I love books, thousands of them infest my home, and I have spent years of my life browsing. I may be one of the last “heavy consumers’ of books, and particularly coming towards Christmas, my local Dymocks and Berkelouw’s which have so far survived, welcome me with open arms.
There is a physical tactility to a book that you cannot get on a ‘device’, no matter how great the design, which has the potential to generate an emotional attachment.
Perhaps it is just me?
As a result of this I am on the Dymocks mailing list. Every month or so, I get an email outlining the deals on the best sellers, books of interest, and new releases.
Now, I do not mind the odd romance, or light ‘love and discovery’ adventure, I have probably read 2 or three in my time, but they are not my normal fare.
Nowhere near my normal fare.
Despite a couple of emails, and even a phone call to them indicating my absolute lack of interest in their hit list, and observing they have access to a significant amount of purchase data should they choose to use it, I still get this crap filling my inbox.
Meanwhile Amazon is opening book stores, bricks and mortar book stores.
Unthinkable a few years ago that having disrupted and almost destroyed book stores, they then venture into them.
Shades of the Washington Post turnaround under Jeff Bezos
They will be doing all the stuff in bricks and mortar stores that Dymocks, and all the other retailers now disappeared had the opportunity to do, but lacked the foresight and understanding of their customers to be able to do, despite having 15 years head start.
Book stores have a place, long live real books, and the stores that sell them, I guess they will be branded ‘Amazon’, and Jeff will keep laughing.
