1 | Jon

May 27th, 2008 at 10:10 pm

I usually buy from amazon.com. I have a friend who doesn’t like to buy from amazon.com because they’re a huge company. His preferred bookseller?

Barnes & Noble. That’s right: the largest book chain in the United States.

I just don’t understand it.

2 | Cult of Jef

May 31st, 2008 at 1:35 pm

Since my partner owns an independent bookstore, I buy my books from him. As I’ve learned more about shopping local, I’ve become aware that if I shop online for new books, none of the money that I spend goes back into my community. Amazon.com doesn’t donate to my local schools and neighborhood organizations. Although their deep discounts and free shipping seem attractive, in the long run buying books exclusively from Amazon.com does more harm than good. Online book sales have put many independent bookstores out of business. They have recently begun courting authors to sign exclusive publishing deals with Amazon, so they can cut out the publishers. If authors do not agree do so, Amazon will not sell their books. I have heard that Amazon would like to drive all booksellers and publishers out of business, so they could be the exclusive seller of books. This scares me. Imagine a world where you can’t walk into a bookstore and peruse shelves at your convenience and actually make a decision to buy a book based upon holding the book in your hand? Who’s to say that once Amazon has put local bookstores and publishers out of business that they won’t raise their prices and discontinue free shipping? It reminds me of the way many Japanese electronics companies took a loss on their products to drive American companies out of business and had a monopoly on the market. I’m not advocating that every sale must come from a local business, but if you drive across America, you see the backs of one Best Buy and Olive Garden after another. Imagine a world where those are only choices?

3 | heath

June 1st, 2008 at 8:45 am

Jef: It’s similar to the Walmart thing – pushing out local independent stores because they can’t compete with the sub-discount pricing. I certainly hope that our local bookstores don’t shut down because of that type of negative competition.

We’ve had a local GLBT bookstore close down, while others have done just fine. I don’t know if it’s because people found alternatives online, but I personally love to browse a bookstore like you mentioned. I love to walk the aisles and see what interesting cover designs are there, whether I’ve missed a new book by a favourite author, plus all the other fun things that the local bookstores can offer. Even the local Barnes and Noble does fun things like children’s reading hour, which you’ll never get to do online.

I think they have their place/niche, and people will continue to go local when they can, but there’s also something to be said for the vast availability of books online. My books aren’t yet available in brick and mortar stores, so I hope people go online to find them, because they won’t see them on the shelves yet as they’re browsing .

4 | Jon

June 1st, 2008 at 12:41 pm

I too think there will always be a niche for independent booksellers. The problem is that the niche isn’t very large, and (as I’m sure others know better than I do) there isn’t much money in it.

Online booksellers will always have the advantages of greater selection, greater convenience, and lower price. I don’t think that’s negative competition; I think it’s plain old competition. But brick and mortar stores can’t try to compete on those things, so they’ll have to play up the strengths that they do have — getting a book immediately; the ability to browse; having knowledgeable, helpful employees; and specializing in even smaller niches (like GLBT stuff) and doing truly esoteric special orders — or else simply go out of business. That’s capitalism. It sucks, but less than everything else that’s been tried.