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However, it would seem that many of us no longer think of the brick and mortar bookstore as the "go to" for a book. Is that Amazon's fault, our fault, or just change?
When I first had a Kindle, people at airports always wanted to talk about it. At one point another passenger and I discussed the possibility of E-Readers seriously changing the landscape of the book industry from writing to publishing to sales. The woman looked at me and said that the automobile had changed the landscape of the transportation industry. All types of businesses had to evolve or dissolve: saddleries, inns, blacksmiths, feed sales. Some saddlers went on to make other small leather goods. Some made the upholstery for cars or repaired car upholstery. Inns became motels. Feed companies started putting corn in everything we eat (tongue in cheek).
The question isn't whether bookstores will change—they must to survive. The question is whether they can evolve and adopt a business model elastic enough to change constantly?
When I first had a Kindle, people at airports always wanted to talk about it. At one point another passenger and I discussed the possibility of E-Readers seriously changing the landscape of the book industry from writing to publishing to sales. The woman looked at me and said that the automobile had changed the landscape of the transportation industry. All types of businesses had to evolve or dissolve: saddleries, inns, blacksmiths, feed sales. Some saddlers went on to make other small leather goods. Some made the upholstery for cars or repaired car upholstery. Inns became motels. Feed companies started putting corn in everything we eat (tongue in cheek).
The question isn't whether bookstores will change—they must to survive. The question is whether they can evolve and adopt a business model elastic enough to change constantly?
Despite the holiday hijinks this past December when Amazon offered a kickback shopping with them, I doubt that Amazon's Jeff Bezos has it out for the publishing and retail book sales industries. I haven't ever heard that he had been an aspiring writer with one too many rejection slips who swore vengeance on the publishing industry. Nor have I learned that he was turned down for jobs at any retail chains.
Bezos may not be waging a campaign against the publishing industry on purpose. The primary job of a CEO is to make a company profitable and to position it for future profitability. If you consider the rest of the industry you are not putting your stockholders first. Our system doesn't allow for moral issues.
This is all thought arising from an article in today's NYT: The Bookstore's Last Stand (permalink below) by Julie Bosman. As usual the article is really long and tells us all kinds of interesting but extraneous information, like what kind of accent Barnes and Nobel's CEO has. But it also discusses how the publishing industry has looked at a world without brick and mortar bookstores and it's not a pretty picture. Bookstores offer the best marketing tool for books and are a big part of backlist sales. One statistic cited is that only one-third of people who purchased a book in a bookstore went in with the intention of buying one.
I know some people shop online for e-books, some for print, and some people find their way to a bookshop. Do you think the bookstore will survive?
permalink to NYT article if the linked text above doesn't work: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/business/barnes-noble-taking-on-amazon-in-the-fight-of-its-life.html
My friend Julia had a guest post on this a while back:
JuliaRachelBarrett.net
My friend Julia had a guest post on this a while back:
JuliaRachelBarrett.net
