Paperback comeback

Jemma Pirrie from McLeods Booksellers. Photo/Stephen Parker

The bookworm has turned, according to national experts and local store owners, when it comes to sales of paper books. Some analysts had predicted the demise of the hard copy by 2015, due to skyrocketing sales of e-readers. But as Rotorua Daily Post reporter Dawn Picken tells us, readers are returning to the page and booksellers predict a holiday shopping season that's merry and bright.

DAVID THORP, who co-owns McLeods Booksellers with his wife, says the Rotorua shop (in business more than 70 years), has weathered many technological waves.

"As far as e-readers go, my father was threatened with radio when it was invented. He was told to get out of books. Then TV was black and white, then colour, then with me 30 years ago it was CDROM. And in each case, it affected us for a couple years. People have always gone back to books."

Atlantis Books co-owner Fraser Newman has stores in Rotorua, Tokoroa and a new one in Whakatane, all selling used and new books.

Fraser says the e-reader phenomenon was a " . . . bit of a storm in a teacup. About 20 per cent of our customers also read on e-readers as well as [paper] books. We prefer to see digital as a partner as opposed to a competitor."

More readers are liking what paper books have to offer, according to global industry data. Booksellers NZ, which has a membership of about 300 businesses, including the Paper Plus chain and independent shops such as McLeods and Atlantis, tracks nationwide sales figures through Nielsen BookScan (a firm that collects book information worldwide).

McLeods Booksellers owners Lynne Jones and David Thorp, who says his customers keep returning for service and knowledge from the staff at his independent shop in Rotorua. Photo/Stephen Parker

Statistics provided to 48 Hours from Nielsen show the volume of the NZ book print market is up nearly 9 per cent for the year ending October 31; the total value of those books sold is up about 3 per cent.

Booksellers NZ chief executive Lincoln Gould says paper's outlook is promising.

Booksellers are feeling as though they're thriving, rather than just surviving.

Lincoln Gould

Gould says the upturn started last September, kept rolling through a very good Christmas and has continued throughout 2015. "So there's a new buoyancy in the market and booksellers are feeling a lot better about prospects for the future."

Tauranga resident John Lamason, who we spied shopping at independent shop Books A Plenty, says his home library holds about 1000 books. The 70-year-old favours Kiwi authors such as Janet Frame, Maurice Shadbolt and Katherine Mansfield.

"My sister has an e-reader. I don't want an e-reader."

Mr Lamason shows us titles he's just bought: Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee and Ian Rankin's Even Dogs in the Wild.

Over in the cooking section, 26-year-old Bronwyn Scott says she prefers paper cookbooks to anything digital. "But if I'm planning on reading a novel, I usually use my Kindle. If I love a book and think I want to read it again, I'll usually buy the paper version." Scott is buying Annabel Langbein's summer annual,A Free Range Life, as a birthday present for her aunt.

Another shopper, who didn't want to be named, said she likes that e-books are cheaper than hard copies, but some occasions demand pulp fiction.

"It depends on the circumstance, where you are and what you're doing. When I read in the bath, it's good to have a paper book."

While sellers and industry experts say cost is a factor for many Kiwi consumers who choose e-books, Gould says some prices are dropping. "I have no statistical data to prove it, but anecdotally, in the last few weeks, a number of book sellers have said looking at the Book Depository, which is owned by Amazon, and isperhaps the main supplier of books coming into New Zealand, that their prices have increased and New Zealand sellers are now competing very well."

NZ book print market
YTD growth Volume Value
Total market 8.9% 3.3%
Fiction 7.2% 3.2%
Non-fiction 12.4% 5.0%
Children's 7.2% 0.5%

48 Hours found one example where a local shop is beating an online rival on price: Ted Dawe's award winning teen novel Into the River (banned briefly in NewZealand) is listed on
McLeods' website for $19.99, but priced at $24.60 at UK based Book Depository.

In another example, the Pulitzer Prize 2015 winner for fiction All the Light We Cannot See is priced at McLeods for $24.99.

The Book Depository sells the same title for $20.01 (the site offers free delivery worldwide).

So what happened to the much-heralded e-reader?

Gould says while New Zealand doesn't have statistics on e-book sales, data from the US and UK indicate sales of e-books have peaked at about 20 to 25 per cent of the market.

"We have no reason to believe that hasn't happened here. We joke that people are putting their e-readers on the top shelf along with their fondue sets."

Gould says print sales slumped around the time of the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009.

"Things were pretty bleak through those years and so it was only last year that it began to pick up."

The New York Times reported e-books sales rose more than a thousand per cent between 2008 and 2010. However, the Association of American Publishers said e-book sales fell by 10 per cent in the first five months of this year. That doesn't mean the e-book has completely pixelated out. Experts and readers we spoke with say digital reading-via smartphones, iPads and e-readers-continues to have a place in the world of words at the same time as cyber giant Amazon.com opens its first bricks-and mortar bookstore in Seattle.

Data shows New Zealand, the UK and the US have fewer bookstores today than five years ago. Market research firm IBISWorld issued a report last month predicting the American bookstore industry's revenue will decline by 1.4 per cent per year over the next five years.

Gould says Kiwi shops still in business have shown resilience. He says the country's first national bookshop day last month was successful, with 180 stores taking part.

"They've adapted to new market conditions and are now putting through these higher sales, so that's really encouraging."

Thorp says many customers at McLeods who try buying online to get cheaper prices are returning to his shop for service.

"We have increasing customers coming back to us after having a bad experience online. Our reputation is is pretty solid. The integrity, knowledge and reliability of the few independent bookstores that have remained, those things are counting in our favour again."