What Price Bookshops?

There has been a lot of discussion about the future of print books. I have been posting recently about Waterstones' new events policy which threatens to further undermine struggling sales. Waterstones are right to host more high profile celebrity ticketed evening events. They should be doing all they can to create more of a buzz about bookshops.  But it is authors who are happy to spend time in bookshops who make a difference to sales figures. Customers buy books by celebrities and a few big names regardless of events in the stores. Inviting such authors into bookshops won't increase sales in the store. Many readers will bring books for signing with them - often books they have bought online.
There will be more discussion about Waterstones' new deal to sell kindles in their stores. Amazon  report that sales of ebooks (excluding free downloads) already outstrip their online sales of print books 114 to 100. It took 4 years for this to happen in the US. In the UK it has taken 2 years for sales of e-books to overtake sales of print books.
My own books sell far more lucratively as e-books than print books. Am I clinging to a bygone era in my passion to support physical bookshops? Do they matter to modern culture?
Waterstones is no longer financially self-supporting, our only remaining chain of bookshops surviving thanks to Russian billionaire Mamut.
Perhaps there's nothing wrong with that. After all, Shakespeare needed his patron. But it's a sobering thought that the whole of Waterstones was bailed out for £53 million - far less than some clubs pay for their top footballers.

Who moved the goalposts?

We have a strange glitch in our television which causes it to default to Sky sport whenever I leave the room. Curiously it never happens when my husband is out - almost as though the television knows! Thanks to this mysterious glitch, I do sometimes watch cricket and football (while busy on facebook, blogs, email, etc and yes, sometimes even writing…)
So I thought, for a change, I’d share a few of my musings on cricket and football.
Cricket seems to me very similar to life, in being almost completely incomprehensible. Occasionally I have a glimmer of comprehension, but then it’s gone in the toss of a cricket ball and the swing of a bat and I’m baffled again. Yes, I can understand why people compare cricket to life. Just when you think you understand something, you realise you don't.
Football is altogether simpler to understand. There’s a goal post at each end of the pitch and – well, you know the rest and if not, well, don't ask me. The goals are a standard size and are always in the right place. In short, football couldn’t be less like life because in life the goal posts move all the time.
Less than two years ago, I thought I’d be happy just to see a book of mine published. Cut Short hit the shelves. I thought I'd be happy if a few copies were bought. Cut Short promptly sold out – and sold out again - and again. I thought I'd be happy if the book had a few good reviews on amazon. Cut Short was well reviewed, and not only on amazon but in the papers. It was shortlisted for a major award.

After all the accolades, I thought I'd be happy if Road Closed did half as well. Good reviews started to roll in and Road Closed quickly sold out.

Over that hurdle, with sales and reviews better than ever, and I’m wondering about how Dead End will be received...

Will I be happy if just a few copies are bought?