Bricks and Mortar Bookshops: What is their future?

[Michael]

Carmel wrote: "Yeah Brenda it's catch 22 when there's no stores to buy from how can you support the bookstores when there's none there!!"

It's Catch 22!! I love that book, I'm sold :P

[Brenda, Aussie Authors Queen]

Knowledge Lost wrote: "Carmel wrote: "Yeah Brenda it's catch 22 when there's no stores to buy from how can you support the bookstores when there's none there!!"

It's Catch 22!! I love that book, I'm sold :P"

Hahaha!!KL you're too quick!!!

[Ainslie]

Had a discussion with an Aussie author of non fiction recently. He has about ten titles. He is so distressed at the state of the industry he is considering sacking his agent and taking control of his publishing electronically forgetting all about the trad book store market.

As someone without either an agent or a book on a bricks and mortar shelf I thought that was a bit rad -but he was genuinely angry about the lack of support publishers and agents provided.

[Brenda, Aussie Authors Queen]

Here's something I found today in our local paper, regarding a Hunter bookshop who has weighed into the eBook market to provide an outlet for the region's readers... http://www.theherald.com.au/news/loca...

I hope he does very well...the way of the future:)

[Geoff]

Brenda wrote: "Here's something I found today in our local paper, regarding a Hunter bookshop who has weighed into the eBook market to provide an outlet for the region's readers... http://www.theherald.com.au/new..."

Hi Brenda,
I thought what an opportunity, (for my own effort Ice King) so logged on to the book shop web site and the cheapest e-book I could find was $7.99 and others were neary $30.
I then checked the 'supplier' i.e. Readclouds and I loved their basic idea as I remember discussing something similar a year or so ago on another chat site. I can see that the idea will go far.
Thanks for the link and like you I hope it works, but their selling prices will have to drop to compete with Amazon :-o)
cheers
Geoff

[Brenda, Aussie Authors Queen]

Thanks Geoff, and yes, their prices won't compete with Amazon's at the moment, but hopefully when they get properly underway, they'll come down...we will see!

[Laurel]

Hi Brenda & Geoff - Hunter Books' prices would need to come down a bit. $7.99 is pretty steep for a download unless it is a bestseller of the moment or bestseller author. And then they seem to charge more than that.
I recently bought a Kindle. I really like reading on it. It's so light to hold in bed and easy on the eyes. I'm writing a Regency set in Bath and thought I'd buy a few of Jane Austen's books to get some background of Bath in her era. Sadly [for me] she didn't go into much description. But instead of spending quite a few dollars on her print books I was able to download all of her published books, ones not published, other writings, letters, and a couple of other things for .99 cents from Amazon. So how can bookshops compete with that. Cheers

[Brenda, Aussie Authors Queen]

You're right Laurel...hopefully they will see that and be able to be more competitive with their prices before too much longer.

[Brenda, Aussie Authors Queen]

Cliff wrote: "Recent Sydney Morning Herald article on Dymocks may be of interest: (here)."

Thanks for sharing that Cliff. It's very interesting:)