There’s an inexorable move away from physical books to ebooks and the implications for the high-street chain bookstores are dire. Two days ago I highlighted how I routinely browse the shelves of my local store but buy the books I like from Amazon’s Kindle store. It seems I’m not alone. The problem, though, is whether we are making Amazon too powerful. Once the bookstores have disappeared, will the price of ebooks rocket? I’m not so sure they will, because there will be increasing competition in the electronic book market. Who knows, even Apple’s iBookStore could have a surprise spurt in market share, and then there’s Google, the elephant in the room.
Ace ebook blogger Tony Cole of ebookanoid.com thinks he has discovered an interesting phenomenon—the rise of the indie ebook store. Amazon, he maintains, is too impersonal. With the new brand of indie stores you can chat to a real person, usually an enthusiast. Read more here.
I applaud the number of independent ebook stores now proliferating on the internet. I see no reason why independent book stores cannot have both a strong web presence and a local footprint, allowing ebook searches and downloads via their store, installing using wifi or bluetooth or on removable media. Selling ebook readers and tablets. There is market room for book shops to focus on collectible books and the ebook can never replace the coffee table book, the unique hand made book, or the book of local interest. Children's books too can never be satisfactorily digitised for the reader who will want to scribble on them, drool on them and 'have' them for themselves. LOL While I love ebook reading it is hard to share. Ipads and tablets are heavy and hot to hold and not really the kind of thing which encourages one to take it to your child's bedside for a bedtime story read. So yes, get smart book stores… see the gaps where e books cannot fulful a person's needs and fill that gap!