National Post: The end of bookstores?

[apbschmitz]

Originally Posted by Ransom

And I think it's safe to say that people will always ride horses too. They can go places no other vehicle can. There are books like that too…

I agree completely. I think the traditional book will become more and more like the horse — occasionally exactly the thing you need, but generally speaking not the quickest way to get from point A to point B.

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by Ransom

I LOVE Chesterton! Both his fiction and nonfiction.

Maybe we should get a GKC book for the Book Club one month!

[Harper Kingsley]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

And I know this was supposed to be Indie bookstores, but if B&N wants me to stop into their store more often, then could bring back those soft easy chairs they used to have scattered through the stores.

Those chairs were the best.

I guess I have a fondness for the feel and smell of "real" books. I like being able to turn pages and I like how I can be like "I was about here" and flip to the halfway point of the book and find what I'm looking for without a ton of page presses or accidentally typing in a number too far in and not being able to find what I want. I love big glossy photographs and being able to spread a tabletop book open in front of me...

But I also like the convenience of ebooks. I like that I can spend $1 and get a good book that I want to read, but that I don't necessary want to add to my permanent collection. I mean, I spent $15 for the Wolf-Who-Rules ARC from Baen, then I went out and bought the hardback print copy when it came out. That's dedication.

I wouldn't do the same thing for a lot of books that I just want to read one time because I'm curious, but not really into it.

I don't know how brick and mortar stores are going to save themselves, but I do like being able to go into B&N, drink a cup of coffee, and browse around. I just wouldn't buy my porn there... or my comic books, since they just shove them on a bunch of shelves to get all wrinkled and nasty and let little kids finger them all over the place.

[Ransom]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

Maybe we should get a GKC book for the Book Club one month!

Fine by me. I think I've read all his fiction though. I'd rather pick one that I haven't read. What's Wrong With The World is supposed to be pretty good. I could read anything by him though.

[CazMar]

Originally Posted by Ransom

Anyone who thinks hard copy books are EVER going away ought to have their silly head examined. Most of the people I know in the real world that have an e-reader only use it for reading older fictional works that they can download for free, and it's usually just light reading material. Any book that they really care about they will buy in hard copy.

I actually used mine this last semester to do nearly all of my reading for a philosophy course- including downloading academic articles and lecture notes. That meant time spent in the bus or waiting around could be used for study time. I like having some academic books in hard copy because they last so well and look good on my bookshelves! But who really needs to keep some of that research stuff that you needed to write an essay? I just archive it in case I need it further on in the course and delete it from my ereader.
You are right in saying paper books won't go away, but there will be less and less of them produced each year (how many vinyl records are still made?).
I had this conversation with some friends the other day and it seemed to me that they could only see it as a "paper vs electronics" issue. It's not, it is a really radical change in the way we can all access literary material. It doesn't matter where you live, all those books are now available. When the printing press first started producing mass made books there were many who thought this would be "dangerous" because even the masses could read! They were right - within a 100 years or so Europe had changed radically, kings were out, religion had changed, society had changed.

[wyndslash]

hmph. there are some out of print books that don't have a digital version yet though, and i wonder if they ever will have one :| looks like i'll have to buy used.

[Ransom]

That meant time spent in the bus or waiting around could be used for study time.

A perfectly valid point to be sure. In a perfect world you could have both. A hard copy set for serious home study and an electronic version tucked away on your e-reader that could go anywhere.

looks like i'll have to buy used.

Thank God for Abes!

[Joonbug1]

bookstores will always be around. they will adapt or evolve, but they'll always be around, and that's a good thing.

[taming]

I still miss Left Bank Books in St. Louis, and I haven't lived there for 10+ years. They have added another store and, looking at the website, seem to be going all out to add value. They have book clubs that meet in the stores, link to the books that a whole bunch of community book clubs are reading, host frequent author readings, make it easy to buy ebooks from their site, and a "Friends" system which has benefits from folks who sign up at different membership levels.

I can't begin to tell you how wonderful that book store was for the 25 or so years I shopped there. From what I can tell, it continues that tradition today.

Now, in Red Deer, I look to our library for much of that. They host authors, have book clubs etc. in fact tonight, I am going to a library book club meeting to pick the books for the coming year. The library will assure they have enough copies on hand (including e-books). The difference--it's free (well tax supported) and I suppose it is just as much competition to bookstores as e-books are.

[Ransom]

The one I always liked in St. Louis was called The Library Limited over in Clayton. Borders bought them out.

[taming]

I used to shop at Library Limited a long time ago--when they were at the location Talaynos Pizza later took over. I have no idea what is there now. Things change, and not just in the world of books.

[fjtorres]

My favorite bookstore was MOONSTONE BOOKCELLARS in Washington, DC. Nothing but SF&Fantasy; pretty much everything in print at the time, including UK editions.
Long gone before Amazon came about.
The decline of pbook retail shelf space goes back decades.

Now, B&M Bookstores aren't going away soon...
...but they will slowly wither away as the ratio of ebook to pbook sales grows over the next couple of decades and the remaining market migrates even further to online retailers. Store ambiance and staff savvy notwithstanding.

[SensualPoet]

Actually, I'd guess that the number of bookstores has already halved since it's heyday when the chains were absorbing all the smaller independent chains in the 1990s.

And I wouldn't be surprised to see the current number of stores halved again within three years, five tops. That is, unless the industry finds a newer model which can support less floor space and find a balance between new releases, back list and specialty curations ("the literary shop", "the sleuths hideout", "the gay and the fabulous", "the howdy pardner dude shop", "the not looking back futurists", "the when romance was still romance shop", etc.).

Books will be sold increasingly and more exclusively in store-within-store locations and airport carousel racks.

I wonder at what point libraries will begin to buy some titles as ebooks only?