White Cat Book Company closing in Saskatoon
A lifetime of selling books comes to an end for owners
Mike Flensburg’s days at the nearly defunct White Cat Book Company are numbered, but his life-long love affair with literature is far from over.
“It will still be life with books,” Flensburg explained of his fast-approaching future without thousands of used books. “Books will continue to be my life, right until the very end.”
On December 26, Flensburg and his business partner, Brian Cotts, will officially close the White Cat Book Company in Saskatoon.
The used book store has been a familiar fixture on 2nd Avenue since 1996. Flensburg and Cotts bought the shop together in 2008.
Online competition
The co-owners attribute White Cat’s steady revenue decline to the popularity of online shopping, with cyber giants like Amazon dominating Canada’s book-buying market.
According to Ontario’s Media Development Corporation (OMDC), in 2013, nationwide sales of print books through traditional channels, like a locally-owned and operated book store, decreased three per cent in volume compared to 2012.
Canadian-owned publishers reported a sales volume of 3.8 million units, with corresponding retail sales revenues of $52.4 million. This represented a decrease of 14 per cent in units sold and a 15 per cent decrease in sales revenue from 2012, the OMDC said.
In 2013, 20 per cent of book buyers bought one or more e-books, up from 18 per cent in 2012, the OMDC found; citing “portability” and “instant availability” as reasons consumers are looking online for literature.
“Unfortunately, there is kind of an instant satisfaction; ‘oh I don’t have time’ — I get that more now than I did in the past,” Flensburg said of shoppers’ changing attitudes.
“Its not everybody, but I am noticing it a lot more," he said. "Old-timers are less likely to do that but also a fairly significant minority of young people seem to look at books as a world that they like to sink into cause its outside the mainstream. Its no longer mainstream."
"So, you want to be different? Read a book.”
A passion for books
Cotts has lived in the world of books since he was a child.
“I’ve always been interested in books. I have always been in love with books,” Cotts said.
He proudly tells anyone who asks about how he came to co-own the shop that he and Flensburg were the first customer and employee of 8th Street Books, respectively.
“I remember when I was about 12-years-old — actually the previous owner of this store moved into a book store that was only about five blocks away from where I lived, so I haunted that store for decades after that,” Cotts said.
The fast-found and lasting allure of used books is something Cotts and Flensburg share.
“Even at the age of eight, I remember walking into a junk store and I saw a bunch of old, kind of pulpish books, and I wanted to buy them," Flensburg said. "I couldn’t read them yet, but I knew I wanted to. That was my first experience."
The final chapter
It was a difficult decision to close White Cat, the owners said. Cotts explained that the pair’s conversations about closing its doors have been brewing for a couple of years.
Last year, the partners decided that if business did not pick up significantly they would close.
“We had a landlord who was quite generous to us and made it easier for us to carry on business. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough,” Flensburg said “You need to make something of a living while you’re doing this and I found I just wasn’t able to do that.”
Cotts added that 2014’s brutally cold mid-winter months brought the business to its knees.
Cotts and Flensburg had about 30,000 books on the shelves this fall. However, Flensburg said once people found out about plans to close, books flew off the shelves.
He estimates he sold about one third of White Cat’s stock in a few months.
“One customer said to me, ‘you know, isn’t that funny, everyone comes to your funeral but nobody comes to visit you in the hospital,’” Flensburg said, laughing. “You said it, not me.”
Currently, The White Cat Book Company is attempting to sell off as many books as it can through deep discounts on its stock. After the doors officially close on Boxing Day the books that are left will be donated to charity.
“I am going to miss the feel, the smell, the taste of the books. You really can actually taste books when you come in. There’s a flavour to the place,” Flensburg said.
“You’ll never find that in an electronic device. And that’s what a lot of my customers say to me. They don’t find it there.”