I do browse in bookstores and occasionally buy a book, but as a present for someone, not for myself.
I pretty much exclusively buy novels in an ebook format. often as I already know the author as I may have read his books or on recommendation or I have read a free preview book by the author online.
On more than one occasion I have got the first book free as a a way of pulling me in, liked it and bought the rest of the series.
Personally I don't get much out of browsing books in bookstores anyway and never had really,
How can you seriously tell what a book is gonna be like by flipping through a few pages anyway?
The online experience is much better for me.
As long as I avoid the big authors who usually charge more than it costs for the pbook, I will usually get freebies and lots of review/synopsis info etc and it'll be a lot cheaper. I'm used to pay between 99 cents and a few dollars for a book by a self published author now. No way I'm paying $15+ for a book from a big name author.
I DO buy pbook gaming books (for tabletop RPGs) and I make an effort to goto our local bricks and mortar gaming store. He's friendly, accommodating, knowledgeable of his products and I'm happy to pay a bit over the odds vs online for that.
If I can't get it from there (for example self published independent POD books) Often I an get the PDF for free (legally) and if I like it pay for the pbook version of an RPG to be printed and sent to me.
You can't do that in a bricks and mortar bookstore.
Personally if a bricks and mortar bookstore tried to charge me to browse, I would leave and never come back and tell everyone I knew about their practice as well in disgust.
If bricks and mortar bookstores can't adapt then good riddance, I won't miss them.
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