Scott’s Bookstore in Newnan, GA will close this month after more than 36 years in business as owner Earlene Scott, 76, retires. “I’m going to miss my customers and I’m going to miss my books,” she said. “Because I don’t know where I’m going to buy my books now.” She said the business has remained solid; “It was just age and time.”
After a one-year trial, HugoBooks closed their Spirit of ’76 Squared bookstore in Swampscott, MA, according to a notice on the door. The store had filled about half of the space formerly filled by a Borders Express. The notice from owner John Hugo said: “While we regret having to make the difficult decision to close this location, we are excited to focus our energy and resources on our three remaining, long-standing bookstores.”
Barnes & Noble will close a store in West Palm Beach, FL, “sometime in the next few months,” according to the Palm Beach Post. An official at the CityPlace shopping and entertainment destination confirmed to the paper last week that the will close and be replaced by an L.A. Fitness gym in early 2014.
Owner of Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle Peter Aaron speaks to Capitol Hill Seattle as the store celebrates its 40th anniversary. Three years after buying the store in 1999, “our sales volume decreased by one third” and “from a profitability point of view, it had gone from a comfortable business to one that was marginal.” Now, a decade later, “Aaron said the store has recovered more than half of the lost sales volume and is making a profit that is “good enough to keep us going and to pay the salaries.” He adds, “We never get lulled into a sense of complacency. Just because we were around yesterday doesn’t guarantee our future. We have to work for it every day.”