My wife just recently wrote a novel, and shopped it around to some literary agents and publishers at the San Francisco writers conference. After seeing what a disaster that event was, and how the entire industry is stuck in the dinosaur days, I can clearly see how it is in Amazon's best interest, and the author's best interest as well, to cut out all these middle men who are clinging onto an outdated business model for survival. It's the age of the Kindle and Ipad. Printed books are a dying breed and Amazon knows exactly who needs to get cut out of the equation to keep prices low for the consumer.
Exactly. It's called competition. When a company finds a better way of delivering a product or service existing companies will feel the pain much like Blockbuster (as someone already mentioned) is feeling the pain from NFLX and now Redbox. Why on earth would you pay 5 bucks for a movie and 8 bucks for a game when at Redbox you pay 1 buck and 2 bucks, respectively. I don't know how BBI (old ticker) is still in business. I suppose it won't be long before they go into BK with a stock price of 4 cents. Blockbuster put all the Mom and Pop movies stores out of business. Now, NFLX and Redbox is putting Blockbuster out of business. I guess what goes around comes around. Some day a company may put NFLX out of business.
http://www.thebookstall.com/ This store doesn't play obnoxious music. The bookstore was ruined by music being played in the store, imo. Classical music is fine, at a reasonable sound level. Nothing else. It has a used bookstore feel, but it is 100% new books. I also like Barnes and Noble now that Borders is closed. I prefer the ones where I can park at easily and has a good science math and computer section. Each B&N is unique in this way and depends on what sells. The store in Niles is terrific in this way, perhaps because of the high concentration of Jewish patrons. I am saddened that B&N may see the same end result that Borders did, and I am also saddened by many of the responses in this thread. A bricks and mortar bookstore is imperative, but we all have to learn the hard way I guess - we don't know what we have until it is gone. I try to buy books from the bricks and mortar, not because I can save $3 by getting it at AMZN (not even true since B&N online http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ often beats AMZN on price), but because I value the intangibles they provide.
There was a blog that detailed down to the penny how much modestly successful author would make on her book deal. The numbers nearly floored me. Essentially, after the publisher took out all of their "expenses" the author might be lucky to be able to repay her advance from the publisher. So, I'd agree that anything that can reduce the take of the middleman, especially in an age where electronic publishing is a viable alternative, it should move towards rewarding the writer and not just a bottom line item for a large publishing house.
The Amazon vs Barnes & Noble / Borders is just a metaphor for the continued battle in the rest of the economy. A few lonely voices back in the late 1990's predicted that this sort of thing would happen once enough traffic moved online. As nice as it is to sit in a bookstore and read the books, I highly doubt there are enough aggregate sales to justify the overhead costs. I wouldn't be surprised if the cafe sections (especially in the smaller locales) are the profit centers.
The bookstore is dead.. replaced by something newer and better suited to the modern world. That is our fate too
OK, I figured you would name one in the burbs. My new bookstore after my local Borders closed is now the Barnes and Noble in the Gold Coast which is actually a pretty good store. There has to be some good ones in Evanston no?
I am curious, what was your reasoning for predicting the end of print media in 1982? Al gore hadn't even invented the internet yet, are you saying you thought of it before him? 5yr