Bookstores are the most popular way for New Zealanders to access literature.

Nearly 400,000 New Zealanders did not read a book in 2016, according to a Book Council survey.

We're taking a deep dive into New Zealand's relationship with books. On Tuesday we looked at the benefits of reading. On Wednesday, we examined the reasons why Kiwis aren't reading. Now we look at how New Zealanders access books, and how more of us could be encouraged to pick them up.

In 2015, bookstore chain Whitcoulls closed its large flagship store in Auckland's Queen St.

SUPPLIED Whitcoulls flagship store on Auckland's Queen Street closed in 2015.

The closure could have been read as a sign of the bookstore's decline. Kevin Turner, group finance manager of the owners, James Pascoe Limited, said the chain was shifting its focus towards gifts.

Children's books and cookbooks were selling well, he said, but there had been a global decline in the sale of fiction.

James Pascoe Limited had bought 57 Whitcoulls and five Borders shops in 2011, after its Australian parent firm REDgroup Retail called in voluntary administration.

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Books are having to compete with a myriad of new entertainment forms. According to a survey by the NZ Book Council, 394,000 New Zealander adults did not even start reading a book in 2016.

Booksellers NZ CEO Lincoln Gould says sales of books in New Zealand declined from 2009, when he entered the industry, to 2015.

MATT BIALOSTOCKI Booksellers CEO Lincoln Gould.

"We lost a number of bookshops and publishers, international publishers particularly, began to withdraw out of New Zealand with their distribution units back to Australia," he says.

In September 2015, book sales quite abruptly turned around, picked up partly by a surge in the popularity of adult colouring-in books. Since then they've been steady, and Gould expects them to continue that way for some time.

So it's not all bad news. There are plenty of stories of plucky local bookstores continuing to make a go of it by serving their communities. The sale of children's books, Gould says, is expanding "quite rapidly". New Zealand's book sales per capita figures show we're still a nation of good readers.

But the 394,000 non-readers are a "challenge", Gould says, and he thinks bookstores have a part to play in getting that number down.

"With that number, obviously it's very disappointing, but it represents a challenge for everybody involved. For libraries, for publishers, for all those that develop reading programmes for everything from prisons to schools and so on."

According to the book council's survey, more people buy books from bookstores than any other source of reading material, including libraries. 60 per cent of fiction readers and 43 per cent of non-fiction readers said they had bought a book from a bricks-and-mortar shop in 2016.

Bookstores now face stiff competition from online bookstores like Amazon and Book Depository, which 41 per cent of fiction readers and 30 per cent of non-fiction readers said they'd used.

Gould is keen to point out part of the reason these online platforms are able to offer cheaper prices is that, due to a hole in our tax laws, they don't have to pay GST.

The ebook, touted years back as the lid on the printed page's coffin, was read by 23 per cent of fiction readers and 19 per cent of non-fiction readers in 2016.

Among non-readers in the Book Council's survey, 18 per cent of non-readers and 53 per cent of low-volume readers – those who started on one to three books in 2016 – said they would read more "if I found a book that really interested me".

Bookstores' curation services, which haven't yet been matched by their online equivalents, can help reluctant readers find a book that grips them, Gould says.

"I remember one bookseller telling me a year or two back that customers come in and talk to him almost like they talk to a doctor or a lawyer, seeking books on health or education or things like that. Booksellers become a kind of private confessor, if you like."

After bookstores, public libraries are the second most popular place for Kiwis to acquire books.

Fifty-one per cent of fiction readers and 38 per cent of non-fiction readers used libraries in 2016. Library users tended to be high-volume readers, with libraries providing about 30 per cent of all books read.

But figures show that, in Auckland at least, library usage is on the decline.

480,000 people across Auckland used their library card at least once in the 2016/2017 financial year – a 20,000 person increase from 2015/2016, but a drop of 10,000 from 2012-13.

Library visitors have dropped from 13,300,000 in 2012-13 to 11,800,000 in 2016-17.

More users are checking out ebooks and audiobooks using the libraries online services, but less are taking paper copies of fiction and non-fiction books home from the library.

Auckland Libraries' head of content and access, Catherine Leonard, says audiobook borrowing, in particular, has seen a "really significant increase" in popularity recently.

She says that although the number of visitors is trending downwards, the length of visits is increasing.

Leonard says libraries have an important part to play in encouraging people to read.

"We definitely see that as part of our remit, we want our people to be literate. You can't really be a fully-functioning citizen if you're not literate," she says.

Libraries tried to promote reading in a range of ways, Leonard said. However it was difficult for libraries to target non-readers because they were unlikely to visit in the first place.

"It's much easier to target your customers than your non-customers," she said.

Part of meeting that challenge was moving the libraries beyond the four walls of their buildings. Auckland Libraries sends staff to school, retirement villages and other community spaces to promote reading.

Staff also attend events like the Pasifika Festival to raise awareness of the services they offer.

Leonard said it was also important to ensure libraries were a welcoming space, with attractive book displays to lure in customers who might not have come with the intention of borrowing a book.