New Year New Challenges

After completing my review of the eReader and acknowledging the threat to independent bookstores I took some time off to think about where the direction of this blog should go. It is tempting to go into a negative spiral with the current state of the book industry - but I prefer to keep my head high despite the industry woes and the economic dificulties we face today. I have read all of the very interesting posts and responses to Ann's booksellers blog and I feel that there are many people in this industry that are committed to finding a way to keep independent booksellers alive. These are the people that are blogging, twittering, and reinventing themselves in their stores. Although some predict that the next generation will have been born into the computer screen world (digital natives - the term coined by someone) and do virtually everything online. I feel that the human element will play a role. There is nothing that compares to actually looking a person in the eye, talking to them, and ending the conversation with a handshake or a hug. There is no technology that can replace the emotions that go along with personal contact. Now, we may see the next generation overload their screens with work, virtual communities, virtual dating, virtual buying and actually come to the realization that they miss what they once had or the desire to try something they never had - human contact. I think that this is where the community plays a role - and the independent bookseller has the opportunity to be at the forefront of a new model bookstore. Recently at the Winter Institute the question was posed to create the future bookstore - if we had a blank slate. Looking at my notes from that exercise I think that the world will go electronic and the bookstore will only become a sales showroom - we'll stock backlist books that are just for show and buyers will receive an eVersion and the bookseller will receive a cut of the sale. Hard copy sales for gifts will be limited to 100 or so titles in store that are bestsellers and or staff picks. If a customer needs a hard copy of a book that is not in store it will be printed on site in less than a day and personalized to the customer's liking. The video that was posted on the booksellersblog in French actually is close to what I imagined in my notes from WiiV. If you haven't seen it check it out. I do imagine a slightly bigger concept than the video's view because I believe our future stores will need a good sized community meeting and event space. People may change completely to eReading, but I do not think they will discontinue there need to talk to booksellers, talk politics, meet new people, meet authors and learn new things. This is our future - community event centers that happen to sell books and eBooks. Recently, Susan Savory the new manager at our Andover location posed an idea for knitting lessons in store - an "outside the box" event for a store that has only ever done author events. She proposed an 8 weeks session that we would charge $40. I thought, what a great idea, get some new people in the store, make a little money, and maybe sell 5-6 books. I gave her the go ahead and we both felt that 6-8 people would be a success. We were wrong. Within the first week of sign-ups we had over 40 confirmed and easily 20 more on a wait list. People were gagging for human contact and the ability to learn something new at a reasonable price. The success of this knitting class has given rise to all sorts of discussions on how to make author and author-less events a success, while at the same time making money doing them. I believe if we keep our feet in the eReader game and find a way to get a cut of the sales and then flip our store concept on its head - independents will survive....we just might not be called bookstores...