In the words of a Queen song...

It appears that the Wellington region's second largest* seller of SF/F new books is closing down. Rather surprisingly, that title belongs to Dymocks Queensgate - at least until the end of the month. The staff member who told me thought the owner should have played up that genre angle. The thing being that although they shifted plenty of product and the owner is a fantasy fan, they never made a point of promoting it.

Personally, I'm not convinced. The pressures on retail bookstores are well known (high prices, high overheads, cheaper internet alternatives) and these are much worse in the sf/f genre area. As fans we tend to be price-smarter and more fickle shoppers than average - it can work to our disadvantage at times like this. However, I'm not going to be very upset about the passing of this particular store - they've never been involved in the fan community the way the late lamented City Dymocks was.


*Duh - Arty Bees is the largest. Also worth noting that the ranking is just anecdotal from the reps and therefore obviously doesn't include parallel imports.