Someone’s going to write a book about all the stuff people hoarded during the pandemic, and it looks like they can do a chapter on books.
When Nova Scotia declared a state of emergency March 22, it didn’t take long for independent Halifax store Bookmark to notice a surge in sales.
When the government acted that Sunday, the shop moved directly to online orders and customer pickup at the door. Monday dawned with pretty much non-stop demand.
“It was customer service from when we opened and we did not stop till we closed down at five; it was really overwhelming,” said Mike Hamm, manager and buyer at the Spring Garden Road shop, during a phone interview.
“We thought it’s just natural that it would start to taper off but it really hasn’t.
“The people who always shop with us were more driven to make sure that we were OK. They started buying gift certificates, and they would repeat order.
“Then we were dealing with a lot of people whose other book sources had dried up.”
Obviously, operations at Bookmark are far from normal. The two full-timers are backstopped by someone when there’s a backlog, and another person will do delivery by bike when it’s practical.
It’s a loyal customer base cultivated over 30 years that’s keeping things going.
“We’ve always been supported so strongly and so profoundly by our reading neighbourhood,” Hamm said. “There’s not an invincibility about us but we just know that people value us so much that in some way, in some form, we would be OK.”
Research from BookNet Canada, a non-profit organization serving the book industry, suggests bibliophiles who find themselves with more leisure time due to COVID-19 restrictions are taking advantage. A survey of readers from March 30 through April 9 found that 22 per cent are buying more books than they did in February or earlier, while 63 per cent are buying at the same rate as they were before.
Paul MacKay, manager of the King's Co-op Bookstore on the college campus, said he’s getting orders just about every day even though the small shop is off limits to customers.
“Some people are buying five or six books at a time, which is nice; just hunkered in for the long haul,” MacKay said in a phone interview.
The virus has turned him into a one-man bookseller. Orders land on his phone and then he’ll pop into the store and get books together for deliveries. If a customer is on the Halifax peninsula, there's a good chance MacKay will drop off the order himself.
“If you want a book and can support local, I’ll bring it to you on a bike and give the post office a break.”
The King's store is a co-operative entity, separate from the university. Pre-virus, four students picked up some hours at the out-of-the-way location; in a sort of retail self-isolation, it’s just been MacKay for about a month and a half.
“I’m settling into sort of a new normal now,” he said.
“Business is OK. It’s definitely down. . . . Where it’s only me and we don’t have a lot of overhead, we’re in a good position. Some other places have it much worse than us.”
Take warehouses, for instance. There have been many recent stories about the health of the food supply chain, but distributors for non-perishables like books are also going flat out when they can.
“There are distribution warehousing systems that are almost operating as if there were no special circumstances,” said Hamm.
“A couple of them, we’re so amazed that they can maintain this level of service. Then there are others who, I assume because of a lack of staff with people feeling unsafe working in a warehouse, are only shipping in carton quantities, so if we wanted two copies of one book we can’t get it right now from certain sources.”
Orders that can be fulfilled include hot new releases, but Bookmark has been sending comfort reading like mysteries and gardening volumes to Cape Breton, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador.
“We talk about ordering more of Camus’ The Plague. There are a couple of non-fiction books about pandemics,” Hamm said.
“There is a slight ‘plague literature’ sub-genre.”
The King’s bookstore website has a category headlined “Books You've Been Meaning to Read - Quarantine Edition” that includes door stoppers like Moby-Dick and Gravity's Rainbow.
While the convenience and discounts offered by online giants Amazon and Chapters can be tempting, the stories of independent bookstores like Bookmark are shaped by a clientele who want to support a local merchant and who don’t mind paying list price.
“Of course, if we were operating as we usually would, we would be making more money, but the level of support we’ve been getting since this has happened has been tremendous,” said Hamm.
“A person can get a book in many different places. It’s what is attached with the sale of that book that makes a difference.”
