"Does Your Mother Know?" Vancouver neighbourhood indy mag store to close

[This post has been updated]Yet another indy magazine store is going out of business. Does Your Mother Know? of Vancouver is closing after 13 years in business.According to a story in Straight.com, owner Kent McKenzie has notified customers that the Kitsilano neighbourhood store at 2139 West 4th Avenue will close down on Sunday 24th. 

According to McKenzie, declining sales and the cost of rent are prompting the closure of the business. He noted clientele is “totally different” today than it was when the store opened.

“The only people buying magazines are in their 40s and 50s,” McKenzie said. “If it’s young and hip, the magazine itself, the young and hip are buying them. And there’s niche titles too.”

The store's distinctive name came about because  city hall had rejected his proposed names for the store; McKenzie submitted a name lifted from the bill of a shop in San Francisco and it was approved. (It's also a song title and lyric from ABBA.)

[Update: A story in the Vancouver Sun notes that many magazine retailers have had to diversify, selling other goods and obtaining things like Canada Post franchises. Kent McKenzie made the following observation about the customers:

Meanwhile, consumer mentality has also changed. “In the old days, people would rip a page out of a magazine and steal it,” McKenzie said. Today, “they’ll take an iPhone picture and not think of it as stealing. I’ve said ‘No, you can’t take a picture.’ and they’ll say “Yes you can, I have it here. It turned out fine!’”]

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/magazine+stores+casualty+online+media/6808915/story.html#ixzz1yIygrTcn

[photo: Noa G.]

Iconic Hub Cigar in Edmonton to reopen, you know, for a while longer

Photo: Bruce Edwards

Western Canada's oldest independent newsstand in Edmonton is...reopening? For those of us who have become used to the attrition of indy newsstands and bookstores, the planned relaunch of Hub Cigar (founded 1910)  in the Old Strathcona district is an amazing and heartening development, even if the new owners don't seem quite sure of what the future holds or if they will still be in business a decade from now. 

According to a story in the Edmonton Journal the new owners, which includes previous owner Hal Roseberg (it's complicated), plan a grander opening in a while, but will have a "soft opening" on May 12; they're ordering new stock and cigars.

The store has been closed for several months after the most recent owner Steven Cleall became ill.

“I was trying to sell the business for Steven Cleall, and I had no bites on it,” said Roseberg. “Whoever was interested seemed to have fallen by the wayside. I just sort of felt bad. I don’t know why, but I felt some responsibility. I didn’t want Hub to become another distant Edmonton memory.”

Roseberg feels the magazine business will remain viable for five to 10 years, despite the increasing role of digital technology in media consumption of all kinds.

“I think there’s still a market for printed media. If you’re in the bathtub, you don’t want to have your laptop sitting on your chest,” he said. “I think anybody that’s over 30, probably, still likes to have some magazines coming around.”

 Hub Cigar was well-known for stocking difficult-to-find publications, including a very wide range of magazines (reportedly 6,000 titles). The business even survived a 2005 fire that destroyed the original store on Whyte Avenue

“Hub’s got a pretty dedicated clientele,” [Roseberg] said. “I just thought, you know, it’s worth giving it one more go before I’m satisfied it’s not going to work.”

Related posts: 

• Edmonton's Hub Cigar and Newsstand sold to employees 

Why it's hard to find a good magazine newsstand

Readers are finding outlets for single magazine copies fewer and farther between in North America, according to a story in Advertising Age. Quoting data from the Magazine Information Network, the story says that 18,000 retail outlets for magazines disappeared in North America between December 2007 and now -- a decline of 11.3%. 

Although subscriptions comprise the vast majority of most magazines' circulation, newsstand sales are crucial for the impulse purchases that can lead to subscription commitments.
And single-copy sales have been experiencing a long swoon, falling 5.6% in the first half of 2010 from the first half a year earlier, 9.1% in the second half of 2009, 12.4% in the previous six months and 11.1% and 6.3% in the halves before that, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Part of the reason is that many convenience stores no longer sell "men's sophisticates" (trans. "skin mags). As a result, these very profitable titles have had a major impact on wholesalers' profitability.

Another reason is that big box stores such as Walmart have been driving smaller outlets and local drug stores out of business, even as some specialty stores such as Home Depot and Linens 'n Things have started stocking a limited range of related titles.

In Canada, larger cities still have a lot of magazine stores like Great Canadian News and Indigo Books & Music. But specialty neighbourhood magazine stores have been dropping away (Duthie's and the Magpie Magazine Gallery in Vancouver, This Ain't the Rosedale Library and Pages in Toronto, Halifax's Frog Hollow Books.)  

Often the only place to buy a magazine in many cities and towns are the racks in the Shoppers Drug Mart chain, but a lot of the traditional corner newsstands/cigar stores have disappeared. It's not unusual in a huge shopping mall, there will be only one or two outlets for magazines and perhaps only one that carries many Canadian titles.

Swiss distributor to open Motto Vancouver, a new source for indy titles

A new, very specialized magazine and bookstore is opening in Vancouver on December 9 at the Or Gallery, an artist-run centre at 555 Hamilton Street. It's called Motto Vancouver and it is an offshoot of a Switzerland-based company called Motto Distribution which specializes in hard-to-find indy magazines and fanzines. 

Started in 2007 to serve the Swiss market, it has since expanded to serve more than 20 outlets --galleries, independent bookstores, chainstores, galleries, museums and concepts stores in Zurich, Bern, Lausanne, Geneva and Basel. In December of 2008 it opened its first standalone, permanent bookstore, in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Motto Berlin functions not only as a store, but an event space for discussions around publishing about art, graphic design, photography, typography and related matters. There is also Motto Brooklyn.

Now, in collaboration with the Vancouver culture magazine Fillip (3x a year, published by the Projectile Publishing Society) it is opening a Canadian outlet.

[We'd appreciate a comment from anyone who attends the opening.]

Used bookstore savvy and how to demonstrate it

Utne Reader's blog The Sweet Pursuit alerted us to an essay in the Toronto-based literary magazine Descant that counsels people on how to behave in used bookstores. The author of the essay should know, because it's David Mason, a bookseller with 40 years of experience. There are 44-rules of which number one is:

“When you enter a used bookstore, do not ask if it is a library. A common preliminary to that question comes from the man who stands in the entrance, looks around, nods his head sagely and astutely observes, ‘Books, eh?’ ”

and number 19 is:

When the proprietor of a used bookstore asks if he can help, he is not beginning his campaign to sell you something you don’t want or need, like a new suit or the latest fad. He actually is interested in directing you to the appropriate book. If you answer, “Just browsing,” he will assume you are afraid of him. You should answer, “Only if I don’t find something on my own.” Remember, the bookseller wants you to buy a book, indeed he depends on it. But unlike many businesses he only wants to sell you a book that you want. The bookseller knows that he may never own another copy of that book and he wants it to go where it will be appreciated.

 (The essay is not posted online so you'll have to go to your local bookstore and buy issue 149;  Mason is apparently intending to issue it separately as an 18-page chapbook for $10.)

Former Duthie's manager to open new indy bookstore in Vancouver

It's nice, for a change, to be able to report on an indie book and magazine store starting up, rather than closing. Out of the ashes of Duthie Books is arising Sitka Books & Art, setting up shop just two blocks (and $10,000 less in rent) than Duthie's old location on West 4th Avenue in Vancouver. 

Ria Bleumer (right above), the former manager of Duthie Books, which closed in February after 53 years, has partnered with Karel Carnohan and, backed by some equity investors has  found 2,800 less expensive feet at 2025 West 4th and expects to open in late August, according to an article in the Georgia Straight. ; in fact, the space was until recently occupied by Book Warehouse.

“In that moment when we received our notice, it was absolutely crystal clear to me that what I should do is continue and build my own bookstore,” Bleumer told the Straight today (July 5) in a phone interview.

Bleumer explained that it wasn’t a lack of business that saw the demise of Duthie’s earlier this year, but rather the high rent costs that kept increasing with each passing year...

“I know that people in this neighbourhood are looking for a place they can go to and be welcomed by knowledgeable staff and like-minded customers,” she said.

 In a press release, Bleumer had this to say about swimming against the apparent current:

"The printed book is not dead. Demand for a high-service bookstore where customers can find new books, explore new subjects and exchange ideas and opinions is as high or higher than ever before. We will provide that place and I believe it is a vital part of this city's cultural community.

"I keep getting stopped on the street by former customers, many in tears, bemoaning the closing of Duthie Books," Bleumer said. She added that "Vancouverites are big readers, they appreciate the feel, the smell and the art of a good book and they will support a local, independent bookstore."

 [Photo: Carmine Marinelli, 24 Hours]