It seems as if every month or so, we have another round of discussions about the eventual fate ofbookstores. Usually it’s sparked by a news story about sales numbers or store closings.
Well, here we go again. Earlier this week, the Huffington Post picked up a story from the Wall Street Journal quoting Barnes & Noble retail group CEO Mitchell Klipper as saying the chain expects to close hundreds of its stores over the next ten years – as many as twenty stores per year. Holiday sales were off nearly eleven percent when compared to those in 2011, and – more ominous for indies – sales of Nook e-book devices were lower during the 2012 holiday season than they were a year earlier.
But before we break out the “Trad publishing is dead! Long live indie publishing!” parade again, the article mentions a few more points worth considering. For one thing, just three percent of B&N’s stores are losing money. The retail store division, as a whole, made $317 million infiscal 2012. Amazon has also signaled a drop-off in sales of its Kindles; industry watchers say that’s due in part to people switching over to reading on their iPads and smartphones. And while all of us indies are excited about the meteoric rise of e-book sales over the past five years – from zero in 2007 to 22 percent of Random House’s sales, as one example, in 2012 – that still means 78 percent of the books Random House sold last year were dead-tree tomes.
The consensus seems to be that the next two years will determine whether brick-and-mortar bookstores survive the e-book revolution. One trad publishing insider believes e-books will account for as much as half of all book sales, and the vast majority of sales of commercial fiction, by the end of 2014.
None of this has changed my mind about the future of bookstores. I still think there will continue to be a market for dead-tree books. Hard as it is to believe, not everybody has a Kindle/iPad/smartphone yet, and a lot of people still prefer the feel of an actual book in their hands. Mr. Klipper of B&N says their customers buy both paper and digital books, and that’s certainly true for me. While I’m trying to transition over to buying only e-books, I recently bought a dead-tree copy of a book I already had on my Nook. It’s sort of a how-to guide that requires me to flip back and forth a lot, and I just couldn’t figure out how to do it as quickly and easily on the Nook as I can with a paperback.
That said, the transition is definitely well underway. When I attended the World Fantasy Convention in Toronto this past November, I was struck by the contents of my book bag. All attendees are handed a huge bag full of books at registration – probably fifteen or twenty books, all new, several of them hardbacks. This year, though, a packet of postcard-sized ads for free e-books was also included in the bag. The dead-tree books were, as usual, provided by trad publishers. But the postcards, which probably accounted for an additional fifteen or twentybooks, were all from indies and small presses. That seemed remarkable to me, at a convention that has traditionally been for industry insiders. The times are changing indeed.
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I still find comfort going to bookstores these days. Not the online ones of course, but brick-and-mortar ones with lots of great authors. I think bookstores will still thrive. There are still many book lovers out there who love the scent of old and new books.
Kelly, maybe the most successful bookstore business model, going forward, will be similar to Powell's, with both old and new books under the same roof.
I for one would still want to fulfill my dream of creating my own little library at home. I might have a thousand ebooks on my tablet but nothing beats the feel of a hard bound book.
Sandra, I still think it would be awesome to have my own home library, but reality is catching up to me. The problem is that I keep moving every few years, and movers charge a fortune for book boxes because they weigh so much! Maybe someday….
I don't know why but I still love the smell of new books and the feel of flipping pages as I read. I have a tablet and a kindle but I'd still prefer good old fashioned books.
Kristine, I still read a lot of old-fashioned books, and I know what you mean. But the more 1000-page epic fantasies I read, the fonder I am of my e-reader!
It's a sad reality we have to face. At the end of the day it's not that we don't want to use these books but it's the safest option for our environment.
Stacey, I've seen the argument go both ways. Both paper books and e-readers use toxic chemicals in their manufacture, and both have to be shipped, which causes air pollution. I'm not sure we have a clear environmental winner. Although I guess paper book are easier to recycle.