Quote:
Originally Posted by dordale
|
I was not familiar with this site. Checked out your link, and I'm impressed.
My problem in physical bookstores is that I'll find something that looks interesting, then I'll later figure out that I just read book 4 of a series of 7. Ugh. So now I browse physical bookstores to find author names (most are big name authors, so even this use of a physical bookstore is limiting). Once I have a few "target authors" that I think may be interesting, I go look at "Book Series In Order" and Goodreads to figure out if I got intrigued by some mid-series book. If so, I'll research the books in the series and if I'm still intrigued, I'll get the books in order. This pretty much leaves the physical bookstore out of the loop at that point,as they usually have only a random smattering of the books in a series.
If I happen to have my Fire tablet with me in the physical bookstore, I'll do my research right there in the bookstore (assuming they have WiFi) and if they happen to have the first book of the series that grabbed me, I'll buy it. Most of the time they don't. So they've lost the sale to me. I don't want to read books in random order. With the ease of ordering online, the much better selection, being able to find out the order of a series, and the (usually) better prices ... physical bookstores are becoming less appealing to me. Although I do like to go in them and just wander around looking.
Bookstores are one of the few stores that I can amuse myself for long periods of time by just browsing. You'd think that fact would be good for their sales. But for the reasons I mentioned above, I tend to only buy technical books in stores (those usually don't come in series) and not novels. If you rabidly follow a specific author, physical bookstores would be more appealing, because you'd already have read the older books and are just waiting for the newest one to be released. But that's not how I read.
If when the stores shelved the books, they'd have additional info printed above each major author telling you of their stand-alone and series books, I'd be much more prone to buy from them. Kind of like the way auto parts stores have info posted above the windshield wiper blades so you can pick the correct ones to buy. Even readily available kiosks where you could look up this info yourself would be a help. But in the stores I visit, all the computer lookup stuff is only available to staff. Maybe other stores are different.