Is this the future of bookstores? At these in Japan, anyone can rent a shelf to sell books
In Japan, where many conventional bookstores have closed, a new business model sees people rent shelves in a store to sell their books
“I’m holding an illustrated book of cheeses,” says a delighted Tomoyo Ozumi, a customer at a growing kind of bookshop in Japan where anyone wanting to sell their tomes can rent a shelf.
The concept brings back the joy of browsing real books to communities where many bookstores have shut, and gives readers more eclectic choices than those suggested by online sellers’ algorithms, its proponents say.
“Here, you find books which make you wonder who on earth would buy them,” laughs Shogo Imamura, 40, who opened one such store in Tokyo’s bookstore district of Kanda Jimbocho in April.
“Regular bookstores sell books that are popular based on sales statistics while excluding books that don’t sell well,” says Imamura, who also writes novels about warring samurai in Japan’s feudal era.
“We ignore such principles. Or capitalism in other words,” he says. “I want to reconstruct bookstores.”
Each one of these shelves is like a real version of a social media account, where you express yourself like in Instagram or Facebook
His shop, measuring just 53 square metres (570 sq ft), houses 364 shelves, selling books – some new, some used – on everything from business strategy and manga comics to martial arts.
