O.K. I have to admit I don't quite understand the movement afoot for independent booksellers to sell e-books. I mean, I thought Barnes and Noble was nuts to cut into their own sales, but at least it could be seen as a transitional move.
Selling e-books in indy bookstores? I don't understand the reasoning there.
I think we should double down on our bookishness. We have books. They're paper. Come buy our books. You know, books that can't be changed by the publisher or seller and are eternally secure. Books that you can put on your shelf when you're done. (Yep, I bagged that trophy.) You can only read one book at a time, whether it's paper or e-. They have a nice bookish smell, a nice bookish texture, a nice sense of heft and place and time.
I think it's a case of fighting THEIR GAME, and THEY are going to be bigger and badder and better at it.
I have a saying in my store; You can't have the customers you can't have.
We should be playing up the bookstore experience. The browsing aspect, the conversational aspect, the display aspect, the "Local" aspect, and so on. Play to our strengths, not our weaknesses.
It's one of those cases when -- when I hear an expert explain the reasoning behind something, and it makes NO sense and it just doesn't compute and it seems to be all jargon and code words -- it will be a disaster. The equivalent of watching Time/Warner talk about synergy with AOL, and all I heard was nonsense babble. It's clear they really haven't thought it out.
My bet? There will always be room for real bookstores. And it will be the real bookstores that survive, not bookstores that put on an phony electronic veneer.
Selling e-books in indy bookstores? I don't understand the reasoning there.
I think we should double down on our bookishness. We have books. They're paper. Come buy our books. You know, books that can't be changed by the publisher or seller and are eternally secure. Books that you can put on your shelf when you're done. (Yep, I bagged that trophy.) You can only read one book at a time, whether it's paper or e-. They have a nice bookish smell, a nice bookish texture, a nice sense of heft and place and time.
I think it's a case of fighting THEIR GAME, and THEY are going to be bigger and badder and better at it.
I have a saying in my store; You can't have the customers you can't have.
We should be playing up the bookstore experience. The browsing aspect, the conversational aspect, the display aspect, the "Local" aspect, and so on. Play to our strengths, not our weaknesses.
It's one of those cases when -- when I hear an expert explain the reasoning behind something, and it makes NO sense and it just doesn't compute and it seems to be all jargon and code words -- it will be a disaster. The equivalent of watching Time/Warner talk about synergy with AOL, and all I heard was nonsense babble. It's clear they really haven't thought it out.
My bet? There will always be room for real bookstores. And it will be the real bookstores that survive, not bookstores that put on an phony electronic veneer.