Bookstore Keys: The Changing Book IndustryWith the widespread use of e-books, the book business is in a state of tremendous change. Authors, professionals in the publishing industry, book sellers, independent bookstore owners, CEOs of the big bookstore chains, and readers have all been left with an abundance of questions as we go through this exciting paradigm shift.
Borders has consistently been in the headlines since the New Year due to the fact that they cannot pay their bills to the publishers. And now the publishers must decide how they will handle the situation, which is no small feat since every other bookstore will expect any grace that Border receives.
The brick and mortar bookstore is being challenged like never before. What will bookstores that sell e-readers do with all the square footage? The marketing emphasis is on the e-book, no longer the physical book. It seems a major overhaul is overdue for the big box bookstores.
How do authors react to the e-book? Seth Godin, a Lemuria favorite, says his next book will only exist in e-format. Do all authors only want to read and publish books this way? We don’t think so. Authors also feel the financial pinch of the e-book. While many unknown writers may have a better chance to get published, established authors are seeing a fraction of the advances they typically received. One has to ask how does this influences the quality and respect for literature. Will authors rally to preserve bookstores?
This leaves independent bookstores in particular with many more questions: Will publishers give bookstores the information and tools to help preserve the hard back read? Will publisher sales reps go to bat to preserve their stores and keep reading vital? Will marketing become more credible and more important to the independent book seller? Will the publishers recognize a need for real book selling, word of mouth in our stores and on our web presence?
Will all these changes make readership grow? As the demand of maximizing our reading time increases, will these changes add more value to our lives?
This time is very exciting for our industry. Change is now. Lemuria has the opportunity to redefine itself to you, our customer. As the spring unfolds, we will be blogging our take on all things concerning book selling.
We want you, our readers, to stay informed and have the ability to voice your concerns and questions. We also invite authors, publishers and their reps, editors, anyone who has a stake as changes unfold to follow-up with any comments.
The Bookstore Key Series on Changes in the Book Industry
Finding “Deep Time” in a Bookstore (March 8th) Reading The New Rules of Retail by Lewis & Dart (March 3) The Future Price of the Physical Book (Feb 18) Borders Declares Bankruptcy (Feb 16) How Great Things Happen at Lemuria (Feb 8th) The Jackson Area Book Market (Jan 25) What’s in Store for Local Bookselling Markets? (Jan 18) Selling Books Is a People Business (Jan 14) A Shift in Southern Bookselling? (Jan 13) The Changing Book Industry (Jan 11)
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Written by Lemuria
20 responses so far ↓
1 Matt Staggs // Jan 11, 2011 at 3:24 pm
The eventual dominance of eBooks likely depends on the development of a durable, inexpensive cross-platform device. We’re getting closer, but not quite there – yet.
There will likely always remain a market for physical books, although I anticipate that it will grow smaller and be more focused on pleasing a collector’s market.
You’ll probably see eBooks as the “standard” edition, with “deluxe” physical books available at a premium. These physical books will probably be numbered in limited print runs and feature additional material like photographs, notes, essays and other media, as well as author’s signatures and attractive dust jackets.
Bookstores will most certainly shrink, and there’s going to be a good bit fewer of them, too. The death of BORDERS (and other big box bookstores) has been coming for years, and just about anyone that follows the industry has seen it on the horizon. Independent bookstores can survive in this changing climate by focusing on specialized stocks and creating a comfortable space for reading and author events. It could signal a return to the “salon” of yesteryear. Perhaps we might even see bookstore “patronages” where interested members of the public pay a premium fee for added services and benefits, all while supporting their local bookstore.
2 Scott Nicholson // Jan 11, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Why in the world would authors “rally” to save the most inefficient way possible to sell a book (and the one that earns them the least money) when the most efficient and most lucrative method is right at their fingertips?
If you want to fight for nostalgia, fine, but if you want to fight for writers finally earning the money they deserve, I wouldn’t worry about anyone else’s place in the food chain. Readers will do a fine enough job of preserving our literary ideals by their selection and support of what they find worthy. Honestly, aren’t readers far more qualified to do that than publishers are?
Scott Nicholson
3 D.D. Syrdal // Jan 11, 2011 at 3:59 pm
I don’t think there’s anyway to stop the march towards e-books, but I keep wondering if the loss of the physical book will spawn new, as-yet non-existent industries, much the way the loss of the horse-drawn carriage and all that went with it (carriage-makers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights) gave way to the automobile industry. It’s all very much in the embryonic stage right now. E-readers, as they exist right now, will probably change a great deal, beyond simply being able to accept different formats. I have no idea what they might turn into, I just have this nagging feeling they’re not ‘finished’ yet.
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5 T.N. Tobias // Jan 11, 2011 at 4:10 pm
I think the major conflict here is the written word as an art form vs the hard commercial nature of publishing. Publishing companies are down for whatever so long as they keep their margins or can create a larger audience. Device manufacturers are interested in consumer lock-in and exclusivity of titles. Neither of these subjects address the aesthetic of reading and interacting with a piece of fiction.
I personally am distraught over what seems like the looming death of the printed book. Those who disparage the heritage of the printed word simply for economics aren’t compelling me to adjust my reading habits. Convenience is a little more persuasive but can you really call yourself a book lover if you aren’t thrilled with a beautiful hardcover from your favorite author?
It’s not that I am diametrically opposed to the thought of ebooks but it seems more and more that people are committed to a rather soulless reading future. Any book that requires me to agree to a license agreement longer than the book itself has one foot in the gutter as far as I’m concerned. E-publishing will be viable when it devlops organically, openly, and on an even playing field that let’s book lending organizations continue their important work. None of these things has happened yet.
tl:dr Can’t we all just get along?
6 Steve Yates // Jan 11, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Must the future be either all this or all that?
Some of tomorrow’s authors, surely, will be glad NOT to be publishers. And some are just destined to be both, right? And some reading experiences are remarkably suitable to a Blackberry Storm… and some are not.
For every wipeout, apocalyptic paradigm I have heard coming to destroy publishing since 1994, I can counter with colleagues who found ways to use the scary new paradigm or platform to do what publishers are meant to do: find authors with great content and get the content to markets and to readers.
What I see coming is not a bad thing, and both Matt and Scott have noted it to some extent: Tons of Choice. Multiple pathways to content for the consumer. Multiple channels available to the author and the publisher of authors.
The challenge for both the publisher and the independent bookstore is sorting through which channels can be profitably attuned to an ongoing mix, and which channels are just way out of our frequency range.
I do fret that this dilemma is far more formidable for the bookstore than the publisher. Publishers learned to draw in multiple channels of revenue years ago. But stores face the limitations of space, time, and us, the local audience.
Eventually one good thing that can come from Tons of Choice and should come from John and Joe opening up this discussion: Better discernment about consumer choice. Where we buy affects Jackson.
So I believe this evening I’ll push against the paradigm, and curl up with something intoxicatingly inefficient.
7 Leila Salisbury // Jan 11, 2011 at 6:41 pm
I’d add to Steve’s comment a note about one of the (hopefully many) reasons publishers still matter: editors and copyeditors. Every year I encounter wonderful projects that need the (sometimes firm) guiding hand of an editor–and particularly a skilled copyeditor–to draw a gem out of an overly long project or a manuscript that needs a greater focus. The web and ebooks are a great way for writers to begin building an audience for their content, but I would argue that content doesn’t always spring from the pen–or the keyboard–in a state ready to meet the public. As Bill Germano eloquently said in an article last year: “If we can get them right, books are luminous versions of our ideas, bound by narrative structure . . . Books make the case for us, for the identity of the individual as an embodiment of thinking in the world.” And I would argue that publishers (especially nonprofit publishers, though I admit to being greatly biased) are the ones who help the authors make that case in the most luminous way possible.
8 Tim Huggins // Jan 12, 2011 at 11:18 am
John, thanks for starting an important conversation. Steve and Leila, wonderful comments.
I think some of the conversation has to address whether we believe books are simply a vehicle for putting text in front of a reader’s face, or if it is something more than that. If it’s only a vehicle, then I don’t see how physical books have any chance of surviving against e-readers.
If a book is something more than that, however…then we have to take a serious look at what makes a book more important than just a text-delivery device. Identify why the concept “book” is important to us, then go about emphasizing those characteristics that separate and distinguish it from an e-reader. If we can’t identify the difference, then what exactly are we hoping to save?
10 Steve Yates // Jan 12, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Mark, exactly! That’s what publishers will be doing as they make either better ebooks, or better decisions about what printed books will look like and what they will do. We have Tons of Choices, too, as publishers.
A similar process has to be going on at independent stores, I imagine. Asking the questions, What do we do that is great, that no one else can replicate, that draws repeat customers?
I can’t answer except as a customer and an author. As a customer I come to Lemuria because authors are there, and I can interact with them face to face, witness them reading (as opposed to a youtube video, which isn’t human contact). And I come to Lemuria because a network of people I trust, you all, knows me, engages me, and tells me about new and old things I never would find from a search engine. You show me the content I did not know I craved!
As an author… How else can I meet readers in Jackson and those who trust you all beyond Jackson? I need that same network that feeds me as a customer. Lemuria is the foundry where author fuses with reader.
11 Kevin Smokler // Jan 13, 2011 at 11:40 am
Dear Lemuria,
You are no doubt smart people who run an excellent bookstore. But your premise flies in the face of a first year business school class. Namely…
No industry survives by a) focusing on preservation instead of innovation and b) It is not authors nor publishers job to “save”the way independent booksellers do business. It is yours.
Change as you’ve identified is both inevitable and exciting. So ask yourselves “How are we embracing the opportunity that change has given us? How does this allow us to address the newly defined needs of our customers? Most important of all, how can we be better rather than how can we be the same?
Seize the opportunity. It belongs to you. But it lives here in the present and isn’t about “preserving” anything.
Hey Kevin – I think you probably misread a bit. We surely aren’t against innovation – we wouldn’t still be around if we were, but we also don’t see innovation and preservation in conflict. Of course we want to preserve the quality of what we do have, but no where in the above blog do we suggest that we are against change.
Kevin, it seems like you are suggesting that we want to preserve the old bookstore business model in toto. If that’s what we were trying to preserve, then you’d be right to criticize.
But I don’t think that’s what was said above — I think the summary of the post makes clear that we are trying to figure out which parts of our business model are worth preserving, and which parts must be cast aside and improved upon.
Moreover, I think we are trying to identify the ways in which we provide a valuable service not just to our customers, but also to book publishers and to authors — and if we are, in fact, providing them with a valuable service, then maybe it is in their best interest to help us survive. If we can’t demonstrate that we are helping them, though, then we certainly would be presumptuous to ask for their help now.
14 Ellis // Jan 13, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Attempting to answer Mark’s question and expound on Steve’s…
What I really like about Steve’s comment was how he underscored the relational aspect of Lemuria. He comes to Lemuria because he knows the people, because they unearth for him stories that he did not know he appreciated.
My decision to shop strictly at Lemuria came from a similar place, in that I had worn out everything that there was to read at the big box stores. I was a huge fan of Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy, and Faulkner, but once I’d exhausted the works those authors, I had trouble finding anything on the shelves at Barnes and Noble to suit me, namely because I didn’t know who to read or what to look for. It turned out that wouldn’t have mattered, because most of the big box bookstores don’t carry William Gay, Tom Franklin, Ron Rash, Frederick Barthelme, or John Dufresne. It was at Lemuria that I was spotted by an informed and well-read employee, scanning the southern lit. section for something to read, and was approached, engaged, and directed to authors I had not heard of. Someone shared something with me, and that is a precious thing, and should be cherished and acknowledged.
To load books onto a hard drive completely removes any potential for a seller and a customer to interact, unless the future business model for the bookstore is to install a few kiosks and have employees stand next to it, monitoring and engaging each person that stops and puts their flash drive into a port. Sounds awful to me. To have a person pick up something physical, with weight, art, and language, and put it in my hand and discuss it with me, is a gift. Any potential for the death of the physical book may be an indicator of the death of community, and that should be troubling and terrifying.
I think this kind of relational intimacy also applies to the physical book and its reader. To underline sentences, crack the spine, and write in the margins of a book is an intimate thing, a real and physical interaction with an art object. To carry its weight in a backpack, to put it on a shelf alongside others, in hopes that it may be passed down to a loved one someday, is again, a gift. A relational thing.
In all I think preserving the book could be keeping community and local health in tact, it could be the difference between someone being introduced into a reading life by someone in their community, or choosing to watch television or read Cosmopolitan instead.
15 paul // Jan 13, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Digitalization demolished the existing business model of the music industry. Brick and mortar music only stores are history. Analog recording studios are almost extinct. All facets of the production, promotion, and distribution of music were affected. Digitalization will do the same to the distribution, promotion, and production of books and other print matter. Hardcover books are a waste of money for everyone except the copyright holders, buyers and sellers. From experience I suggest you prepare now. Those who do may survive. Those who don’t will be out chasing pavement.
16 Teresa Rolfe Kravtin // Jan 13, 2011 at 2:37 pm
Choice, relationships, innovation and change are always with us as consumers. Well, I hope choice, is always there. Personally, I believe there will always be a place for the printed book. How much it will cost, and how available it will be to me might be a question to consider later in this evolution. The topic here is really the state of independent bookstores, and independent businesses in any community. That Lemuria is a treasure in Jackson is beyond dispute. Many communities have not had the luxury of a long-standing literary destination where such an extensive list of reputable writers have and can visit. A bookstore is a veritable community unto itself. Built upon relationships. Relationships thrive on commitment. As technology continues to evolve, I’m sure that will be reflected in the way Lemuria chooses to do business. Lemuria is already a special, exceptional business, and one that might be taken for granted, just because it has been there for thirty odd years. Never take anything for granted. Participate with all your locally owned businesses to insure that they will be there for you. Because surely, if you do not, you might only have yourselves to blame.
17 Sandy Thatcher // Jan 13, 2011 at 5:59 pm
Mention has been made of the proliferation of formats, platforms, etc., but not of business models. The discussion so far has concentrated on trade publishing, but what will work for trade publishing may not work at all for scholarly publishing, textbook publishing, reference publishing, etc. E.g., open access may be a viable business model for scholarly publishing–as I happen to think it can be–but that may not be an option at all for trade publishing. Open access solves one major problem, piracy, that trade publishing may have to deal with forever. Who knows? The future will bring a lot of change, in many different ways. And what we call an e-book now, because it is still mostly a digital facsimile of print, may evolve into a kind of document that has only a remote connection with what we traditionally thought of as a “book.”
18 Borders closing: an author’s perspective « Fiction and History // Feb 17, 2011 at 1:03 pm
[...] are recognizing that challenge right now all over America. Follow my favorite local bookstore, Lemuria, and its blog, and you will [...]
19 Lemuria Bookstore, Jackson Mississippi | Thebellinicard’s Weblog // Feb 20, 2011 at 9:28 am
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20 Randy Russell // Feb 22, 2011 at 7:25 am
I can’t predict the future because I don’t understand the present. As an author, my question is What can I do for you?
I’m looking for a way to ACTIVELY support Independent Booksellers that are not in my neighborhood (I’m lucky to have one nearby).
How can I help you, Lemuria?
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