As publishing goes electronic, and the hype about the Ipad, Kindle, and other reader technologies, evolves, and drives behavior changes, publishers need to consider how they are going to market, as most consumption of books is still generated by seeing it, physically in the bookstore. This is particularly true in the case of gifts, which is a very large part of the book market. As stores go out of business, how do publishers replace the awareness of a new book, the “feel” of it from the shelf, the pleasure of the interaction at point of purchase?
Amazons Kindle generally allows the first chapter to be downloaded before purchase, but will that be enough?
As in most other retail categories, the probable answer is that the generalist, mass market shops will decline radically in numbers, partly replaced by both specialist retailers who carry a depth of range of a particular genre, huge mega stores in cheap locations, and perhaps hole in the wall retailers with a printer/binder where you can order and print off the book, or part of the book wanted on the spot.
Whatever happens, the status quo has been busted wide open.
Interesting. Remember the old days when one was very proud of his/her record, tape then CD collection? Each item therein is/was more than just a set of tracks – some can be attached to good and bad times in one’s life and we get highly sentimental about them, also because they could be physically handled and appreciated as objects.
Books are like that – more than just info packages. Many people take pride in their book collections. We all have those sometimes dogged-eared books we love, some of which we will re-read many times in our life. We develop a real affection for these objects and a book collection is a visible demonstration of who we are.
But look what the mp3 file and Ipods did to record collections. The object supporting the music has pretty much been devalued. So I wonder will the same happen to hard books