By Edward Nawotka, Editor-in-Chief
Yes, bookstores are an integral part of our business. They remain the core of our business. They are the key to book discovery for the vast majority of book buyers.
Alas, I foresee a “demographic cliff” forthcoming. Print is holding steady in sales, supported in a large part by generations weaned on the printed book. And a big fat population of baby boomers, now heading into retirement, will continue to buy them for the foreseeable future. Generation X, also weaned on print books will likely continue to support physical stores as well. But the next generation and the next…the number of readers who will be “born digital” grows with each passing year continues to grow and it’s not outrageous to foresee a time when print becomes a niche product and bookstores will have transformed from purveyors of print into something else: digital repositories, community cultures centers…
How many more years can bookstores survive as purveyors of print?
How Long Can Bookstores Survive as Purveyors of Print?
- 10 years or more (56%, 66 Votes)
- 5 years (27%, 32 Votes)
- None of the above (explain in the comments) (10%, 12 Votes)
- 2 years or less (7%, 7 Votes)
Total Voters: 117
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6 Comments
Ed, I think the main problem with bookstores as purveyors of print is –and will worsen in the foreseeable future– that the whole print book supply chain has become too expensive to survive. That’s the main reason behind the closing of so many bookstores, not digital. And when next generations haven’t been familiar with the object “book”, they will simply forget about it. It’s not only that digital is competing for attention and reading habits, it’s that digital can be one answer to the continuing increase in the costs of selling physical books. A dangerous answer, sure.
I think Mr. Robertson’s comment is relevant and I hope to achieve in Slovenia the answer to stochastic discounts on the store shelves – old good traditional fixed price law which establishes the book as big C – culture. As to the object printed book: sometimes, I have a feeling that the generations born before the digital age underestimate and fear in vain print will disappear. I have two kids, born digital, both computer engineers, who do just about everything with a tablet or a computer. Yet, when they want to read, they take a printed book. Maybe it is the upbringing and if this is so, we have to focus on educating the future generations that reading is pleasure and bookshops are places of pleasure.
I think the printed book will be around until the end of time.
YES, i agree the numbers of readers of paper books will decrease, but decrease does not mean extinct. You see, many other areas of book sales that digital books can’t touch (i don’t think they can!) is rare books, collectible books. You can of course buy these in digital format to read, but i mean as keepsakes, for investment, to pass on down through the generations. What about book signings? Also hard to do on a digital book reader.
Now i realize this is only a small area of book sales, not everyone wants the above, but it is a part of why they won’t disappear.
As far as everyday off the shelf books go, well i am sure there are always going to be those who want the enjoyment of shopping for a book, picking it up etc. So i say yes a decrease, but never a complete wipeout!
To Brian – Yes it does make it hard, but we have to keep trying!
http://www.booksforever.com.au (Military History Australia)
Print books will outlast screen books but not audio books.
Looking into my crystal ball: bookstores continue selling print books, but that they will be significantly smaller, carry mainly non-fiction and big-name fiction authors, and will have to up their game as an entertainment destination to pull in customers.
Yes, demography is certainly going to play a part in the future of book consumption, but I’m far from certain that it will spell the end of print or be the doom of booksellers. The existing bookstore business model based around Sale or Return was always inefficient but for a long time has been the only real system available to booksellers. Digital distribution is faster, cheaper and less limited (except for the arbitrary restrictions applied by publishers in the form of DRM) and so its reasonable to expect that it will out-compete physical book retail in many markets. But physical books and physical bookstores still have competitive advantages over their online counterparts that a large portion of the market values and if they can find some way to address the ship first, sell later business model I believe that they will still be around for decades to come.