Quote:
Originally Posted by fugazied
imo it's the only way for physical bookstores to survive.... you go in, meet friends there, grab a coffee read a chapter of a book then buy the ebook. It needs to offer more value than physical bookstores currently offer.
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Unfortunately, I don't see how that's going to work.
Let's assume book sales is a zero-sum game; the more books sold online (paper or ebook), the less in stores. As more sales go online, more physical stores will end up closing (a process already underway, despite B&N becoming the 2nd largest coffee house in the US). The in-store digital sales would need to capture a very high percentage of digital sales in order to counteract this process, and the fundamentals indicate this is highly unlikely to happen. As much as you enjoy a physical bookstore, how often are you really going to wait days or weeks to go to the store (which can take quite a bit of your time), when you can read a sample, purchase the book, and download it directly to your ebook reader and smartphone immediately and for free? Realistically, what percentage of ebook owners will do this, and what percent of the time?
Not to mention that a typical small bookstore may only have 20,000 - 40,000 titles. An ebook store that launches today with only 40k titles would be a joke. Granted this is far more than anyone could truly browse in one session, you still end up with a wider selection from just about every major ebook retailer.
I don't see how a clunky delivery system is going to offer anywhere near enough of an incentive for people to continue to purchase most of their books in a physical store.