers in bind as bibliophiles dwindle

With bibliophiles becoming a rare and vanishing breed, the going has just got tough for the City’s marquee book sellers.

Once a happy breed with their tills flush with cash and their racks teeming with lastest tomes in the publishing world, today they are striving to make ends meet and keep their family run enterprises fine and floating. And it’s not Kindle and its ensemble of e-books which have just eaten into their business. It’s simple consumerism. In simple terms — recreation.

With malls and muliplexes, that dot the City’s choicest realty horizon, offering on a platter, hitherto never imagined weekend outings for family, books have taken a backseat in the family’s scheme of  priorities.

With distractions aplenty, the last three years, say book sellers, have seen a dramatic change, and they are facing a stiff challenge like never before. And the Tsunami of distaste towards books sweeping across all sections of diaspora — the young, the old and even the avowed lovers, the onslaught of this drift has hit even the old and reputed book sellers all caught in the squall of recreation over reading.

Underlining the cathartic metamorphosis taking place, and standing a mute testimony to this is the Strand Book Stall, synonymous with all things good and beautiful with books for more than 60 years, which is hardpressed to find loyal customers.

The Stall’s iconic founder T N Shanbag, was decorated with Padmashree for his sterling service in the field of book selling. But his book store, which set up a branch in Bangalore in 1995, and saw the best of times in retailing books, is now battling the dwindling reading habits of people.

Says Vidya Virkar, co-owners of Strand Book Stall, book business has turned over the head in the last three years and the onset of this change has been rapid. “There has been a change in the way in which people spend their time. There are also various sources of knowledge, various forms of media. While few strike a balance between e-reading and hard books, others fall trap to online hype of books.” Online stores have dumbed down the readers as their mental space gets taken by the hype surrounding books with large sales or authors with successful market name.

Substandard books

Besides the dwindling tribe of readers, there’s the problem of plenty when it comes to rise in the number of new authors. “The market space for books has gone mad.
Substandard books are being printed. Authors have gone in for vanity publishing. There is no control on quality. People think they have written a book worth publishing. What we see in a majority of situations is that the entire book reads like an informal conversation,” she said.

A book seller must know what book to order. Should they keep a book in their rack based on the number of copies sold? How far should they go in encouraging a debutant author? What happens to the fate of classic literature?

“Book selling must focus on carrying people to higher taste and more eclectic reading. That does not mean that all best sellers are bad. There are some popular authors that strike a chord with reader too,” Virkar opined.

However, on the flipside, things seem brighter with children's literature. She pointed out that there has never been such a wide range of books available for children. Though not many children are seen shopping for books in stores, schools have panicked at the downtrend and are on an overdrive to encourage children to read books.

“Schools are increasing the number of books in their libraries. Children are also open to both foreign and Indian authors as they are acquainted with cultures other than the regional, these days.”

The eighteenth year Strand Book Stall’s annual fair is round the corner. On from July 11 to July 24, it will showcase more than 25,000 books, including rare and out of print books, and hosted at Wesley Tamil Church Hall.

The books are being given out at half the price or even lower, to encourage reading, according to Virkar.