Book-battling looms as Bookstar invades competitive local market.

It could soon turn into the war of words. A major bookselling chain is encroaching upon the Southland, and most local competitors say they are armed and ready.

Bookstar, an Austin, Texas-based book retailer with 38 stores nationwide that carry an average of 50,000 titles per store in outlets that average 10,000 square feet each, opened its first Los Angeles County store in October. In contrast, the average B. Dalton Bookseller store is 2,500 square feet and carries between 20,000 and 25,000 titles. Typical Crown Books outlets are about one-third the size of Bookstars, with roughly one-third the titles.

As of this week, fast-expanding Bookstar will have 11 outlets operating in Southern California.

The retailer's most formidable competitor in Los Angeles County is Crown, a Washington, D.C.-based bookseller that operates 82 stores in Southern California. Bookstar and Crown both carry a large volume of books and sell them at a discount.

In some parts of the county, the two super booksellers will be, or already are, within a block of each other.

"We're obviously going to be head-on competitors," said Christopher Thomas, chief executive and president of Bookstop Inc. Bookstop stores are part of the same chain as Bookstar but are located in other parts of the country.

But Crown, which has been selling books in the Southland since 1980, is staking out its territory. The retailer is tripling the square footage of many of its local stores, making them comparable in size with Bookstar outlets, and tripling the number of volumes the stores carry as well. The bigger Crown stores will be comparable in size to Bookstar outlets.

In Studio City a Bookstar is expected to open next March about a block away from a Crown bookstore. The Crown is set to be expanded into a "Superstore" in January.

The Studio City store is expanding partially so that it can compete with the Bookstar arriving down the street, said Ron Richardson, assistant manager at the Crown store.

Nevertheless, Crown President Robert Haft insisted his store expansions are in no way related to a Bookstar competitive threat.

Both the Studio City Crown bookstore and the future Bookstar are about a mile from an independent Dutton's bookstore.

"I'm a little apprehensive, but I'm not paralyzed with fear," owner Dave Dutton said of the pending competition.

The bookstore industry is quite incestuous. B. Dalton Bookseller and Bookstop (Bookstar) are both separate but wholly owned subsidiaries of Barnes & Noble, a privately held, New York-based bookseller.

The link between book retailers gets even more complicated. For a few months during 1989, Crown owned a 20 percent stake in Bookstop, but sold that to Barnes & Noble. Crown is now a completely separate company and a direct competitor with Bookstar.

Interestingly, there are other links in the Southland bookstore world. Waldenbooks and Brentanos are both owned by K mart.

Meanwhile, Crown has enough strength to withstand its new competition, Haft said, adding that his chain has already proved its brawn in Torrance. A Crown bookstore there for 11 years was recently expanded. A Bookstar is down the street.

"The volume of our Torrance store has been very successful," Haft said.

Bookstar is a new player in an already hotly competitive Southland bookstore market. Aside from Crown, B. Dalton, Waldenbooks and Brentano's, hundreds of independent booksellers also thrive.

"I think there might be a saturation point," observed Gwen Feldman, president of the Southern California Booksellers Association.

Books can't be marketed like items such as toothpaste or clothing. They don't get used up or worn out, she explained. A taste for books is an acquired taste, she added.

Dave Dutton agreed: "I think saturation could happen," but it hasn't happened yet, he said.

His brother Doug Dutton, owner of Dutton's Brentwood bookstore, said, "I think there's room for the Bookstars," he said. "With so many books on the market and so many interests, there is always room for another bookstore."

He might have a point. Book sales this year are expected to be 7.7 percent higher than in 1990, according to figures published by the American Booksellers Association. Sales are predicted to increase from 3.9 billion total volumes to 4.2 billion total volumes.

On a month-by-month basis, there was a 25.6 percent increase in the sale of adult paperbacks nationwide during September 1990 compared with a year earlier, and sales of adult hardcovers were up 16.3 percent during the same period, according to a statistics published by the Association of American Publishers.

Many of the Southland's independent booksellers have staved off the competition by specializing, said Terry Baker, co-owner of Small World Books, an independent bookstore in Venice.

Bookstores in Los Angeles specialize in everything from mystery books, to sports, to political tomes to out-of-print books.

Nevertheless, competition between Bookstar and Crown may soon resemble the famous rivalries of other retailers.

"I can foresee a time when the stores will battle like Macy's and Gimbels," Dave Dutton surmised.