A used bookstore called Book Monkey closed in Midtown last week.

The store closed July 1 after little more than three months in business at 1330 21st St. Sales were not as good as owner Kevin Standfield expected. The store never opened the wine bar that was part of the original concept to draw customers in.

"We're making enough money, barely, to pay the bills, but not enough to make it worth it being there," he said.

Standfield opened the store as an offshoot of his Sacramento company, Holt Concannon, which sells consigned books for individuals and charities, including churches, through Amazon.com. Those books are sold under the online bookseller Book Quest in Sacramento.

He sells books online for $10 to $30. The 21st Street store opened as a place to sell those books at reduced rates if they did not sell online within four months, and to sell books that were not added to the online inventory. Standfield expected most titles to sell for $5 or less at Book Monkey.

"We had so many books that we couldn't put online," he said.

A discount bookstore did not work in Midtown because of the higher cost of rent. Other parts of Sacramento have commercial space for rent at a third of the price, but the readers are not there, he said.

Standfield plans to focus on the core business selling books online.

"But we gave it a shot," he said.