Here we are, 2013, and we are left wondering what's next with the world of publication and bookstores. For almost three months we have discussed the possible alternate futures in store for reading, books and readers. Personally, I had never pictured a Barnes and Noble going out of business. To me a book store was a permanent symbol for all readers out there. I thought that even twenty years from now Barnes and Noble would stand tall among the book industries and even root itself against Amazon's competitive business.
But is that reality still plausible? Or am I grasping for optimistic outcomes and false hopes?
Today, I can see that Barnes and Noble's time may be nearing an end, one that's not too far in the future. Many publishers and editors we have interviewed and spoken to all say the same thing: the book business is getting rougher. There are less people reading, which means less profit for book sellers. If that wasn't bad enough, Barnes and Noble failed to beat Amazon at the ebook game. The Nook sales never quite matched up to the Kindle and stayed one step behind every year a new update was released. What is Barnes and Noble left with? Scraps.
The estimated life expectancy of Barnes and Noble is now at a 7-8 year range. Borders already left us, what will happen when Barnes and Noble does? Will reading continue plummeting? Or will Amazon rise up to the occasion?
As a reader these questions scare me. I personally don't mind ebooks, but I like being able to enter a store and simply browse and feel the shelved books. It's not encouraging to think that this may all soon become a thing of the past.
Thanks for posting and sharing your thoughts! It is strange to think that bookstores could be a thing of the past—and I think they will be, at least in the way that we envision the bookstores of our growing-up years. The bookstore that always comes to mind when I envision a “bookstore,” is the Barnes and Noble not far from my house; as a child, a visit to Barnes and Noble was a special occasion—either I had a gift card from a recent holiday or we were about to go on a trip and my parents wanted me to get some reading material to keep myself occupied! Whatever the case, I—like you—loved looking at the racks of books, finding books by authors I had come to love, and discovering new books that I ended up liking even more sometimes. The “bookstore” of my memory/imagination is just that—a bookstore, where the main thing sold was books and the store was about the books. Sure, this B&N did have a café and sell greeting cards, but those were supplemental things, and as I look back on it, probably a sign of what bookstores are to become in increasing measure.
ReplyDeleteLike we have been talking about in class, I think the bookstores of the future will have to be highly specialized, highly experiential, or highly Walmart-like. Like the bookstore that Christy visited for her last interview, some bookstores of the future will be small and highly specific—they will have certain things that certain people are looking for and they will, with some degree of certainty, be run by people who truly love books, the “traditional” browsing bookstore experience, and helping others find and read books. I don’t think all bookstores will be like this, however, because these stores are going to be little niches of book collections that cater to a very limited and specific market.
For a big-name, big store-front bookstore to maintain an impressive presence, the bookstore experience is going to have to change, because, unfortunately, there aren’t going to be enough people in the future to make the browsing bookstore of today sustainable. Going off what Alana had posted about “new” types of libraries, with more experiential options, I think that bookstores could re-brand themselves as some sort of “reading + book-buying experience center.”’ This was just an idea I had in response to your post and Alana’s post, so it is not thought-out at all, but I think it could have some potential. What people nowadays want is entertainment, speed, and interaction—bookstores could find a way to give this to customers and still sell books. I’m sure some smart entrepreneur could come up with something!
Final option I thought of: Barnes & Noble morphing into a Walmart-like entity. I see it kind of like that currently, especially when looking at the TCU bookstore. Sure, it has books and it is labeled as a Barnes & Noble, but why do students go there? Because it’s conveniently located, because they can get their beverage/snack from the café, because there’s a ton of TCU merchandise, and because they can find pretty much every little and/or last minute thing they need for class or for their dorm. Who actually goes for the books? They’re kind of a sideshow, only of interest (to me at least) when I need a present for someone or when there’s a bargain book table in the middle of the aisle. I know being on the college campus gives them the ability to sell merchandise, bedding, calculators, and whatever else they can think of at an incredibly over-priced rate, but they also do this because they could not survive by selling books alone. Even the Barnes & Noble of my childhood realized this, and started adding elements (café, gifts, cards, stuffed animals) in order to make the shopping experience more convenient and more one-stop for customers, but also to make a profit. Pretty soon Walmart and Barnes and Noble might look the same, with both selling books alongside the eggs and bananas and clothes and jewelry….because, sadly, not too many people just buy books anymore.