Bookstores: Digital or paper? Or both?

[NatCh]

If they became the medium of choice for e-books (or some distribution plan of other things with similar, small space needs), I expect there are more than a few foundries that would merrily turn out hordes of 8~16 Mb SD cards for around a buck a piece.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I see your point about the bizcard CDs not fitting some PCs. However, I still think mini-CDs would be a better choice than SD cards... they can essentially be had for less than $0.25 each when bought in bulk. They are also just plastic, not plastic and metal electronics, which makes them more recycle-friendly, and gives them bonus points in my book.

[Lemurion]

Point the first: I like bookstores.

I go there for coffee, to browse, and to buy books. My five-year-old daughter plays with the trains before she looks for books when we go to Books A Million. If I'm feeling burned out a bookstore is where I go to recharge.

If bookstores offered eBooks as well as pBooks I'd buy them there. Always providing they have the right books in the right format at the right price, but that's no different than paper really.

I think they'd make a worthwhile addition to the product mix.

[TheJohnNewton]

I can buy ebooks in any physical bookstore right now. Or at Starbucks, the local hiking trail, the bathroom at home, or anywhere else I can get a Sprint connection. I don't need the store to offer them to me. Of course if your ereader does not have wireless then you'll have to make some physical connection so I suppose there could be a case made for those readers. The physical store companies would be wise to offer ebooks, be it via a web connection or a physical connection, or they are looking at losing out on what will probably become the major avenue for selling books.

[moz]

One of the local bookstore chains here is selling both the iLiad and a range of ebooks. Their problem is the same as everyone else - much of what they want to sell has not been made available by the publishers. But they're also finding that a number of people are asking (as I do) for some indication on the shelf or pbook that the title is available electronically.

Interestingly they are pushing this on their front page: www.dymocks.com.au

[Puddytat purr]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I see your point about the bizcard CDs not fitting some PCs. However, I still think mini-CDs would be a better choice than SD cards... they can essentially be had for less than $0.25 each when bought in bulk. They are also just plastic, not plastic and metal electronics, which makes them more recycle-friendly, and gives them bonus points in my book.

Yeah, mini-CD's are good......but if you plan to give them out at book signings/fayres, personally I think you'd be better off giving out SD cards - if you give me a CD at a fayre, I've then got to wait until I get home, fire up my laptop, plug in my cybook, load the CD and transfer the file before I can read it!

Give me a SD card, I can plug it in there and then...and crash into loads of people on my way out because I'm not watching where I'm going

[JWLaRue]

From my point of view, the solution to both the DRM problem of being tied to a single or limited number of display devices and the question of how a b&m bookstore can sell ebooks is to use something like the type of SD card that contains a protected code execution and data space on it. (CPRM - Content Protection for Recordable Media?).

These cards would allow the DRM to be tied to the card so it cannot be copied.....done reading, pass it on to your friends. Just like a paper-based book.

Want to buy an ebook either online or in a store? Mount up your SD card have the book loaded directly to it.

Now to get publishers and ebook reader manufacturers to support it.

-Jeff

[Taylor514ce]

That would significantly reduce what I see as one of the primary benefits of a dedicated e-book reader: vast amounts of e-book storage in a single device. I don't want to substitute scads of paper books with scads of SD cards.

[moz]

Yeah, but as a give-away at a book fair or something SD cards would have a novelty value the first few times. I'd probably still say no, but it is a cool idea. And probably cheap too, I'm sure you'd be able to get them very cheap as old stock

[Taylor514ce]

Agreed - as a novelty giveaway, I would prefer an SD over a small format CD.

[Darqref]

1. A *good* bookseller wants and needs to know as much as possible about what's being published, in all forms and formats. One of my reasons for going to a bookstore is to take advantage of that knowledge. Currently that is by seeing what's on the shelves, on the new books racks, or what the staff recommend. I could still use this in an ebook transaction - the point is that I don't know everything that is available. Even in print, I regularly get surprised by finding something I didn't expect, and that's almost the only way I'll see new authors. Ebooks just expand the problem, because I almost never hear about all the new stuff, and then there's the garbage filter that one effect of an established publisher.

2. A bookseller would have to charge something above the internet fee, just to pay salaries, lights, and rent. That inevitably means the ebook would cost more. That's a minus, but if the actual price is still reasonable, I may not mind paying. Dunno how the economics would really work out though.

3. One of the reasons for genre bookstores, is that it's hard (and/or not interesting to the seller) to be up to date on everything, and maybe they can keep up with a smaller focus. Would you go to a bookstore for ebooks, if the staff were really knowledgeable about something like foreign language literature, or one or more special genres? Now add ebooks to the mix, and suddenly you're finding out about stuff just published in Timbuktu or New South Wales, and it doesn't depend on a mistaken street date or slow shipment.

4. I don't believe we'll see an ebook-only physical store. But when the bookstore is doing stuff like author signings, I think anything extra would be good for business.

*** Hey Fans, here's a special offer, get all of specialAuthorX's backlist in ebook form for $10 when you buy the new hardback. Good only while the Author is in the store!*** (or similar time limited promotions.)

5. As always, ebook technology still limits some things. I think there will be more possiblilities when color eInk becomes available, so that what you get matches what you see on the color display. When hardware prices come down, more people who are less voracious readers will have them, and be interested in applicable ebooks. How about selling a package deal of a paper comicbook or manga with an electronic copy so you don't have to open the package to read it, but can still have the "mint condition" collectible.


And, btw, I don't live in Walla Walla (or any of the other towns mentioned) but there are a couple of high quality private colleges in or near town, and that might be a good reason for a bookstore general enough to also sell ebooks.

[moz]

All our good genre bookshops mostly sell second hand books, only the big chain has semi-specialised shops (they sell "bestsellers and X", not just X). Albeit my version of genre is a shop that divides fantasy from science fiction I also like newsagents that don't file astrology under science, oddly enough.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by JWLaRue

From my point of view, the solution to both the DRM problem of being tied to a single or limited number of display devices and the question of how a b&m bookstore can sell ebooks is to use something like the type of SD card that contains a protected code execution and data space on it. (CPRM - Content Protection for Recordable Media?).

These cards would allow the DRM to be tied to the card so it cannot be copied.....done reading, pass it on to your friends. Just like a paper-based book.

Want to buy an ebook either online or in a store? Mount up your SD card have the book loaded directly to it.

Now to get publishers and ebook reader manufacturers to support it.

-Jeff

SD cards already have that ability. That is why they call them Secure Digital.

Dale

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

That would significantly reduce what I see as one of the primary benefits of a dedicated e-book reader: vast amounts of e-book storage in a single device. I don't want to substitute scads of paper books with scads of SD cards.

However, SD cards like this would be like used books you could sell them.

Dale

[JWLaRue]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

SD cards already have that ability. That is why they call them Secure Digital.

Dale

Actually, I am referring to a form of SD card that I evaluated from Panasonic about 2 years ago. This is an additional capability to the stock-standard SD card. I have no idea if they have begin marketing this variation.....so we might be referring to the same thing.

-Jeff