Amazon and the Kindle have killed the bookstore. Why? Because people who buy 100 or 300 books a year are gone forever. The typical American buys just one book a year for pleasure. Those people are meaningless to a bookstore. It's the heavy users that matter, and now officially, as 2009 ends, they have abandoned the bookstore. It's over.What I find surprising isn't so much his conclusion but the way he reached it—and the boldness to say so. Either he truly believes that bookstores are no longer relevant or his career has reached a point where his brand is worth more than his books. Probably both. Today's comments won't endear him to the buyers at indies or B&N, but clearly he's not relying on their support.
My suspicions about old-style bookselling's future are hardly a secret among colleagues. Still, I wonder what made Godin publish this right now. It's not hard to find people in business or in publishing who believe that bookstores as we know them are screwed, but it's incredibly rare for anyone to say so on the record, and with so little ambiguity.
Though I agree with his logic—if high volume customers migrate away from bricks and mortar retail at the rate he suggests, few stores will survive—surely Tower's demise (see Godin's full post) wasn't as straightforward as he suggests. And his directive to "get out now" strikes me as melodramatic and curiously simplistic. Ebooks and Internet retail will continue to radically alter the landscape, but that won't prevent traditional stores from adapting. Undoubtedly, some will find a model that sustains them...and plenty of others will join Tower out of the game.
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As one of those people who buys 100-300 books a year, I can honestly say that I won't be switching entirely to eBooks anytime soon. While the concept is interesting and I have gotten some use out of it (for example, finding out of print volumes on Google Books), it still doesn't replace a 'real' book and Amazon doesn't replace a physical bookstore. There's an atmosphere and a mystique to having physical books in hand and shopping in an actual store that I think bibliophiles will never tire of.
ReplyDeleteAs for the fall of music retailers like Tower, I don't think mp3s are to blame so much as the music producers. The RIAA fought tooth and nail to keep change from happening and focused all of their money and attention on trying to reverse a trend. While spending all of their money in court, they weren't able to use it to attract and develop new promising talent to their labels. Because of the producers' reluctance to innovate, the music suffered, retailers suffered, and music lovers suffered. I think the book publishing industry sees that as an example of what not to do and thus are trying to find ways to adapt to change instead of wailing against it.
I wonder who these 300 books a year customers Godin mourns were? I worked in bookstores for years and it was a truism that only a tiny slice of the population bought books regularly and in quantity. Even our best customers rarely bought six or seven books a week. In the current retail environment, my guess is that the hardcore, addicted bookbuyers are the LEAST likely demographic to be lured away from the stores. It's the more casual impulse customers who have always been a little fickle that seem to be migrating or disappearing.
ReplyDeleteAs one of the rats who's started packing, I think each type of bookstore is facing an idiosyncratic situation. The question is not bookstore/no bookstore, it's about the viability of a particular bookstore at a given moment in a given place. A certain critical mass of readers is necessary, but it's the "critical" part that's variable from place to place and niche to niche. I decided after 5 years that Boulder Colorado doesn't have a big enough population to yield enough specialized, motivated readers to a small artsy-fartsy bookshop, when there are two big chains and one pretty big general-interest independent already established. It's that simple. Anyone who wants a specialized book I carry can easily find it on line, and why wouldn't they? So I've started selling my dead inventory on Amazon. And guess what? In the past three months, about two-thirds of the books that sat for 5 years on the shelf have now been shipped all over the country, one book at a time, to all those specialist readers who for some reason didn't find what they wanted in the bookshops of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles (lots of those), etc. As for the people who read 200-300 books a year, the few that I know have been using the library a lot more in the past few years as the price of books has gone up. Not to mention the e-book and Espresso developments - so much more efficient than hard copies delivered by truck! These changes make so much sense at so many levels, I can't see how we will end up with anything other than the Internet and the biggest bricks and mortar independents - more power to 'em!
ReplyDeleteI remember there was a time when bookstores sold little else than books. Yes, there were sidelines like a few bookmarks or note cards. Thus, the only customer that mattered was the one who bought books and did so with some regularity. Bookstores, and especially the chains, have already adapted to an era when more than book sales are needed to be profitable. Every single B&N and Borders, and most large independents, are also coffee shops and/or restaurants. They sell a variety of gifts, games and personal care products. The books are still what draw people in and provide the atmospherics. On a given visit, many people are more likely to buy coffee and a sweet than a book, but the books keep them coming back. So the person who buys one book a year isn't necessarily as meaningless to that store as Seth claims. That still does not mean these stores will remain viable, but it does demonstrate evolution of their business model.
ReplyDeleteGodin is known for being provocative and challenging - that's part of why we love him ("lumps are easily managed"). I'm not sure he has to be taken strictly literally though on this point. Traditional bookstores may be on the edge of collapse, but evolution could be dramatic, from trafficking in the second hand; the beautiful and rare 'artifact' (stuff you need to hold to love); to hubs for book loving communities, writers, and thinkers (the 'salon' of old -- I'd be there in a literary second to chat, sign books, drink good coffee and argue ideas).
ReplyDeleteFancy home coffee makers did not displace the cozy coffee shop or sidewalk cafe. Bookstores that offer a sense of place and the flexibility to offer a book any way the customer wants to read it will be able to remain relevant. While there is a fascination with technology, there's a human side that also needs to be fed.
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