Quote:
Originally Posted by jasonkchapman
I was going to mention that I'm also in NYC, so like Dennis, my view doesn't scale to other areas well. One of the things that I like about B&N's approach to the nook is trying to add in-store features. It's an attempt to address the community-based nature of bookstores with the near-impossible task of stocking everything (or being able to afford the square footage to do so).
|
It's also an attempt to do something I wondered about well before the nook appeared: if you sell ebook readers in bookstores, how do you create a continuing engagement with the customer? Once they have a reader, what brings them
back to the store to also possibly buy paper books?
Quote:
|
I know some publishers are exploring ways to combine products, where one price gets you both the p-book and the e-book, assuming that there is a large enough market with "hybrid tastes" (like me) who are not exclusively p- or e-. The customer gets the e-book immediately and the p-book shipped either to the store or home in a timely fashion. You can stock everything in e-, some things in p-, reduce the square footage, and still build on readings, signings, and other events.
|
There have certainly been wishes expressed on MR for "Buy the paper, get the ebook free". I believe Baen has done a few things like that, where the hardcover includes a code you can use on the Webscriptions site to get the ebook version.
I'm hybrid as well. I see ebooks as an alternative format, and not a total replacement for print editions. There are classes of ebooks that do not adapt well to electronic publication, and reading printed books is in many respects a different experience. I have about 4,000 ebooks, probably at least as many in paper, and a fair number in both formats.
______
Dennis