Handwritten signs penned messily in faded blue marker plaster the large glass storefront windows of the Valencia Street Bookstore and let passers-by know the store’s entire inventory is 50 percent off.

It doesn’t announce however, that the homey bookstore, after three years of trying to scrabble together a profit, is closing.

“The major problem is the economy,” owner Amanda Cotten said, dismissing any speculation that the cause for closure might be from competing, nearby bookstores, such as Modern Times, Dog Eared Books, and Abandoned Planet Bookstore, located on Valencia.

Instead, Cotten cites a dwindling economy; competition from chain stores such as Target and Wal-Mart, both of which boast large book departments; and the not-so-new trend of buying from the Internet.

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“The people who own Wal-Mart, they don’t live here. The people who own Safeway, they don’t live here. We are losing jobs because people aren’t spending money in the neighborhood,” Cotten said.

Cotten’s reasons echo those recently given by Neal Sofman, owner of the venerable A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books located on Van Ness Avenue, which announced its closure last month and pinned much of its reasons for doing so on declining sales.

Cotten has worked in San Francisco’s struggling bookselling industry since 1992, when she began working at the now-defunct Solar Light Books, previously located in a basement-level retail space on Union Street.

She bought the store in 1999 and closed it in April of 2003, but not because of a lack of sales. Cotten felt Union Street’s demographics had changed dramatically, and it forced the bookseller to choose between selling what the people wanted or selling what she wanted. She chose the latter.

“I’m not going to spend my time selling 3 million copies of ‘The Rules’ and ‘Bridges of Madison County,’ the 36-year-old seller said.

She moved her operation to the Mission District, taking over the 2,500 square feet of retail space at 569 Valencia Street and naming it Valencia Street Bookstore.

The move meant she paid two-thirds the rent, but only made one-fifth the money.

In three years, she had barely made the break-even point, and couldn’t see a time in the not-too-distant future that brightened the store’s financial picture.

Cotten says that more than just a business is closing. What she feels most badly about is the impact the store’s closure might have on the community at large.

“Where will the knitting group go,” she asks amid the packing boxes that clutter the store’s floor and Grumblebunny, her 3-year-old cat that has been the face of the bookstore since its opening.

“Or the poetry readers,” offers Mary Jensen, a friend of Cotten’s and of the store.

“I’m sure they’ll find some place, but it just makes me feel kind of bad,” the bookseller says.