Flipping through some books spread on a table in the middle of Old Firehouse Books in Old Town on Tuesday, Rebekah Behr said she was shopping for Christmas presents at a local bookstore mainly for one reason:

“This is my stepson’s favorite store,” she said.

It seemed an ideal store to buy his present, she said, even though it could have been just as easy to find something online at Amazon.com.

A deeper sense of something that you can’t find online was part of what lured Behr into Old Firehouse Books.

“I really feel strongly about community in Fort Collins,” said Behr, flipping through another book on the table. “I want to see the community grow.

“It’s the experience of being able to touch and feel, and being able to interact with people” that makes buying from a local bookstore worthwhile, she said.

A few shelves over, Jeff Brown, who works in Fort Collins, was looking through the fiction section of the store, which sells both new and used books.

“I like the idea of used books,” he said.

They’re “regenerative and self-sustaining” because they’re passed from person to person, he said.

It’s customers like Behr and Brown who give Old Firehouse Books’ owner Susie Wilmer a healthy dose of optimism because for many of these loyal customers, visiting the bookstore isn’t just about browsing, it’s about buying books, too, something increasingly rare as online retailers offer deep discounts on books available locally.

Most local booksellers are convinced they’re here to stay against all odds, but with a growing trend of more and more customers finding new books on Amazon for sometimes half off the list price or more, Wilmer said local bookstores are trying hard to buck a trend that from a distance may seem insurmountable.

Old Firehouse Books, which moved onto Walnut Street in 2009 after existing as the Book Rack on South College Avenue since 1980, had its best Black Friday ever the day after Thanksgiving, Wilmer said.

“People are thinking of us as their bookstore and using us so that for us we’re in a much better position at the end of the year than we were in January,” Wilmer said. “Every single year is getting better.”

Sales were up at many local bookstores across the country the day after Thanksgiving by more than 15 percent over the previous weekend after Thanksgiving, according to the American Booksellers Association.

Sales on ABA member websites increased by 60 percent that week over the previous week a year ago.

But as local booksellers say they’re holding firm against Amazon’s e-books, that company’s deep discounts and tax-free sales online are a significant source of consternation for these business owners.

“One of the problems of the industry as a whole, is that we’re becoming showrooms,” Wilmer said. “Come in, find the book, take a picture of it and order it on Amazon.”

Of particular concern is a mobile phone app Amazon released this year called Price Check, which allows users to scan the barcode of a book or take its picture.

Users can report the price of the book at a local bookstore, which can be compared against other local and online retailers and Amazon itself, which doesn’t charge sales tax in most places. On Dec. 10, Amazon was offering an additional 5 percent discount for users who bought their books through the app.

The app and the Dec. 10 discount infuriated the ABA.

“Despite your company’s recent pledge to be a better corporate citizen and to obey the law and collect sales tax, you created a price-check app that allows shoppers to browse Main Street stores that do collect sales tax, scan a product, ask for expertise, and walk out empty-handed in order to buy on Amazon,” ABA CEO Oren Teicher wrote in an open letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. “We suppose we should be flattered that an online sales behemoth needs a Main Street retail showroom. Forgive us if we’re not.”

Amazon, which did not return a call seeking comment, infuriated local booksellers just as much.

“That’s so obscene, I don’t know where to start,” said Charles Kaine, owner of Reader’s Cove on Harmony Road, where business has been up for the last four months compared to 2010.

Kaine said he doesn’t see “tons” of barcode scanning in his store, but when he does it’s clear “there’s an icky feeling to it” as those people sneak in the store, browse the shelves with smart phone in hand and slink out without spending a dime.

“What I think the general public fails to see, they do have an impact, and their purchase does matter because eventually, we’re not going to be around to tell you what’s good and what isn’t,” he said.

Adapting to the Revolution

Physical books – the kind where you can turn down a page corner when you’ve finished a chapter or highlight a poignant passage – aren’t really going anywhere, despite the digital revolution, Kaine believes.

“There’s a tactile association between the book and the reader,” he said. “Even for kids, it’s a neat and novel thing to push buttons on a screen, but everyone’s still reading from a hard copy of the book. Long term, books aren’t going anywhere.”

And if physical books aren’t going anywhere, neither are local bookstores, Kaine said.

But they will have to adapt to changing times and include digital in their inventories.

“One advantage of the book industry is that we’ve watched the music industry commit suicide,” Wilmer said, adding that many people don’t like thatt they can’t easily find compact discs in stores like they used to.

Both Readers Cove and Old Firehouse Books are selling e-books through Google, available for reading on a Barnes and Noble Nook e-reader, an iPad or other tablet device, but not the Kindle, which is exclusive to Amazon.

“Digital is here,” Wilmer said. “We can’t ignore it. We can’t sue. We learn how to bring it into our business, make it part of our business.”

Locally-sold e-books aren’t very successful yet, and many older customers are confused by the technology, she said, but e-books are likely going to be a significant market segment for local bookstores.

They won’t spell death to printed books, however.

“I think there’s room for both,” Wilmer said. “I don’t think the e-reader is going to wipe out books in my lifetime.”

Booksellers Holding Their Breath

The bookselling industry is in so much flux that it’s unclear exactly how major online booksellers are going to affect local bookstores, but booksellers are betting that the market will favor them in the long run.

“I think that for us, we still wait around to see what’s going to happen with the big chain,” he said. “Barnes and Noble is setting itself up to go toe-to-toe with Amazon. They’ll probably get rid of physical locations. Books will go back to what they were before the ’80s, which is a specialty item.”

For retailers specializing in used books, a loyal cadre of customers has shown that there’s a robust market for books available in brick-and-mortar stores, said Ronda Willmot, owner of Bookends, a store that sells mostly used books at its recently expanded Lemay Avenue location.

“I hear a lot from customers saying, I’d order online but the shipping is so much,” she said. “They’re still getting it cheaper locally. There’s a market for us. There’s still a niche out there for us for people who want to shop local. The used book business is going to be good.”

Reader’s Cove is still recovering from the hit it took in 2008 when the economy crashed, Kaine said.

Business has been up the last four months over the same period in 2010, but year-over-year, business is flat and so were Black Friday sales. He said he was expecting a rush of sales just before Christmas as people consider last-minute gifts to give.

“We could have sold more had we had more money to invest in inventory,” he said.

Survival right now, he said, is a matter of waiting and seeing how online book selling matures.

“Theoretically, the question becomes, how long can you hold your breath?” he said.

But as local booksellers wait, they believe they have enough loyal customers and staying power to pull through the transition in the industry.

“I think we’re going to be here,” Wilmer said. “The industry is going to be tougher. I really believe in Fort Collins for the economy, and I believe in Fort Collins for the intelligent people who are going to shop local.

“I’m not going to get rich. I’m going to be lucky if I can get my investment out, but we will be here and we’ll be having fun.”