[james99]

BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- Are we about to see bookstores closing across the country? I suspect so.

Look at the depressing proxy battle for what remains of Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS 15.75, +0.40, +2.62%) , the world's largest chain of bookstores. You could hardly dominate an industry more than B&N has dominated the landscape of traditional bookstores. Yet its fortunes have fallen so far that management has hoisted the white flag and put it up for sale.

 

[NeilN]

From the article:

"I will be sorry to see the bookstore go. I love browsing for books. You'll find titles you weren't expecting or didn't know existed."

Online bookstores are still clueless when trying to replicate this experience. Physical bookstores have limited space so what you see on the shelves is a mix of perennial standards, bestsellers, new releases, and, if the staff are good, little-known gems. I could spend 30-60 minutes at my university bookstore and subsequently Bakka books, the World's Biggest Bookstore, and eventually Chapters/Indigo combing through the SF&F section. I wish the online stores would experiment with hiring staff to curate selections of genre fiction and offer an alternative interface mimicking a physical bookstore display (rows of books, sorted by author, showing the front of the book or the spine).

 

[wgauci]

I agree with NeilN. I switched to the Kindle recently. I really love the experience. But shopping is a more difficult process. Looking for books on the Kindle means browsing by bestselling, which means going through pages of free or cheap books unless you decide to search for specific titles. They need to let us have more browsing options when looking through titles, most stores are set up alphabetically by author, yet you can't do that on a Kindle or the online site.

 

[james99]

The amazon.com site does a great job in helping me find what I want.

Great sorts and recommendations.

 

[NeilN]

Most of my books are purchased through amazon.ca. The problem is that purchases include books for work, for gifts, and fiction and non-fiction works in wildly disparate genres. So Recommendations are kind of useless when I want to browse a certain genre.

 

[JamesK]

the World's Biggest Bookstore, and eventually Chapters/Indigo

I used to spend a lot of time at WBB & Chapters, until they dumbed down the tech section. I even bought some of my Ryerson texts at WBB. I've never cared for Indigo and when they bought Chapters, I feared for the changes that came. A while ago, Heather Reisman said her plan was to change Chapters into glorified gift shops, so of course book selection will suffer. I used to buy a lot of books, but no longer do so, as I can't browse through them first. I do use an ebook reader (FBreader) on my computers and smart phone and have even bought some ebooks, but I still prefer paper books.

 

[lucy]

I thought that article was a little silly. Bookstores aren't going to die yet. Not to be negative, but there's a lot of people with Kindles, etc that hate them. I was following along on Amazon.com when they got into that war and tons of people had pre-ordered new titles and then left high and dry on the publication dates. They were furious. In addition to all the unethical price wars and everything else.
And the analogy to the old record stores is wrong. The record industry collapsed for specific reasons, none of which are applicable to physical bookstores/online books. I don't have an e-reader and am able to download books for free, neither does anyone else. The prices are reaching the same levels as the price for a physical book (if not already) and that was the intention from the beginning, all this "oh, books cost a lot because we have to pay for printing and the paper" from the publishers was just a lie all this time.

Sure you can get some free titles on an e-reader, they use that as a lure. *shrugs* Oh well.

 

[JamesK]

^^^^
The one place I've bought ebooks is from O'Reilly. Their ebooks are cheaper than the paper version and if you already own a paper version, you can get the latest version in ebook for $5. You also are entitled to any future updates for free. They support PDF, epub, modi and apk formats and are DRM free.

O'Reilly Ebooks

 

[NeilN]

@lucy: Bookstores may not die, but a whole whack of them will certainly shut down, consolidate, or carry other wares like Indigo. It's just more convenient to order stuff from Indigo Online and Amazon. Speaking personally, my book purchases are now 80% from online stores and 20% from bricks&mortars. I dropped by the WBB one Saturday afternoon last summer - the place was nowhere as full as it was in the eighties and nineties (that may be because of increased presence of big box stores however).

 

[lucy]

Yeah, that's true. Ordering books from Amazon is easier and more convenient, while I love bookstores I hate those malls, the crowds, and places like Amazon have a way better selection--to say the least. The search functions could be improved but the sheer variety of titles is dizzying--at least to me. On top of that they have amazing amounts of book reviews Of course some are false, paid for, some are useless, some are hilarious! but there's some book Reviewers that are very good and very intelligent.

The publishing industry is in upheaval right now. They're even talking about writers in the future just publishing their own books and doing their own publicity. I realize physical bookstores have a tough time of it and their profit margins aren't that great--they get squeezed in the middle. They end up bearing the brunt of a lot of things. And....I think in the end, in the very end this electronic books thing is going to kill them. People may love the weight, feel, the very idea of 'a real book' But they will no longer be available.

Just the way it goes, maybe not in my lifetime...but the next.

 

[Wayne]

And physical bookstores can't compete with the impulse purchase. Sinr I got my K2 (and later iPad) I have bought several books that I would never have waited to go to a bookstore to buy. You can hear about a book, buy it, download it and be reading within a minute.