Corridor used bookstores that find their niche remain in business

With with the way eBooks, iPhones and tablets have affected reading habits, and how online stores such Amazon.com have altered book buying, the rules for staying ahead remain a moving target that constantly challenges the smaller independent bookstores.

Todd Meyer of Mystery Cat Books in Cedar Rapids has mixed feelings about the topic.

'Both Barnes & Noble and Borders had mission statements, and those were to put every single independent bookstore out of business,” he said. 'But they failed to notice the 600-pound gorilla called Amazon.com that crept up behind them.”

Borders closed its last stores in 2011.

Nialle Sylvan, of the Haunted Bookshop in Iowa City, isn't lacking in compassion for the troubles of the big-box stores. But she noted that she has worked to create an environment to please her customers, ensuring that her business thrives.

'Every time I hear that some town is losing a bookstore, it breaks my heart a little more,” she said.

'Yes, it's nice if those customers find their way to my store, when they have nothing in their communities - but the decline of bookstores' availability in America? The bell tolls for thee. It hurts.”

She recently moved her business a few blocks, into a historical house that she said is perfect for books, and maintained that the move to a quieter traffic area has not hurt business at all.

'People find us,” she said. 'They like the experience of this house and the intimacy. They like finding a place to sit down and curl up with our cats.

'It's old and windy and twisty and maze-like ...

. A bookstore needs to have the character of its town,” she said.

'I think with the chain stores, part of the problem is they have the same patterns all across the country, and people in Nashville don't want to read the same thing as people in Iowa City.”

She said her shop carries mostly used books because her customers want used-book prices. She also sells online.

'In terms of online sales volume, I'd say we do about 10 percent of my business, and we sell primarily academic and antiquarian books with that model.”

Her shop's specialty is history - 'especially local history, but we also have a substantial children's section, and that's the thing we are really proud of.”

Greg Delzer, owner of Defunct Books in Sycamore Mall in Iowa City, said it is absolutely necessary to sell online. He has worked to find an area in which eBooks aren't as successful.

'I'm moving toward specializing in collectible books and children's books,” he noted.

'Children's books are not as effective as e-readers because parents may not trust their children to not throw the e-reader against the wall,” he said.

'You also have to be flexible. In the 11 years that I've owned my business, I've probably had to change my business plan 15 times to adjust to the changing market, which is annoying, but it is something that you have to do.”

Delzer has also moved his business twice - once from Spokane, Wash., where he'd been operating since 2003, to Iowa City in 2007, and again after being notified that his building was being demolished.

He currently is expanding his store's offerings to include older, leather-bound books, first editions and signed books in an effort to create a more specialized niche.

Meyer, who opened his Mystery Cat Book Store nearly eight years ago is changing the approach to his book-selling business as he has struggled with hardcover and collectible book sales out of his shop for the past several years.

'The goal is to close my building by July 31,” he said.

He owns the building and will be putting it up for lease/ He will move his online sales into his home.

'Currently I have over 2,200 listings online, and it just gets better and better,” he said. 'As books come off and are sold and shipped, more are going on all the time.”

There is an $18 minimum value for books that he lists online, and said there isn't any one particular genre that is outselling any other on his site.

'I probably have more mystery/suspense/adventure online than anything, but everything is selling well these days,” he said.

'I might mail books to Paris, Tel Aviv, Calgary and suburban London all in one week, and when I look at what these people are paying for postage, I just shake my head,” he said. 'I can't begin to explain it.”

'It is what it is. The online business sells books today, but the brick-and-mortars are being done in.”