Slog: News & Arts

RSS icon Comments on M. Coy Books on Pine to Close

1

Sad News I have known the two Michael's for years and always try to pop into the store every time I come to Seattle just to say hello, have a coffee, a chat and check books out.

Much will be missed as Seattle develops.

Posted by -B- | January 5, 2008 10:39 AM
2

"As Seattle develops..."

Think of the city as a person.

Normally, development would involve the growth of hair, reproductive organs and other secondary sexual characteristics. The lowering of the voice's timbre, an increase in strength, an upturn in one's mental capacities.

If an agglomeration of Low Rotterdam condos/apartments, Thai restaurants, tanning salons and other soulless commercial detritus are what passes for the above-cited traits in Seattle, we're in a dire state, indeed.

PS -- WTF is the business model for a Thai restaurant? Does it cost, like, $20 a day to run one of those fuckers? I don't understand how so many of them can stay in business for so long?!?

Posted by Jubilation T. Cornball | January 5, 2008 10:51 AM
3

I've made a pledge to do my part to keep locally owned indie bookstores in business. I did all my holiday book shopping at Bailey/Coy on Capitol Hill and Elliot Bay in Pioneer Square. They have a much better selection than Borders & Noble anyway.

Posted by RainMan | January 5, 2008 11:07 AM
4

Cornball: well said. Hate to see unique Seattle things die out to the wallboard-and-stucco generic crap.

RainMan: Elliott Bay is a great store, and a cultural institution. Long may it wave. I get the seismic jitters when in the basement cafe', however.

Posted by Karlheinz Arschbomber | January 5, 2008 11:16 AM
5

I avoid that weird basement cafe myself. Actually I try to limit my visits to the entire bookstore in general, since I can easily spend half my paycheck in one go. I always feel a little too virtuous buying books at these places and therefore spend too much. Damn it.

M Coy is a great place too -- I'll remember it fondly and grieve it when it's gone. Downtown didn't need to lose another independent bookstore.

And Cornball... are you implying that Thai restaurants are related in some way to pubic hair?

Posted by Katelyn | January 5, 2008 11:27 AM
6

I equate a surfeit of Thai restaurants with a giant patch of pubic hair -- growing in the middle of one's forehead.

They're a sign of an out of control metastasis of a normally good thing, that in outrageous quantity brings a community a life sentence for breaking the law of diminishing returns.

Posted by Jubilation T. Cornball | January 5, 2008 11:31 AM
7

Anyone who complains about the loss of small indie bookstores who's ever bought anything from Amazon is a hypocrite.

In the modern world, the small indie has no place; they have almost no stock. New books are commodities, and when Borders opened around the corner shortly after M. Coy, M. Coy was doomed. Borders, for all its corporateness, was a better bookstore. They had more and better books.

The problem is size. A used bookstore can survive if it is small, if it is ruthless in its acquisitions and charges silly prices, and is in a city that cares -- not Seattle, in other words. But a new bookstore? No way. There's always a better selection online, and even a cruddy B&N as well, just on sheer volume.

Seattle, for all its proud book-waving, is a pretty mediocre bookstore city. Elliot Bay is OK, but not spectacular. The U Bookstore is better, but still lacking -- still just a tiny variation on a Barnes and Noble theme.

Amazon has opened up the book universe so much that even medium-sized stores like Elliot Bay seem cramped. Where are the foreign books? Of the last hundred books I've bought, 75 were not just written but printed in England or Ireland or Australia, and that's just the English-speaking world. I can have any of these sent to me online. A store like M. Coy starts to resemble an airport stall in comparison.

Which is not to say there's no place for bookstores; I LIVE in bookstores. There's nothing like fondling the jackets for making up your mind. But what am I supposed to do? The books I want to read aren't in M. Coy, or Borders, or Elliot Bay. I'm at the wrong end of The Long Tail, and I suspect most people who actually read books are too.

The only solution is Powells. Powells makes Elliot Bay look pathetic, and it makes M. Coy look like the rack of "100 Word Search Puzzles" at the checkout line in the supermarket. But we don't have Powells. We have Third Place, which is a start.

M. Coy's a dead end, a relic. I'm sorry to see it go, reflexively. I've spent thousands of hours in shops like that, but not recently, I'm afraid.

Posted by Fnarf | January 5, 2008 11:38 AM
8

Fnarf, excellently put. I'm sad to see M Coy go. I have to admit I haven't been in there in ten years, but like that it's there, as it brought some character to the block. But just that alone isn't going to keep a small business afloat when, as you say, they have the stock of an airport stall. They didn't seem to specialize in anything, which meant that they just had a limited supply and less of a choice that a larger store. I love Peter Miller on First for the very reason that it's small and specialized with an incredible stock (if you're into art/design/architecture). I can spend hours in that place, whereas I never spent more than ten minutes in M Coy before moving on. Nevertheless, sorry to see a local biz go down.

Posted by rb | January 5, 2008 12:32 PM
9

Perhaps some book stores are social places that transcend just having a giant space with every book possible. M. Coy books is great for art books and I always found something I had not seen. If there was anything I could not find they still went out of their way to look it up and place an order. But getting back to the store being a social place to meet and hang out for a coffee along with discussing books. I do not think shopping for books on Amazon compares to the friendly feeling of being at M Coy. I went there with friends and ended up meeting new friends there like when I first visited the store and met the 2 Michael's. To some a book store is more than just the books and getting a book for a few $ less.

Posted by -B- | January 5, 2008 12:35 PM
10

Uh, you know Fnarf, there is a little thing in economics called the 'free-rider problem'. What Elliott Bay and those other "small indie[s]" that "have no place" offer that Amazon and other places don't is face-to-face customer service. (And, I'm speaking from experience since I used to work at Elliott Bay.) You pay for that extra level of competence and knowledgeability. Want a recommendation for a friend? Ask the bookseller! Can't figure out what the title was, but have a vague idea that the book cover had the earth on it and that the subject was about how we need to change our patterns of consumption? Ask the bookseller! (BTW, this was an actual search when I was a bookseller, and a successful one at that.) You can generally find something you're looking for but only have the foggiest idea about if you ask. So I don't see how hypocrisy is involved in lamenting the decline of these independent stores because they provide a different type of service than Amazon.

Of course, this emphasis on customer service is fairly recent. Laura Miller's book Reluctant Capitalists is a fascinating sociological, political, and economic study of the rise of the chain store and the responses of the independent stores. I will leave the last word to her.

Posted by David E. | January 5, 2008 12:44 PM
11

The Powell's comment was valid. That is the only used bookstore I have ever really loved (discovered it long ago from Portland trips). It has a certain feel when you walk in that can not be recreated at any Seattle area used bookstore. It has a cafe with halfway decent coffee and tons of books with lots of character. It is like a huge maze of rooms, but let's face it. It is just plain large almost like a very moody Barnes and Noble. At a used bookstore in Seattle I will bring my Amazon wishlist, grab what I want, look for a bit and leave. Powell's is enjoyable and I can spend hours. I guess I am just very picky! Too bad it is so far. I wish they would open one here.

Posted by Girly | January 5, 2008 12:51 PM
12

half-baked business model goes under? NO WAY.

if you don't have the prices you better have something special to keep people comming in. small esoteric bookstores "off the beaten path" don't generate enough traffic to pay the rent in a town with excess demand for real estate and a world with amazon and barnes and noble and that's just that.

besides, there are plenty of small independent bookstores in seattle where you can sip coffee. what made this one so special?

want more for some reason? allow more dense development so there is a larger customer base and more retail space to drive down commercial rent prices. quit eating thai food and pick up a book at a cool store.

the more you try to keep things the same the more they are going to change on you. best just to flow with the change and make something of it. that's how economics work and that's how life works. be a part of the change and seattle will be a much more beautiful place.

Posted by Cale | January 5, 2008 12:54 PM
13

David @10, your argument is weak. I'm a voracious reader. I've read 5 novels since Christmas, and am halfway through a 6th. I read dozens of books a year, and have for about 35 years. I have never once needed, nor asked for, advice from any bookstore employee. Sure, I suppose there are people who occasionally need that kind of help/advice, but not enough to keep a bookstore open on the strength of it's service alone.

Baily/Coy, now M. Coy, has been suffering declining business for years, starting with the boom of Amazon.com. No bricks-and-mortar bookstore can possibly offer the selection that Amazon carries; it just isn't possible. So to survive, they either need to have a large enough store to carry enough inventory to sell enough volume to be profitable (the Barnes & Noble model), or be a niche store that specializes in one or two genres that have a loyal following (rb @9's example is a good one). Used bookstores can get away with a smaller store because their profit margin on individual used books is actually more than new books. Sadly, M.Coy is neither. It doesn't carry enough selection for a wide audience, and it isn't specialized enough for a small but loyal audience. I'm sad to see them go, but their business model is doomed in the internet age.

Fnarf @7, I am also a huge fan of Powell's down in Portland. I make a pilgrimage there a few times a year. I can spend hours wandering around in there. I've long been baffled why we have nothing like that in Seattle. Seattle has always had more readers than Portland. I would think that Seattle would easily be able to support a store like that. Elliot Bay and the U-Book Store don't even come close.

Posted by Reverse Polarity (formerly SDA in SEA) | January 5, 2008 1:09 PM
14

@3 Their business model involves making a profit unlike say M.Coys.

If people really supported places like M.Coys they would actually buy stuff from them. But in the end the convenience of Amazon and large books stores wins out. Personally I pretty much only buy books on Amazon. I don't really talk to sales people, don't feel any need to look at a book before I buy it, and want a huge selection.

The only book store I really like is Powell's.

Posted by giffy | January 5, 2008 1:19 PM
15

Please don't tell fairy tales about how wonderful the staff are at independent stores. Sometimes you do find a knowledgeable person do help you find what you need, but the odds are no better at Stoneway Hardware than Home Depot, or Elliot Bay than Barnes & Noble. And certain independents are just hopelessly unhelpful and rude to their customers (I'm talking to you, Hardwick's).

It also needs to be mentioned that the small stores are never open. I can't take time off work to go give love to an indie store. I often find myself riding past closed local stores at 7 or 8 pm in order to go to a horrible big box that is at least open.

I'm hoping the trend turns around, but there isn't much point in putting indie stores on life support. They need to learn to meet their customers needs if their quirky charm is to survive.

Posted by elenchos | January 5, 2008 1:50 PM
16

Rude staff at Hardwick's is in fact part of their special niche. They're FAMOUS for it, and they get away with it because they really, really know their stuff, and they have stock that most other hardware stores don't even know exists. Weird Japanese saws and drill bits you can't figure out and that haven't been manufactured for fifty years. Rude service? Hey, it goes with the worn floors. Hardwick's is the coolest retail store in Seattle by a long shot -- not since the old downtown Shorey's Books has there been any competition.

I disagree that the staff at Stoneway Hardware isn't any more knowledgeable than at Home Despot. There IS a special charm to shops like that (yes, I spend almost as much time in hardware stores as I do bookstores).

David E., I know from customer service. I used to work in a bookstore myself, and I know the kind of power rush you get when you instantly find a book a customer is asking for that they know nothing about except that it's blue, but it's not blue, it's green, and it was on the morning show three weeks ago, and I was STILL able to hold it up within fifteen seconds. Well, hell, I'm still talking about it twenty years later. I appreciate that sort of thing.

But the problem comes when the book I'm looking for ISN'T IN THE STORE, and neither has any book by that author or on that subject since the store opened. That's the kind of book request that no small store can possibly cope with, by definition, and the majority of titles -- not the majority of copies, but the majority of titles -- will always fall into that category. There are at least 100,000 different titles published in English every year, possibly twice that many if you count foreign countries.

Don't get me wrong -- I LOVE independent bookshops -- and I don't really care about price. I shop Amazon because that's where my books are, not for the discount; the same reason I shop for liquor elsewhere, because you can't buy 90% of the brands in this state. Books aren't limited by state laws like liquor is, but they're limited by sheer shelf space.

Posted by Fnarf | January 5, 2008 5:37 PM
17

Ditto on those comments about Powells... and for the Amazon/B&N online shoppers I constantly use Powells.com because not only do they probably have it, it's probably available used as well at a good discount.

I too love books and bookstores but like many things they are sadly going the way of the dodo. We'll continue to support Bailey/Coy but gotta admit I haven't been to Elliot Bay in years.

BTW, I have seen Powell's up here on occasion to buy books.

Posted by Dave Coffman | January 5, 2008 6:20 PM
18

Fnarf, I hear you about buying hard to find or out of print books from the on line sites. But if I know a book is available at Bailey/Coy I will buy from there regardless of how much more it costs. I knew they had, for example, Paul Krugman's The Conscience of a Liberal and AJ Jacobs' A Year of Living Biblically (hilarious!) so I recently got them there. (I gave Krugman's book to my 76-year-old father in an effort to get him to become a US citizen so he can vote in the swing state he moved to from Canada.) I shop at B/C and Elliott Bay for the same reason I avoid behemoths like Wal-Mart and KMart--I would much rather see my money go to small businesses than giant corporations. And as I have posted elsewhere, RainMan knows: KMart sucks.

As for Amazon.com, they got a poor rating from the now defunct BuyBlue.com. I eagerly await its return so I can see if they have changed in the last few years. If I am going to shop on line, I'll stick with Powell's. Their brick and mortar is a must stop every time I'm in Portland.

Posted by RainMan | January 5, 2008 6:26 PM
19

I used to work near M.Coy and found them even more convenient than Amazon. I used to be able to walk in, ask them to order a book and they'd call me when it came in. No shipping fees, just friendly service. And best of all, the Michaels quickly determined my taste in books and became excellent recommenders. Far better than anything I've ever seen any website do. And as a bonus, they brewed a great cup of coffee.

Posted by planetheidi | January 10, 2008 2:25 PM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 45 days old).