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Originally Posted by queentess
The internet is killing the bookstore. Physical stores have limited space, which means limited titles. OR I can go to Amazon and order absolutely anything, and usually cheaper. When bookstores started to lose money, they began subsidizing their book sales with miscellaneous junk: trinkets, dvds, cds, cups of coffee... and that may be fine for the average person, but that drove me to Amazon even more because all those other things meant even less room for books. (And why on earth did they start carrying dvds and cds when everything was going digital???)
I essentially stopped shopping locally when I could never find the book I wanted (as 'local' as B&N and Borders can be considered...). I typically only buy two types of books in paper format: crafty books (knit, crochet, etc) and cookbooks. It's much faster to get these books from my library or Amazon than to special order them from Borders or B&N.
Bookstores need to find a way to 1. carry the titles I want and 2. give me access to ebooks. I can imagine a store that has 1-2 copies of, say, one million different books. Let people browse the physical books, then let them purchase the ebook right there. Maybe it's as simple as scanning the book somewhere and telling the computer to send this book to that device. Of course, in order to make this truly effective, DRM will have to fall by the wayside at some point... otherwise bookstore survival will become all about the device rather than the book.
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This is a problem for bookstores but I don't really know how they can solve it. Like you said, physical stores have limited space so their selection of titles can never be as vast as Amazon. This has even been an issue for me and my husband. We'll place a book on hold if we can't buy it at the store when we're there but a lot of other people won't be willing to wait.
Plus, there are times when a book can be placed on hold but then not come through. This happened to a former co-worker at Borders.
Print on demand and e-book kiosks might be the way to go for bookstores. Although I still wonder how many people would be willing to go to a bookstore to get an ebook. It'll be interesting to see how bookstores survive this change in technology.
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Originally Posted by J. Strnad
This same article was posted at Kindleboards, and the responses were about the same...as mine will be!
It is a selfish and juvenile love that professes to love something but gives nothing in return. (See "parasite" in the dictionary.) Anyone who "loves" to walk around their local bookstore and pick up books and read a little and discover new books and new authors really needs to buy a book there if they want to continue to have that option. It isn't "love" if they then go home and download the books to their Kindle. That's "using," it's unsustainable, and soon enough that option will go away while those users shed copious crocodile tears over losing their "beloved" bookstores. (I'm reminded of the guy who killed his parents and then pleaded for mercy from the court because he was an orphan.)
If you really love something, you give to it, you nurture it, you help it to survive. You don't just take what you want from it.
People don't love local bookstores enough for them to survive. End of story.
I'll have, as long as my brain cooperates, very fond memories of the local libraries and local bookstores of my youth. But the world changed and they became less integral to my life. We may lament the change, but who wants to turn back the clock to the days when books and their content were available ONLY at local bookstores and local libraries? (Apart from the publishers who are fighting the changes tooth and nail, of course.)
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Originally Posted by kennyc
Ask not what your bookstore can give to you, but what you can give to your bookstore.
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I guess this is what it really comes down to. I think that ultimately for most people, bookstores themselves are expendable. I don't have a problem with people who prefer buying a book on the internet over bookstore and say so. I do have a problem with people who bemoan the loss of bookstores and then go and a buy from Amazon because Amazon is cheaper. If you're doing that, then you don't really care about bookstores but your pocketbook. Which is fine but just say that. Don't put up a front about caring about bookstores.