Volume bookshop opened as an experiment in 2016, and is now winning awards.

Amazon-owned Book Depository is on a marketing and public relations push in New Zealand, one of its fastest-growing markets.

It's got a poster campaign going in Auckland, has retained a public relations company to up its media profile, and has publicity agents handing out bookmarks in the city's streets.

The move has got local booksellers concerned, but not panicked.

The 'bookopolypse' that was predicted in the mid-2000s to sweep away all bookstores didn't happen. Times have been tough, but New Zealand towns and cities are now seeing new bookstores opening.

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Jenna Todd, manager of the Mt Eden Time Out book store, said the mood at the 97th Booksellers NZ conference in late August was positive.

"There are new book stores being opened. There are people selling their bookstores, and we have heard of people scouting for book stores. People actually want to own book stores again."

SUPPLIED Jenna Todd, Manager of Timeout Bookstore in Mt Eden, with shop's cat Lucinda.

NO MORE CLOSURES

Sandra Noakes, marketing communications manager for Harper Collins, and one of the seven council members on the Publishers Association board said: "The market has stabilised."

"We are seeing a stronger market."

Booksellers' chief executive Lincoln Gould said predictions that e-books would kill print, and that everyone would read on their Kindles, or mobile phones, never eventuated.

"The online stuff with Kindle and Kobo has settled down to around 18-20 per cent of the market world wide," he said. "In the US, it's going down."

"A lot of people are putting their Kindles on the top shelves with their fondue sets."

SUPPLIED/PETE MONK People get stuck in during Featherston's 2017 Booktown book fair.

Figures for book sale growth are produced by Nielsen's Bookscan operation, but it is not publicly available.

But within traditional bookshops, sales were up around 3 per cent year on year, Gould said.

Melanie Laville-Moore, director Allen & Unwin in New Zealand, speaks of "terrific growth" after the business invested in its New Zealand content.

Todd, and Time Out owner Wendy Tighe-Umbers, report every month this year has been a record month, but rises in rents, council rates and staffing costs have taken a bite out of the bottom line.

AMAZON EFFECT

While e-books didn't kill print - and nor did a big bookselling downturn that came in 2010/11 following the global financial crisis - the assault on the market of Amazon and Amazon-owned Book Depository is threatening to bookshop owners, especially as the international giants have been able to sell books GST-free.

That ends in October next year, which bookshop owners are celebrating.

"There is no silver bullet, but I believe it will make a difference because it will narrow the gap on what New Zealand bookersellers can supply a book for," Gould said.

There are no public figures for the proportion of books now sold to New Zealanders by the e-commerce giants, and Book Depository in particular, which ships its books "free" to New Zealand buyers.

Laville-Moore believes it is around 15-20 per cent.

CARYS MONTEATH/STUFF This was going to be how we all read books, but it never happened. People never lost their love of the printed word.

Many in the industry see Amazon and Book Depository as a threat, driving low margins, and undermining the local bookshops.

They would much rather see readers buy from retailers they consider within the New Zealand book eco-system, like booksellers and e-commerce company Mighty Ape, which is New Zealand-based.

New Zealand publishers' businesses were closely tied to the health of the bookshops, said Noakes, because they are the shop window for New Zealand books.

Laville-Moore said the majority of sales of its New Zealand-authored books like Allen & Unwins recent big hits, including Helen Clarke's Women, Equality, Power and Lorraine Down's Life, Loss, Love, were through book shops.

"When we talk about our eco-system, they (Book Depository) are not really a part of it," she said.

But some habits have changed.

Todd wonders if people have forgotten that they can order books from their local book stores, and often, they will get them faster than if they buy from one of the overseas e-commerce giants.

LITERACY NATION

The assault on people's time from the likes of Netflix, Lightbox and social media hasn't killed books either.

"On the whole New Zealanders place quite a degree of importance on reading," said Noakes.

We especially like to read local content, local history, local authors, local culture, she said.

"Non-fiction is particularly strong in New Zealand," said Noakes.

James Pasley Timeout Bookstore has made the London Book Fair's worldwide shortlist for bookstore of the year. Staff: Cait Kneller, Ian Brown, Jenna Todd, Wendy Tighe-Umbers

Book Depository's biggest New Zealand sellers are rugby titles like Legacy and The Jersey, said Javier Rosales, its commercial director for New Zealand.

One study from Central Connecticut State University ranked New Zealand 15th in an index of most literate, and literary countries, ahead of Australia, and the UK.

Rosales said 2.5million New Zealanders aged 10 or over had read a book in the last month.

The biggest growth market was "mothers", said Rosales.

In a world of wall-to-wall screens, parents (mothers in particular) are fighting back by prioritising reading books with their children.

BOOK TOWNS

Whole towns are embracing books as a way of fighting back too.

The Wairarapa town of Featherston joined the International Organisation of Booktowns in October.

JACK BARLOW/STUFF Featherston's main street shows signs of its book revival.

Gould owns the Messines Bookshop in Featherston.

The idea of a booktown is a town where people come to browse, said Gould, and it's catching on all over the world as rural towns seek ways to revive their economies.

Booktowns include Clunes in Australia, and St Pierre de Clages in Switzerland.

Bookshop owners have realised they need to trade on the sense of place they provide.

"Your first place is your home. Your second place is your place of work. Your third place is where you commune, very often it is your local bookshop," said Gould.

Time Out has had to consciously develop strategies to earn its status as one of its customers special places.

That means bucking the trend for lean-staffing so there's always someone to talk books with, developing its social media, having staff do radio and print book reviews, investing in its own staff loyalty discount scheme, and understanding its customers.

Todd will even hop on her e-bike and deliver books to Mount Eden homes.

Founder Tighe-Umbers has always collected, and analysed data from the store's operations.

Peak demand starts at around 10am, when retired residents and young mums start popping into Mount Eden Village, but it's also open until 9pm, as the after-work and post-dining period is also peak book-browsing time.

A tradition has also developed- starting on Halloween last year- that dogs are welcome in the shop, and that there's a doggy treat behind the counter for every canine that comes through the doors.

It's not uncommon, said Todd, to see walkers being dragged by their pets into the shop.

NEW MODELS

One publisher, who asked not to be named, said: "For readers this is a golden age, but times are still hard for publishers."

The likes of Book Depository are sometimes criticised for driving a global books monoculture, but it also creates opportunities for publishers and authors to strike it big.

All around the world publishers are now able to publish books that sell enough on a global scale, but would never make it onto booksellers' shelves, such as the US Dodo Press, which re-publishes out of print books.

Rosales said for one whole week New Zealand author Craig Smith's Wonky Donkey was its top-seller worldwide, shipping to around 30 countries, following the viral hit of a Youtube clip showing a Scottish granny reading it to her grandson.