Quote:
Originally Posted by LovesMacs
Here's a thought: what if Barnes & Noble, or any other bookseller, took the superstore model and applied it to a single genre?
Imagine thousands of romance, or mystery, or whatever genre titles stocked under one roof, with knowledgeable staff. In other words, what some independent bookstores already do, but on a much larger scale.
A store such as this still wouldn't be able to compete with online stores in terms of selection, but it would offer people immediate gratification.
This couldn't be done at every location due to sheer economics. It may even not be economically viable, but it is an alternative to the "jack of all trades, master of none" superstores we have now.
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There are a handful of such stores around.
Much admired.
Once upon a time, Washington DC had a place called Moonstone BookCellars devoted solely to SF&F both domestic and imported. It is sorely missed.
It is a very good idea but to make it work, today, they would have to embrace indie authors. At least in romance and SF&F. Possibly in mystery and thrillers. Those genres are popular enough to make it work in the right location. Like an SF specialty store near an engineering school.
LitFic on the other hand would have a hard time supporting a specialty shop anywhere outside Manhattan or SanFran. Maybe not even there considering the rents.
On the ebook side AllRomance is already working that approach. The problem there is Amazon allows you to filter listings by genre so you end up with a specialty shop in a couple of clicks.
Back on the B&M side it might work if they offered a truncated generic bookstore, bestsellers, local authors, etc, roughly equivalent to the old B. Daltons and turn over the rest of the store, say 70%, to SF or Romance or Mystery&Thrillers and have one of each in a given metro area. That way the generic store can serve casual readers and the specialty store can be a regional draw by carrying entire series and a deep backlist.
Might even work.
Lots of possibilities out there once you focus on carrying what readers want instead of what publishers pay to promote.