Head down Brunswick Street in Fitzroy and walk towards the neon lights until you see the words “Totally Weird Shit” on an awning. Walk through the doors and you enter one of the most subversive and strangely delightful bookshops in Australia.

Since 1985, Polyester has sold books with a punk sensibility, including a wide range of bizarro Manga comics. But as Brunswick Street goes alternative-lite, making room for artificially distressed cafes and expensive ‘vintage’ clothing stores, Polyester announced this week that it is turning off its neon lights for good.

Polyester Books is closing. The anaesthetisation of Fitzroy is almost complete.

— Rofl Harris (@MrGarumph) February 3, 2016

Rents are high, gentrification is rife, and new business models of book distribution continue to disrupt the industry. On Tuesday, Amazon-owned online book retailer the Book Depository announced it was taking its first big step into the Australian market, adding more than 25,000 Australian titles to its inventory, including classic, contemporary, food and educational titles.

In a move that was foreshadowed in 2014, the company says it will ship books nationally and internationally from Australia for free, using a third-party logistics company in Melbourne to pack and send orders.

Group marketing director of Book Depository, Chris Mckee, explained in a press release: “Previously, we’ve had titles from Australian authors once they become available internationally, and what we’re going to have now are titles from Australian authors that become available when they are available in Australia.”

Authors who aren’t represented overseas will now be able to reach an international market, which is great news for those authors and their publishers. Book Depository told Guardian Australia that major publishers were on board, and in a media release quoted Natasha Besliev, CEO of Bonnier Publishing’s Australian business: “We’re looking forward to seeing our home-grown books from The Five Mile Press and Echo Publishing available in this way,” she said.

But the relationship between local publishers and Book Depository has historically been fraught. In a show of support to the local publishing industry in 2013, Melbourne publisher Affirm Press announced they would not be supplying Australian books to Amazon or Book Depository, whom they said “have little regard for Australian publishers, authors and retailers” and “deliberately and aggressively price other retailers out of the market”.

Affirm Press told Guardian Australia that they continue to hold this position, and are not among the publishers to have signed a deal with the retail giant.

And while some publishers and authors may benefit from the expanded reach, for bookstores and competing online retailers, Book Depository’s move into the Australian market signals increased competition.

Australia-based online retailer Booktopia currently has 83% market share of Australian online book sales, shipping four million books a year within Australia for $6.95 a shipment.

“Booktopia is the one company in Australia that has truly prospered and is ready to take on Amazon on Australian soil,” said CEO Tony Nash earlier this week. He referred to the “tumultuous time” bookstores have had in Australia over the past few years, which saw the introduction of ebooks, the collapse of several bricks and mortar stores including Borders and Angus and Robertson, and mooted changes to parallel importation rules, which have traditionally acted as a protective measure of Australian booksellers and authors.

But it’s not all doom and gloom: for many independent bookshops at least, things appear to be settling down.

A good local bookstore is, after all, irreplaceable. They know you, and can recommend titles to suit your taste; they’ll point you in the direction of hot new releases and help you select presents for your friends.

And the physical spaces themselves remain a delight – a rare quiet spot where you can spend a while browsing, before sitting on a chesterfield to sample a few pages, sipping coffee or glass of wine. To imagine a city without bookstores, replaced by giant warehouses shipping books direct to customers’ homes, is to imagine a civilisation that’s taken a gigantic backwards step.

Don Watson won the Indie Book award last year for his tome The Bush: Travels in the Heart of Australia. He told the Australian Financial Review: “They (independent bookstores) have fought off the monopolising tendencies of capitalism, the internet, mobile phones, and iPads. They have defied the general trend to instant gratification, fads, fashion and ignorance itself. In little shops all over the continent they keep the book – and many hearts and minds – alive.” And it’s heartening to read of Perth bookseller Robin Pen, who says many of his customers read the first chapter online and then go to his bookstore to buy the printed book.

The latest industry figures from the UK show that ebook sales are falling, and in Australia booksellers have increased printed book sales over the past two years; according to Nielsen BookScan, there were sales of $937 million in 2014, up from $918 million in 2013. While some independent stores like Polyester have shut due to high rents, the majority have avoided the 2011 prediction of Labor’s then small business minister Nick Sherry: “I think in five years, other than a few specialty bookshops in capital cities, you will not see a bookstore,” he said in June 2011. “They will cease to exist.”

Maybe we have those mindfulness colouring books to thank, but that dire fate hasn’t come to pass. Here are some excellent independent bookstores around Australia that appear to be alive and well:

Sydney:

Sappho Books & Cafe

51 Glebe Point Rd, Sydney NSW 2037

(02) 9552 4498

Goulds

32 King St, Newtown NSW 2042

(02) 9519 8947

Ariel

42 Oxford St, Paddington NSW 2021

(02) 9332 4581

Gleebooks

49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe NSW 2037

(02) 9660 2333

Melbourne:

Paperback

60 Bourke St, Melbourne VIC 3000

(03) 9662 1396

Readings

309 Lygon St, Carlton VIC 3053

(03) 9347 6633

Hill of Content

86 Bourke St, Melbourne VIC 3000

(03) 9662 9472

The Avenue

127 Dundas Pl, Albert Park VIC 3206

(03) 9690 2227

Brunswick Street Bookstore

305 Brunswick St, Fitzroy VIC 3065

(03) 9416 1030

Perth:

Crow Books

1/900 Albany Hwy, East Victoria Park WA 6101

(08) 9472 9737

New Edition, Fremantle

41 High St, Fremantle WA 6160

(08) 9335 2383

Tasmania:

Fullers

131 Collins St, Hobart TAS 7000

(03) 6234 3800

Brisbane:

Avid Reader

193 Boundary St, West End QLD 4101

(07) 3846 3422

Folio Books

133 Mary St, Brisbane QLD 4000

(07) 3210 0500

Canberra:

Paperchain

34 Franklin St, Griffith ACT 2603

(02) 6295 6723

Adelaide:

Imprints Booksellers

107 Hindley St, Adelaide SA 5000

(08) 8231 4454