eBookstores

[pwjone1]

The Google Bookstore deal with local bookstores:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/bu...okstore&st=cse

got me to thinking about what an eBookstore might look like. The web model is pretty obvious and out there already. But what is the bricks & mortar equivalent? I think that ultimately it might go something like this:

1. Series of LCD screens (24-30") with connections to view books online
2. Slaved to a bigger screen going through with Video of the latest books
3. Privacy walls or screens of some sort (so that the neighboring cubicle cannot tell what you're looking at)
4. Some sort of comfortable, adjustable chair, or easy chair for you to sit on
5. For maybe 30% of the LCD stations, you'd have a 2nd. seat (or a loveseat) for someone to have a look, and also probably a few free chairs for a 3rd. seat to be rolled over
6. At the end of the row, an indicator map showing which station was open (sensors in the seats would automatically detect if someone was there)
7. Prospective buyer comes in, sees where they can seat, maybe an ad or two for a book, goes and sits down.
8. Optionally a RFID card or B&N card or whatever would be detected or swiped, or any major credit card, and they'd have you setup and references.
9. Screen would say "Hello, Mr. Jones, show some books of interest, etc."
10. You could browse thru or talk to the screen, tell it what you wanted.
11. You could browse thru the book, by screen, keyboard, or spoken word
12. If you wanted a coffee, you could order it up (what you like is stored), they bring it to your station.
13. NYTimes book review, other recommendations, etc., would be available.
14. If you wanted to talk with someone, click and they'd come over (or better, they'd come up on the screen, and you could talk with them)
15. Connections to Librarything or Shelfari, so you could check if you have the book (also used to build preference lists for recomenadations (ex.: you like author Such N. So, and he has a new book out, ....)
16. Ordering (eBook or regular book) would be just a click or two away.
17. If you had an eBook reader with you, it would include downloading to it.
18. If you were giving the book as a present, the system could check if they already had it.

I don't see customers roaming the aisles and leafing through physical books much longer. Maybe 10 years or so. But I think the model will shift over, and it becomes more a question of how the book is selected and purchased. For some, it would be online. But for others, I think it shifts over to more a library type model, with reading stations, etc. There are people that will want to spend time in a bookstore, leafing through pages, and this gives it to them.

[mscott9985]

It's an interesting concept, but I'm not sure if I'd personally be interested in going to such a place. It's just so much easier to download books from home.

Maybe if the e-bookstores had really, really good freshly baked muffins

[mr ploppy]

I think something where you could choose a book and have it printed and bound while you wait would be more likely to pull in customers. People with computers wouldn't see the point of going out to use a computer unless there was something extra that you couldn't get at home.

[pwalker8]

I posted something like this in a different thread. I would suggest that it's more likely that the books store of the future will be an expanded Starbuck, i.e. a coffee house, that has space for book clubs to meet, internet connections plus perhaps some terminals, a showroom with ebook readers and a section for coffee table type books.

[pwjone1]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I posted something like this in a different thread. I would suggest that it's more likely that the books store of the future will be an expanded Starbuck, i.e. a coffee house, that has space for book clubs to meet, internet connections plus perhaps some terminals, a showroom with ebook readers and a section for coffee table type books.

Maybe the concept should be expanded to include video and a Facebook type link. You could run a video conference for your bookclub, have a roundtable discussion, etc. A lot of people still don't have the video links or bandwidth. The round table could be virtual. Anyway, There'd be video to the front help desk (although that might be off centralized somewhere), anywhere. Just have to add a camera to the setup.

And maybe an area with say beanbags and these video setups on poles or pivots, for kids or teenagers.

The same setup would make it pretty easy to sell records (MP3s) or videos.

And I'd have a certain amount of printed books physically there, these stores would be somewhat transitional (and what would look good on a big LCD screen might still not be practical on a small 6-inch e-Ink reader), so for coffee books and art books and such, you'd still be printed. I'm not sure if print on demand would be technologically viable, especially in color, but maybe at the bigger stores. CD-on-demand might be easier. Blu-Ray on demand would be close, maybe with a little work. Maybe poster on Demand (you'd want to have a lot of physical posters on the walls, along with the big LCD screens selling the books).

[pwjone1]

Something else to think about would be author book tours. The reading from the book is pretty easy to virtualize over the internet, but the signing part would have to maybe take the form of high res stickers that could be put on the books (i.e. To: Peggy, ...phrase... thanks, The Book's Author). Done via HD camera.

[pwjone1]

Originally Posted by mscott9985

It's an interesting concept, but I'm not sure if I'd personally be interested in going to such a place. It's just so much easier to download books from home.

Maybe if the e-bookstores had really, really good freshly baked muffins

Yes, competing with what you can do at home is going to be somewhat tough. But, although they have evolved quite a bit, think about video and record stores. What you need is something that differentiates. Buying is sort of like hunting and gathering, and humans tend to do that in groups, marketeers know selling to individuals is tougher. Plus the idea is to have an even more packaged environment. Sort of like what movie theaters are to TV. Better picture, somewhat communal experience. And you're right, muffins (a nice little bakery or an ice cream stand for the kids) would be nice, yogurt + fruit + salad if you wanted to be less accused of making people fat (although diet books are always big).

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by pwjone1

The Google Bookstore deal with local bookstores:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/bu...okstore&st=cse

got me to thinking about what an eBookstore might look like. The web model is pretty obvious and out there already. But what is the bricks & mortar equivalent? I think that ultimately it might go something like this:

I would never set foot in this bookstore of the future.

I value my privacy, and I value the serendipity of browsing casually through the aisles of a bookstore, maybe one day deciding to venture beyond my comfort zone in my search for a book.

I already don't like the way Amazon in particular tries to track my search habits and recommend books for me--it rarely finds anything of interest to me.

[mr ploppy]

One thing that would save real world book shops, and also the second hand market, would be selling ebooks on physical media -- memory stick, SD card, CDROM, etc. I can't really see the publishers wanting to do that, mainly because of the second hand market. But if they did, it would mean extra sales from people who like to put things on shelves, or buy gifts for other people.

[pwjone1]

I hadn't thought about the 2nd. hand market, but that's a good one for the model. There would have to be some better model to the resales restrictions in eBooks, or some law against prohibiting it, of course. But it would be the Half-Price-eBooks model, should work.

[pwjone1]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I already don't like the way Amazon in particular tries to track my search habits and recommend books for me--it rarely finds anything of interest to me.

I share your observations. Amazon does track searches, as well as sales, and as you point out, just doesn't do a very good job of it, as the recommendations are just not that good. It particularly confuses purchases for others with what I want, so gets awful around Christmas. Even when I ship it elsewhere and mark it a gift!? But I find the same tracking at B&N in the store, local grocery and drug stores, based off of customer cards and/or credit cards. So I don't see Amazon as inherently bad, just not very good at the tracking. And it's maybe your last line: "-it rarely finds anything of interest to me." that's maybe the most cogent. I suspect that the tracking was really good, and the suggestions applicable, a lot of our complaints would melt away. The beauty of the old book store run by a Mom and Pop is that they learned to know their customers, would always keep an eye out for a new book by an author you liked, or a hot book in your favorite genre, and wouldn't get confused if you bought "The Life and Times of Barbie!" for a niece around Christmas. That was always an invasion of privacy in a way, same as a shoe seller that stocked your odd size, they knew things about you that you wouldn't necessarily want public, but they were just very good at it, you got what you wanted quickly, they were always looking out for you, so you really did not mind that they had that knowledge. So it's not so much that Amazon gathers the same knowledge a local store would, it's that it's so lousy at using it to help you out. Not that any of the web or big box merchants is much better...

[JackNolte]

Very much doubt bookstores will go away. Most will probably transition back to their long ago roots -- selling both new and used, small shops, lots of hand selling. Most experts expect ebooks to flatten out at a max of 50% of the market. I'd say that's about right, over 10 years or so.

~Jack

[pwjone1]

Originally Posted by JackNolte

Very much doubt bookstores will go away. Most will probably transition back to their long ago roots -- selling both new and used, small shops, lots of hand selling. Most experts expect ebooks to flatten out at a max of 50% of the market. I'd say that's about right, over 10 years or so.

~Jack

Printed Books are analog in what's becoming more and more a digital world. I have stacks with k-printed books in it, but I'm converting, newer books, particularly fiction and history, as much as possible to eBooks. I see 3 things needing to happen:

1. Cheap eReaders (Cost of 1 or two books) [This is getting close]
2. Quality Color capability (hinted at with the iPad (or perhaps the high-res iPhone 4), but not there yet)
3. Large format capability (Coffee table books)

The eReaders are already becoming ubiquitous, very few stores are not carrying them this Christmas (Drug stores!? Bed, Bath and Beyond, etc., etc.), they need to get better and cheaper, more standardized, they will. There has to be a way for non-Computer types to get eBooks. And then that's about it, it won't stop at 50%, maybe 10-15% will be printed, there will be an inversion of the market shares there are now. The eBookstores will be part of that. The traditional bookstore, the printed bookstore, will become what record stores are now, few and far between. The 50% number, and I've seen that too, is just wishful thinking on the part of some publishers. Evolve or perish. Just a matter of time.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by pwjone1

The 50% number, and I've seen that too, is just wishful thinking on the part of some publishers. Evolve or perish. Just a matter of time.

Trees don't grow to the sky. CDs are still 65% of the music market, with mp3s being only 35%. And mp3s have a standard format, no DRM, and have many other advantages over e-books (like the fact that all music requires some sort of player; paper books don't).

E-readers are great replacement for mass market paperbacks - but the farther you get away from that model (larger books, books with illustrations, maps, or pictures, textbooks, etc.), the less satisfactory the e-reading experience is.

And while $139 (or $99) is nothing to people who buy 50 books a year, it's still way to high for people who buy 2-3 books/year. And there are a lot of people like that.

[MV64]

I'm sure this has been said already: But why would I go to a brick and mortar e-bookstore?

If I wanted to go out in public, why not just go to a cafe or something and bring my laptop/Kindle/Nook, etc. to download ebooks?

EDIT: I never thought about the collapse of big book industries leading to a thriving of small bookstores. Maybe we should aim for it to collapse faster.