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Current Stats for Used Book Market

By: Susan Siegel
bookhunterpress@earthlink.net

Publishing statistics on the used book market can be a dangerous job as the numbers keep changing and it's not always clear what is being "counted."

With these caveats, as of October 2003, the Book Hunter Press database of United States used book dealers showed the following breakdown of dealers by region and type. The footnotes offer a brief explanation of what is and is not included in the figures.

How are these numbers arrived at? By actual contacts with dealers -- not a sample survey. Book Hunter Press is continually updating its database with new listings, deletions and changes based on email, snail mail, phone and monitoring a variety of online and off line sources. We also get valuable leads from traveling book hunters that we follow up on; not every store closing means that the dealer is out of business. Sometimes, the store simply moved across town.

What do the numbers show? Depending on your outlook (is the glass half empty or half full?), it appears that the decrease in the number of open shops, the number most frequently looked at, has stabilized at 4,167 shops since reaching a peak of 4,328 shops in 2000. Yes, there have been lots of store closings -- but there have also been lots of new stores opening up. As the chart below shows, it's a very mixed picture.

Who are the new store owners? Again, it's a mixed picture. Young people as well as retirees fulfilling their dreams; owners of one successful shop opening another, people burned out from one career looking to start another, etc.

Also, contrary to some reports, not all closings are due to the Internet. Many have closed due to retirement (some dealers continue to sell online; others leave the business entirely), some when their rents skyrocketed, and many for a host of other personal reasons. And some, no doubt, because they just failed to make it financially -- again, for any number of reasons.

Given its diversity, generalizations about the used book business as a whole are extremely risky.

In addition to maintaining its dealer database, Book Hunter Press has recently undertaken a major survey of the used book market with the goal of gathering additional information about the used book market as it relates to sales. The findings of that survey should be available by the first quarter of 2004.

	total dealers	open shops (1)	by appt	mail/internet (2)	antique mall
new england	893	409	239	198	48
mid-atlantic	1194	523	316	306	49
south atlantic	1050	645	146	179	80
midwest	1312	696	223	258	136
central/western	1312	878	147	222	65
pacific coast	1514	1016	227	247	25
total	7275	4167	1298	1410	403

1) Does not include 100% paperback exchanges
2) Does not include Internet dealers who have entered the business in the past few years

Copyright Book Hunter Press

	Pub Date	Count when published	Added since publication (1)	Deleted since publication (1)	Current Count
New England/2nd Rev	2000	402	41	34	409
Mid-Atlantic/Rev	1997	504	121	102	523
South Atlantic/Rev	1998	594	154	103	645
Midwest/Rev	1999	728	58	90	696
Central/Western	1997	912	197	231	878
Pacifc Coast	2000	1028	93	105	1016
Total		4168	664	665	4167

1) Does not include changes in dealer status from open shop TO by appointment or mail order/Internet, or, from by appointment or mail order/Internet to open shop.

Copyright Book Hunter Press

REGION See Methodology for list of states in each region	# of Dealers (1993-1996)	# of Dealers (1997-2000)	# of Dealers 2002	Net Change # of Dealers 1993-2002 1	# of Bookstores (Open Shops) (1993-1996)	# of Bookstores (Open Shops) (1997-2000)	# of Bookstores (Open Shops) 2002	% Change in Bookstores (Open Shops) 1993-2002 1
New England	774	881	892	15%	354	413	412	16%
Mid-Atlantic	915	1,160	1,182	29%	444	534	519	17%
South Atlantic	634	962	970	53%	458	622	577	26%
Midwest	1,052	1,339	1,339	27%	640	757	717	12%
Central/Western	1,270	1,2702	1336	5%	938	938 2	907	-3%
Pacific Coast	1,361	1,500	1,479	9%	1,006	1,064	987	-2%
Total	6,006	7,112	7,198	20%	3,840	4,328	4,119	7%

1. The net difference between newly added dealers and dealers who have gone out of business.
2. Comparative data not available

Copyright Book Hunter Press