James Daunt hopes a new physical bookshop opening in Seattle "falls flat on its face" because it is owned by a competitor. Some people might see this as karma, with Waterstones having put so many independent bookshops out of business, but I find it rather sad. With so many bookstores closing, surely every genuine book lover would welcome the opening of a new one.
But this new physical bookstore is owned by Amazon.
Waterstones seem to think Amazon should remain an online store - although Waterstones were happy to profit from selling kindles, and have their own online store.
Do you agree with James Daunt, that Amazon has no business opening a bricks-and-mortar bookshop, or with the blogger, warriorwriters.wordpress.com, who writes: "Amazon is smart. Amazon looks at where its competitors went wrong and it improves. That is the beating heart of true capitalism. Evolution."
What do you think?
11 comments:
Regardless of the circumstances and the in-fighting, inside of me beats the heart of a reader and seeing the endless rows of books, set my heart a fluttering.
Yes, and although it does mean fewer books in the store, I rather like the face out book display. Not sure it's an economical use of the space, but it must be exciting to browse there.
Oooooooooooooh books! Regardless of it's physical presence, a book is the brainchild of the author. That is what we readers are buying, no matter what form it is in. The more outlets the better, say I.
I agree, Brenda. The more bookshops there are, the better.
As long as authors are not the losers in this, I am very happy for there to be more bookshops on the high street. The more competition there is, the more likely prices will be cut, allowing more people to buy books. That would be great, but I don't want authors to be the losers in all this. Increased sales would be great, but reduced royalties would not be acceptable.
The display in the picture is a far better prospect for potential buyers, but it may well be at the cost of many authors, who would not have their books on show.
I am not a fan of Amazon at all. So I am of two minds about it. I miss good old bookshops, independent ones especially. I am so glad I found one in Wallingford which seems to be doing well (touch wood!) and I was happily surprised to see so many second bookshops in Montreal striving. But I keep remembering how Amazon played a role in the decline of bookshops. I still buy from Amazon, but mainly when I cannot find something in a bookshop.
I don't agree that they 'have no business' doing it. I'd much rather see a lot of other stores still out there rather than amazon
There is nothing like a bookshop, Guillaume! Except, perhaps a library. But there's no doubt Amazon have encouraged a lot more people to read a lot more books. I like to think there's a place for both, but getting people to read is probably the single most important factor in all this. Without readers, the whole culture of a literate society will vanish. We have the technology to become a post-literate society... reading and writing are no longer necessary... so on balance I'd give Amazon a big thumbs up. They have to compete to survive, because that is the world we live in, and they seem to be rather good at it... at this point in the reading evolution...
I agree, Charles, we need lots of bookshops, so we need lots more readers... but at the moment only amazon seem to be out there encouraging people to read more... The complacent attitude of so many others in the industry is part of the reason for Amazon's rapid development.
I wonder what their policy would be for stocking self-published authors who use Lightning Source for paperbacks?!
I don't know what that is, Derek, but I think they are stocking the books that are bestsellers on Amazon, which includes self-published as well as traditionally published titles.
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