You can't beat a real book in Masterton

REAL BOOKS: Masterton district librarians Jayne Horsham (left), Jon Adams, Georgia-May Rutene and Chris Hawker have seen a spike in book issues over the past year.

In a world of eBooks, Netflix, and every kind of gaming console, Masterton residents still enjoy picking up a good, old-fashioned paperback.

Paper Plus Masterton featured in Booksellers New Zealand's online magazine last month, reporting a steady increase in both book sales and gross profit in the latter half of this year.

This increase is mirrored throughout the country, with year-to-date figures from Nielsen BookData showing a 9.3 per cent increase in book sales since October 2014.

This follows a difficult period for book retailers nationwide, with sales being dramatically affected by the economic downturn, the revolution of e-readers and the rising popularity of online stores, such as Amazon.com.

Paper Plus owner/manager Russell Carthew, said book sales had been "pretty flat" over the past few years -- but things had really turned around for the store in the last six months.

"We've seen some real growth -- and over the last six weeks in particular, things have increased quite dramatically.

"It's been hard, and a lot of bookstores have closed. But, traditionally, Wairarapa has been a place that really enjoys its books."

While e-readers were predicted to be the end of bookstores, the sales of Kindles and other devices around the world had recently plateaued, Mr Carthew said.

In fact, his store had previously sold the Kobo e-reader, but took it off the shelves as it "wasn't earning its space".

"After a while, it wasn't selling -- the demand for it wasn't there. I don't think e-readers will be going away, and they've got their place. But they've definitely levelled off."

In addition, customers had reported eBooks were not much cheaper than their paperback counterparts, Mr Carthew said.

"You can get eBooks for around $20 -- but you can get a paperback for about $24.99."

Mr Carthew said the most popular sellers at Paper Plus were the new releases from Wilbur Smith, Lynda La Plante and Stephen King, with Dan Carter's upcoming autobiography generating much interest.

Also featuring in the article was Masterton District Library which has enjoyed a spike in book issues since early this year.

Manager Sandy Green said the numbers of issues this year had been "tracking steadily upwards", particularly for fiction, autobiographies, and children's picture books.

In some months, increases were as much as 5 per cent up from the previous year.

"It's exciting," Mrs Green said.

"You'd think things like Netflix and Spotify would be taking up most of people's time -- but clearly, people still want to pick up a real book.

"They said eBooks would be the end of libraries and bookshops, but that's not the case."

Mrs Green put the increase in issues down to a larger number of people retiring and needing activities to fill in time, and Government-driven messages about the importance of literacy sinking in for families.

She said it was "an amazing correlation" that the library's issues had increased alongside Paper Plus' sales.

"It has been said that libraries take businesses away from book stores -- but, traditionally, if one is strong, so is the other. Clearly, we are both creating a well-rounded, literate community."

Popular titles borrowed from the library this year included best-selling psychological thriller The Girl on the Train, The Official New Zealand Road Code and Nadia Lim's Easy Weekend Meals.