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I'm hoping in place of bookstores, we have reading clubs. They could be social places that people could hang out, read and discuss books, host readings and signings. The clubs would be helping to market the books and could get a cut of the sales to the members. It would probably actually be easier to run than a bookstore, too. These days so many bookstores have had to add cafes and other merchandise to the store to stay competitive. I wonder if some day we'll have bookstores without all the physical books. To me, what's great about my small local bookshop isn't the shelves of paper, it's the booklovers that run it. When you shop there, you feel part of that community. That doesn't have to become irrelevant in the face of ebooks, but it will have to evolve.
I know publishers also worry about preserving relevance in this new market, but even if they're no longer gatekeepers to the expensive printing and distribution process, they still have a lot to offer. Publishers add real value. Like that small bookstore, that value is not in the paper, it's in the people. They separate out the books they think their customers want then refine them. I'm glad there are publishers out there to do this. While there are good self-published works, there is also a lot of stuff that wasn't commercially published for a reason and sifting through it all isn't easy. A boutique publisher has more opportunity to develop as a brand and the center of a community in a market where self-publishing is so easy.
The only thing that worries me is how we can get to DRM-free with books. Having DRM-free be standard or, short of that, fair, non-cumbersome and widely-adopted DRM seems to me to be a must for ebooks to take off but publishers worry about people downloading without paying. A big publisher may sell lots of titles anyway but the lower-volume publishers need the money for pretty much every download. It's easier to sell the concept of DRM-free to a music label. The recording is not the only revenue generator for music. I often see it argued that the amount of actual revenue lost from people who download and don't pay for tracks is counterbalanced by the exposure it provides. With a book there is rarely any other revenue but the book sale. If the little guys can't be sure of some revenue, we'll have a future full blockbuster best-sellers and not much else. That would be a very sad day. I can see why some publishers worry that it could be the end rather than the beginning.
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