Japanese Independent Bookstores Make Unique Efforts to Lure Customers; Shops Host Various Events to Attract People with Different Interests

By Yohei Odakura, Hiromasa Takeda and Shin Kitamura / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers

2:00 JST, November 15, 2025

At a time when the number of brick-and-mortar bookstores in Japan is steadily declining, independent bookstores run by enthusiastic individual proprietors are attracting growing attention. With their operators working to curate unique product lineups and host special events, these stores become singularly inviting spaces.

The Yomiuri Shimbun recently conducted a nationwide public opinion survey by mail, coinciding with this year’s autumn reading promotion month, and the results showed that many people are interested in bookstores of this kind.

Teruyuki Kotani, 53, who runs an independent bookstore called Youyousha, said: “My store is known as one that’s all about foreign literature. I think about what types of people my customers want to meet and what kind of books they want to buy so I can make them more interested in coming there.”

His store is in an unpretentious-feeling area near Keikyu Umeyashiki Station in Ota Ward, Tokyo.

Kotani worked for many years as a magazine editor before opening the bookstore in 2022 partly because he wanted to sell publications he had been involved in making.

In the store, which is just 33 square meters in area, he places bestsellers alongside carefully selected books from such fields as overseas literature, social sciences and natural sciences.

He also provides a shared shelf where others can rent space to sell their own books, for a cost of ¥3,000 yen per month, and an exhibition space which people can decorate with paintings or other materials for a ¥11,000 fee.

Kotani also hosts events in the store, to which he invites famous writers and other professionals in the publishing industry, such as translator Motoyuki Shibata. So far he has held nine of these events.

Kotani’s book-selling business began turning a profit in its third year.

60% want more

Sales of printed books and magazines have remained sluggish. According to the Research Institute for Publications, the estimated sales value of printed publications from January to September this year fell 4.6% from a year ago to about ¥724.1 billion.

Sales of magazines, once a vital pillar of support for brick-and-mortar bookstores, dropped by a shocking 10% in the same period.

According to the Japan Publishing Organization for Information Infrastructure Development, the total number of bookstores fell to 10,417 as of fiscal 2024, a drop of 2,236 from five years earlier.

What has been remarkable as this trend has been ongoing is the activities of independent bookstores. Though these shops vary widely in style and layout, they tend to have several points in common — they are run out of small storefronts by individual proprietors, offer excellent selections of books and include features like event spaces, galleries and cafes.

Masayuki Waki, 40, who writes about bookstores, is well-versed in the details of independent ones. He even runs his own, Bookshop Traveller, located in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo.

He positions independent bookstores as ones “which have opened since the 2000s, when online bookstores began increasing their presence, and are run by one or a few individuals.”

Because these are a new type of bookstore, it is difficult to count them with conventional statistical methods.

According to Waki’s research, a surprising number of these bookstores have opened in recent years: 58 in 2022, 106 in 2023 and 91 in 2024.

Tohan Corp., Japan’s one of two major wholesalers for publications, began a new delivery service named HONYAL in 2024. This new service, which targets smaller stores than the company previously sold to, has given a boost to independent bookstores.

In The Yomiuri Shimbun’s survey, 60% of respondents replied they hope the number of independent bookstores that are enthusiastic about picking unique book lineups or holding events will increase further. The figure was much higher than the 35% who did not want that.

In response to being asked how frequently they visit bookstores, 26% of respondents said they do so about once a month and 23% said they visit every several months. The figures have never been so high.

When asked what draws them to brick-and-mortar bookstores, the largest percentage of respondents, at 57%, said that they can get interested in books they encounter by chance.

This result indicates that, in contrast to online bookstores, many people think of brick-and-mortar shops as places where they want to have the opportunity to encounter unfamiliar books.

The growth in the number of unaffiliated bookstores is expected to bring out more of this demand.

Business sustainability

The largest challenge that independent bookstores must tackle is figuring out how to build sustainable business models.

The profit margins on the books that bookstores sell are only about 20%, not a very high number.

Toru Iizuka, 54, who previously worked for a publishing company, used the HONYAL system to open his own bookstore, Sprout Books and Art, in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, in February this year.

The business is supported mainly by the sale of books, miscellaneous items and artworks such as paintings.

He said, “Running a bookstore brings me the joy of closely connecting with customers through books. I will continue selecting attractive books and planning various events. What matters to me is how I can keep the store going.”

Independent bookstores may have smaller sales volumes than big chains, but they are the places where people who know a lot about books tend to gather.

Kei Ohara, a literature agent with expertise on American bookstores, pointed out, “Independent bookstores in the United States are highly valued by publishing companies as businesses which can create new trends in literature.”

Japanese publishing companies are also being asked to implement more methods of tracking sales than they currently use.

Industry-wide promotion

A trend has been gaining momentum in recent years in which people with connections to bookselling, including publishing industry officials and owners of independent bookstores, cooperate to revitalize the literary world.

BOOK MEETS NEXT, a scheme in which the publishing industry has united to promote reading, marked its fourth year in 2025. This summer, which marked the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, book fair events titled “Hon de Tsunagaru Heiwa no Baton (the baton of peace relayed via books)” were held in about 1,000 bookstores across the nation. At these fairs, the stores sold books which tell of the importance of peace.

The scheme’s most important project, autumn reading promotion month, is now ongoing and will continue until Nov. 23. More than 3,000 bookstores in nine regions nationwide, including Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka, are participating.

During this year’s autumn reading promotion month, such events as public lectures by writers, bookstore stamp rallies and book cover design contests are being held.

What is remarkable is how many events have been held even in provincial regions. These include a reading festival in Ibaraki Prefecture and a book sales feature hosted cooperatively by 70 companies in Kyoto.

Hirohito Suzuki, an associate professor of social sciences at Kobe Gakuin University, who is an expert on trends in youth culture, said, “Students have not had the experience of glancing through books in bookstores, and they have high psychological barriers to visiting them. However, they love books. All these various collaborative events held by bookstores could help young people understand that bookstores are enjoyable places. It will be an opportunity for them to start reading.”