The mystery bookstore sells signed editions over the Internet. The Jewish bookstore sells hand-painted yarmulkes and engraved Torah pointers. The old downtown bookshop still sells $2 used paperbacks, but the bulk of their business now comes from wholesaling Spanish-language books to customers including Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

As the Miami Book Fair International kicks off Sunday, it's clear that the written word is alive and well. And yet, it is a challenging time to be a bookseller -- especially an independent operator.

Chain bookstores are everywhere, Wal-Mart is selling hardcover bestsellers for nine bucks, Amazon boasts of ``Earth's Biggest Selection,'' and e-books threaten to do to bookstores what Apple's iTunes did to record shops -- and what video-on-demand is now doing to movie-rental stores.

E-books may ultimately prove the most serious threat -- to independents and chain stores alike. Indeed, no Wall Street analyst is recommending that investors buy shares in Barnes & Noble right now, according to Bloomberg Business News.

Meanwhile, thousands of independent bookstores have closed in recent years. But many soldier on. And don't expect them to go gentle into that good night.

For the independents, the key for survivors is to find a niche that distinguishes them from the rest -- an angle, a twist, something extra -- or national competitors will eat their lunch.

FOR EVERY NICHE

In South Florida, the variety of niche shops is impressive: Comics and graphic novels. Evangelical Christian books. Catholic books. Jewish books. Creole and French. Spanish. Spanish Christian. Mysteries.

And then there are niches within niches.

At Murder on the Beach, manager Joanne Sinchuk sells a wide range of whodunits, thrillers and police procedurals. But the specialty of the Delray Beach shop is signed volumes by Florida mystery authors.

``It's a very, very narrow niche, but we are the experts in it,'' said Sinchuk, who moved the store to Delray from Sunny Isles Beach in 2002.

In fact, about one-third of her business comes from Internet sales of these books.

While mail-order has become an important component of Sinchuk's business, it has become the bulk of Raquel Roque's.

Roque's father, José Rábade, opened the Downtown Book Center, 247 SE First St., in front of a Miami bus stop in 1965. At first, he sold mainly paperbacks in English, but as more Hispanics arrived in Miami the store added more Spanish-language titles, from romances to the latest bestsellers from Madrid and Buenos Aires.

The store changed its focus again and again to keep in step with community needs and tastes. Over the years, the owners have sold everything from Spanish-English medical dictionaries -- to help Cuban doctors get licensed in the States -- to the current large stock of used paperbacks.

A major turning point came in 1989, when Roque persuaded the manager of the B. Dalton store at Dadeland Mall to buy some Spanish titles from her. After that, the chain's higher-ups noticed improved sales at Dadeland and started buying from Roque nationally. Since then, wholesaling of Spanish-language books has come to account for three-quarters of Roque's business. Clients range from small shops in Little Havana to Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

The wholesale business props up the store, which sells used $2 paperbacks and $3 hardcovers, as well as new books. Customers feel at home in the store, like the group of women who come in on their way to church on Sundays to discuss books about angels.