Music Stores, Booksellers Getting Creative to Survive

After waiting in line for hours, some fans sang, some screamed and others simply bobbed their head along with Elvis Costello's music as the singer took the stage in Hollywood earlier this summer.  

But he wasn't performing at one of Los Angeles' famed music venues -- instead, hundreds of his fans had crowded against racks of albums inside of Amoeba Music, a giant record store which hosts frequent in-store performances.

Surprisingly, as many music and book retailers have shuttered in recent years, a number of stores -- like Amoeba -- haven't seen their sales fall at all.

How have they managed to do that? The book and record stores that have survived are playing up their roles as community centers that serve as unique cultural spaces rather than just a place to buy a quick CD or magazine.

"Big chains went under because they lost track of core customers and grew too big and expected to make a certain amount of profit," said Amoeba's co-owner Marc Weinstein. "Virgins were almost like banks or something. They didn't showcase the product, and it was always just so sterile. We don't have a real corporate hierarchy. People really get the passion for music when they come in the store." (See accompanying interview with Weinstein, "Why Amoeba's Different.")

Charles Day, the store manager of Book Soup on the Sunset Strip, believes that if you don't think outside of the box, you won't survive these days -- as was the fate for the iconic Tower Records store that stood across the street from the bookseller for years.  

"You can't just sell books anymore and expect to get by," Day told TheWrap. "Events are really what keep us open. You have to be a tastemaker and talk to people in an educated way about books. It's a lot harder than it was five years ago. We're making less money, and we have to watch the margins more."

There's certainly adequate reason for anxiety. As of April, there were 185 record stores in the L.A. area, down from 259 at the beginning of 2007, according to the Los Angeles Times. The disappearing stores included everything from big chains like Tower and two Virgin Megastores to smaller independents like Rhino in Westwood and Aron's in Hollywood.

Bookstores have arguably fared even more poorly, no thanks to Amazon -- and, increasingly, its Kindle. Despite its national reputation and two decades of history, 25-year-old Dutton's in Brentwood folded last spring when the business went into $500,000 of debt after opening an unsuccessful Beverly Hills branch.

Cook's Library, the 3rd Street store which sold epicures and cookbooks for 20 years, closed in April. And West Hollywood's 51-year-old Cosmopolitan Book Shop announced in June it was going out of business, after barely surviving thanks to orders for 5,000 or 10,000 titles at a time which may have been for set-decorating purposes.

Many of the retailers who have managed to stay afloat have done so by hosting a number of weekly events.

Amoeba typically has one live in-store performance per week -- recently, they've presented Costello, Paul McCartney, Mandy Moore and Flight of the Conchords.

 

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