Leading black bookstore closes

By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer
Thu Jan 24, 1:48 AM ET



NEW YORK - The Karibu Books chain, based in the Washington, D.C., area and one of the few remaining retailers to specialize in black books, is closing after 15 years.

"We sincerely thank each and every one of you for your patronage and support," Karibu CEO Simba Sana wrote in an e-mail to customers. "We are optimistic that our mission to empower and educate through a comprehensive selection of books by and about people of African descent will continue to resonate within the communities we proudly served."

Karibu has five stores, one of which has already closed. All will be shut down by Feb. 10.

Like other specialty retailers, including gay and feminist bookstores, black bookstores have suffered in the past 10 years, partly because of the rise of superstore chains and Internet sales, but also because of the growing popularity of black authors. With superstores and online retailers now offering large selections of black books, at lower prices, black stores have had a hard time competing and many have closed.

Until recently, Karibu had been regarded as one of the few still thriving.

"I was shocked to hear the news," said Zane, the best-selling author who lives in suburban Maryland. Zane, known for such erotic novels as "Afterburn" and "Addicted," said that Karibu had stocked her books when no one else would and had been the first store where she appeared for a signing. She had made it a tradition to begin each of her author tours with a signing at one of the Karibu stores.

"I had been talking to them about my next book and knew there was something wrong because they couldn't schedule me," she told the AP. "Karibu was such an important store for me and authors looking for a chance to break through."

Among the remaining black stores are the Hue-Man Bookstore & Cafe, in Harlem, and Eso Won Books, a Los Angeles-based store that has also fought to stay in business.

"It was such sad news," Eso Won owner James Fugate said Wednesday. "I really like Simba and to hear they are closing is a great lost to book selling. African American stores are just going down. So many of us look as if we are on the margins even when we're open."


Leading black bookstore closes - Yahoo! News

Sad news.Internal squabbles.

What our authors... and artists in general need to do is help support these stores. Forget who it was but a well known author purposely sold his/her books at a lower cost to small bookstores recognizing that they're struggling as large companies such as Tescos can buy in at such a price that the price that they sell to the public IS the wholesale price to smaller businesses to the point where many of those small companies buy their stock from their competition and put the price up by a pound or 50p just to stock it at a fair price. Its ridiculous, another flaw in capitalism in my opinion.

Our black scholars, authors music artists and so on should actively help support the small black owned stores by selling their wares to them at a discount where possible (music artists have no say in what they produce even their image is ''owned'' by record companies so thats perhaps not possible). In the case I'm talking about I think the author even sold solely to small chain bookstores and refused to sell to Asdas, Tescos and the like.... in the same way certain well known clothes companies are refusing to sell to those same companies as they say that the prices they intend to sell them at demeans the value of their product.