By MA Yue

On February 24^th, the One-way Space Bookstore, co-founded by XU Zhiyuan, a former journalist turned entrepreneur and talk show host, launched a crowdfunding appeal on social media.

The 15-year-old bookstore chain is left with just four bookstores. The only branch open for business is in Chaoyang Joy City, Beijing. Its revenue is expected to plummet by as much as 80 percent in February compared with previous years. It's a dead end for a business of meager profit.

"The pain and anxiety of every ordinary person is our common destiny at this moment, " the distress letter says.

The impact of the epidemic on the real economy is noticeable. The outcry of physical bookstores is far less noticeable than that of the catering industry. The restaurants can deliver takeout to keep the business running because food is a necessity of life; however, books are not.

At 10 pm on February 4, employees at Guangzhou's first 24-hour bookstore turned off its lights for the first time.

Daytime foot traffic had dropped precipitously. The bustling night scene in this southern city is also over. Sporadic shoppers walk out and nod at the masked clerk, exchanging eyes which seem to convey: "Be safe. "

On the eve of the Spring Festival, the bookstore owner LIU Erxi was still abroad visiting a bookstore in Los Angeles. He began to worry as he heard about the spreading epidemic back home.

His stores felt the impact - fast. Throughout the Spring Festival and the first two weeks of February, more than half of his stores across the country closed, leaving him no source of revenue.  Stores that stayed open for just a few hours a day are struggling to generate even a tenth of the revenue they used to. All of his stores will lose money in February.

Throughout January, in addition to payroll, most bookstores are restocking goods and paying suppliers, readying themselves for the Spring Festival promotion and back-to-school season. If there is no revenue, small and medium-sized bookstores can be submerged by high rent and wages.

For the first time in the six years since he started the store, Liu, who had contacted his landlord to try to get a rental waiver and faced a long delay in getting a positive response, felt "this could really be a life-and-death situation. "

"Everyone feels that suspension leads to layoffs, and they are about to go broke," say SUN Qian, the founder of Shumeng, a national association of physical bookstores. Throughout the Spring Festival, bookstore peers are all singing the voice of doom in their Wechat group.

On the second day of the Lunar New Year, Liu read the article, “A Book Dealer’s Thoughts during the Spring Festival in the Year of the Rat,” by her peer ZENG Feng. He called for bookstore self-rescue in that piece. She then decided to launch a survey of the current state of bookstores. "The first is to let people know that you are not the only one who is being hurt, and the second is that we all care about bookstores. We need to boost our confidence, " Sun told Jiemian News.

By February 5, more than one thousand questionnaires from across the nation were received. Sun and Zeng released a report that they found more than 90% of bookstores had closed down.  Nearly every single one had no regular revenue, and 79% did not have enough to fund the last three months.

"It is almost certain that the recovery of physical bookstores since 2013 will come to an end, and there will be a massive wave of emergency adjustment or even suspension among small and medium-sized bookstores in the near future," the report said. "Physical bookstores need self-diagnosis, self-prescription and self-rescue. "

Liu, still in Los Angeles, had an emergency meeting with ten colleagues to figure out what to do next. The coffee business, which accounts for 40% of revenue, is shut down. Books won’t rot like fruits or vegetables, but the longer they sit on shelves and generate no sales, the more stressed the stores feel.

Unable to return to work, employees are worried about their future livelihoods as well as the current epidemic.

Liu once said that he did not agree with the pessimistic outlook of physical bookstores. "A few years back, when traditional bookstores were facing mass failure, there was a natural feeling of nostalgia and sympathy. The passiveness was exacerbated by a lot of media reports in such tone, " he said, "Nostalgia is understandable. We just don't want to overplay it. Life must continue and we must stay optimistic. It's more worthwhile to explore how to change and cope and look to the future. "

But for now, his must resort to online channels for survival.

At 11:55 pm on February 15, Liu sent a distress letter to readers for the first time on the Wechat official account of the 1200bookshop, "In the past six years, the bookstore has been open 24 hours a day. But the 1200bookshop main store, which has never been closed at night, has gone dark. We are gravely concerned that if this situation continues any longer, the lights in the bookstore will never be lit during the day."

Through the Wechat mini program, readers can buy gift cards, artistic canvas bags or a "blind pick" containing books and design products. Readers can leave a message or mark their reading habits, and the bookstore will try to make a best pick for them.

Thanks to more than 100,000 followers of the bookstore's Wechat official account, the article quickly garnered more than 100,000 views. Readers wrote: "Cheer up! It's not embarrassing to save yourself!” "Please hang in there, and I'll see you in Guangzhou when the epidemic is over. "

Liu finally returned to Guangzhou via Thailand, along with 2,000 masks purchased overseas with the help of friends. By that time, book orders from the Wechat mini program topped 2,000, and canvas bags topped 1,000.

The coffee area and the floor were filled with books. Everyone's workload suddenly increased. As soon as Liu returned to the store, he joined the staff helping select, pack and deliver books.

Physical bookstores are among the least profitable of all retail businesses. Traditional bookstores, especially small and medium-sized bookstores, can barely rival online platform in terms of price. "We have done a survey in the industry, if the revenue from selling books accounts for more than 30%, it’s losing money, " Sun Qian, founder of the bookstore owner's association, tells Jiemian News.

Most bookstore owners do it for love.

The idea of founding a 24-hour bookstore came from his 1200-kilometer trip around Taiwan province, hence the name “1200bookshop”. He was "shocked" by cabs lining up in front of the 24-hour bookstore Eslite at 2 pm, and he was drawn to the human touch.

When he returned to Guangzhou in 2014, he found a corner shop with a worldly vibe in the neighborhood he lived. Later, as the business expanded, several branches of 1200bookshop opened in the CBD of Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Liu kept the main store open 24/7 all the time saying he had "lit a late-night lamp for the city.” The "late night story" is running from 12 pm to 2 am every Saturday night. The shop also provides a place for backpackers to spend the night.

"One-third of our customers are regular customers, and some people like to stay overnight, " Liu told Jiemian News.  "I've always thought of it as an ideal world – the closest thing to an independent bookstore."