Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggleton
By clicking links, I assume you mean access information, specific portions of non-fictional texts?
We are having trouble figuring out how to sell entire books to people, trying to sell them chapters or paragraphs should be fun.  |
No. I mean that I need a book store no more than I need a sock store.
I don't go to amazon.com to browse books -- when I visit the bookstore, I usually know what I want. My interest comes from a recommendation, a requirement, personal experience, or research. Purchasing is just the last step in the process. If price is always the same, why not buy the product from the entity that brought you to the dance?
It's a paradigm shift, but I think it's underway. If I am listening to an interview on my ride home and want to buy the author's book, I can go to the radio station's site and purchase the book. When I'm looking for snippets of code, the source of the code is occasionally referenced in the article, turorial, or forum post. Artists link their products in web pages.
A couple weeks ago, I was looking for CISSP books. I started at amazon because I wanted something I could load on my kindle. Once I got my list, I was off to google to research each one. Who did the selling? Amazon? Google? Or the reviewers who helped me choose the best options?
As bookstores go, Amazon is pretty good. In addition to good prices and format options, they allow for reviews, link to similar products, and often include a preview of the book. Amazon accepts returns. This is much better than walking into a brick and mortar bookstore. If there were only bookstore, I'd choose amazon, but I'm not sure I need a bookstore at all.