Things were also changing for Rachelle Markley, the owner of Crooked House Books and Paper. She said that walk-in traffic dropped off, but luckily she had always been selling online, her biggest presence being on Etsy. During March of last year, she fully expected not to make it when people were “hoarding beans and toilet paper;” she did not think that people were going to open their wallets and start buying “weird collectible books,” yet somehow the pandemic has been really good for online book sales.
lockdown
Books Matter, Shouldn’t Bookstores?
By Rachel Howe
Bookstores are just one of the many businesses that have been profoundly impacted by the shutdowns happening throughout the country. Shelf Awareness and Publisher’s Weekly have both made it a point to offer regular reports and updates on the current status of bookstores and the publishing industry; while some of this news is good, some of it is surprising, and some of it is down-right depressing.