Sometimes the cover catches your eye.. sometimes a book is misplace.. some times you are moving it to look behind.. none of these methods of discovery are available for e-books or internet sellers.

Maybe a subscription service or paid book club approach would work.. Honestly I have no solutions, but I know that if we lose these “dead tree” book stores, we are losing something of great importance.

@Blaine I don’t think the problem is the technology, the issue is the copyright laws, and the deals the publishers and Amazon have struck. The technology would be straightforward. Either they could simply sell you PDFs of the books, or they could use GPS/Bluetooth to stamp your location for a referral sale.

@karl What I hear you saying is that role of the bookstore owner will de-professionalize like so much other media in our times?

bookshop is providing you isn’t the physical book, it’s the curation, physical browsing interface, and human-level interaction that’s so much richer than anything that e.g., Amazon, provides.

• The bookstore has to become a space for meeting (staying) not only browsing. The space might have to be reorganized around discussions opportunities, and maybe access to the books in electronic format, but…

• The ebooks give the possibility of a second hand market with more distribution of the values. When I buy an ebook, I should be able to sell it again and part of the money goes to me, part to the author. Really the infrastructure is already here for this.

• The bookstore is the books storage place. Ebooks only need a computer. Bookstore owners have their values in talking about the books (not how to keep them), then not the space. They will disappear exactly like the photography store of the past. People with knowledge of the books will meet elsewhere.

I know the technology isn’t quite there yet (maybe it is?), but what if the bookstore had a checkout where they were able to sell you the e-book, and take a referral payment on it? It could be something like “where do you want me to send the e-book,” or maybe they print out a receipt with an Amazon redemption code on it, or give you a referral code.

That way, the bookstore could act kind of like a library, and just hold minimal copies of each book that they think is worth selling; you browse, they recommend, but at the checkout, more often than not, they just act as a friendly intermediary to the actual purchases. When customers come in looking for rare or special books, as Dan suggests, the bookstore fulfills its more traditional role.

Is that totally insane?

I don’t own a physical presence, with Amazon, Alibris, Ebay and their affiliates I don’t need to have a physical store. Looking at the numbers, sell through rates, and the authors I support (local home grown not discovered, back issues, and rare hard to find comics) – opening a retail store is a quick way to burn money.

I know I need to do ebook comics – I know to grow my business I need to do this. I am trying to find folks that will let me license their IP (intellectual property) (comic or book) so I can check this out – and grow my business. So far no luck – and I have talked to a lot of people over the last six months – I am down to copyright expired comics – try getting that into the ebook channels or readers, good luck with that. This means I need to go into direct publishing – hire/support my own authors, get my own IP.

I am also fortunate – the value of Superman Number 1 is not going to change downward because it is a dead tree product – it is a rare dead tree product – many of the comics we carry are collectors items – they will only get rarer as e-comics take off – can you imagine what is going to happen when comics have a limited run of 1000 copies – only the strongest are going to survive this market – and only the people with real money are going to be able to purchase dead tree product. Collectors are going to have to work with not only what the market will bear – but what the seller thinks it is worth.

Ebay – Amazon third party sellers are DOA in this market – they will never get new product – the whole ecosystem of wholesalers – book sellers – third party sellers – ebay auctions – are dead – they just don’t know it yet.

Imagine trying to get ebook licenses for a small book store – how much fun is that going to be to crawl the isles? Not much really – that whole eco system is gone as well. Small sellers – independent book stores – gone. If my experience trying to get IP as an independent seller and not a mega corp is any indication of what will happen to small sellers – I am gone too – along with everyone else. Unless I can come up with my own IP.

This makes a compelling market for anyone in the book retail trade – we are all dead as we know it – I am just not sure how much folks know this yet.

Sorry I know this looks like a blog entry – but dang – you hit a nerve with me – which is what good blogging is all about. Thank you. r/d