|
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?
|