The Death of the Bookstore?
Jun. 25th, 2011 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catherineldfSo this one is getting a lot of play right now. I'm on a CONvergence panel next
Saturday on the theme of "Is the bookstore dead?" and we just split this weekend between the Twin Cities Antiquarian Bookfair and TC Pride having this conversation with a number of different folks. On a personal level, I'm a former bookstore owner and member of several bookstore collectives. I have favorite bookstores all over the place and I love shopping for books in brick and mortar stores. I'm sizing up ereader options but haven't taken the plunge yet. This apparently puts me in the minority of book buyers. Ironically, almost every bookstore owner I talk to says sales are wildly down but every hardcore reader and book buyer I speak with assures me that they want a paper-based book they can hold. Ebook sales are up but from a writing perspective, ebooks are hard to get reviewed, can't be nominated for the majority of awards and are tricky to market unless they're selling for $.99 or so, or unless the author is already established and known from the print world. Where's it all going? Where do you buy most of your books and why do you buy them there? What do see changing in your book buyIng habits in the next couple of years?
Saturday on the theme of "Is the bookstore dead?" and we just split this weekend between the Twin Cities Antiquarian Bookfair and TC Pride having this conversation with a number of different folks. On a personal level, I'm a former bookstore owner and member of several bookstore collectives. I have favorite bookstores all over the place and I love shopping for books in brick and mortar stores. I'm sizing up ereader options but haven't taken the plunge yet. This apparently puts me in the minority of book buyers. Ironically, almost every bookstore owner I talk to says sales are wildly down but every hardcore reader and book buyer I speak with assures me that they want a paper-based book they can hold. Ebook sales are up but from a writing perspective, ebooks are hard to get reviewed, can't be nominated for the majority of awards and are tricky to market unless they're selling for $.99 or so, or unless the author is already established and known from the print world. Where's it all going? Where do you buy most of your books and why do you buy them there? What do see changing in your book buyIng habits in the next couple of years?