A book in the hand is worth a dozen in an internet store

[pbray]

Today I visited a bookstore for the first time in two months. Lest anyone think that I was deprived, let me hasten to point out that during my home confinement there was 1 Amazon care package, and 6 BN.COM orders placed and delivered.

But the experience of shopping for books in a store is wholly different from shopping on the internet. Finding new releases can be tricky if what you're looking for is not a featured title, and if you do a search by pub date the interesting items are often buried in clutter. I did manage to find two new (to me) authors, but finding them took longer than it would have in a store. Browsing lists and thumbnails of bookcovers just doesn't do it for me. I want to have the book in my hands, to be able to flip open to a random page to see if the writing grabs me. To know at once if it is a doorstop fantasy or a quick read.

No thumbnail is ever as eye-catching as the real bookcover, nor does it convey the information I can get at a glance from the physical book, where things like publisher and cover quotes are readable without having to "select" the book from the list, view the entry, then back out and look at the next item.

Yes the internet is fabulous for buying books from authors I already know and love. Assuming, that is, that I realize they have a new book out. But as for finding new authors? For me the old-fashioned way is still the best.

Comments

[libwitch.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way - and it has been very difficult for me, because I abhor B&N here - the way it is set up and the employees make it impossible to browse. So I have been largely doing online shopping, with the exception of a few jaunts elsewhere.

Its painful. Painful, dammit.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

The B&N here is better than no bookstore, but that's not much praise.
I've never been bothered by the employees when browsing, possibly because I give off a "scary chick who will cut you" vibe.

At least for genre books I can always browse the dealer's room at cons to grab the titles that B&N won't carry.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

The flip side of that is that the brick and mortar bookstore had better be decently stocked. I've been in bookstores where you had a hard time getting past the top twenty or so SF/F authors on the shelves to find anyone else. You get the feeling like said bookstores (they start with a "B" and end with an "ers") aren't interested in books so much as "product". Pushing "product" through the system to make profit is the surest way to turn off book lovers.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

My local chain store is B&N which is okay but not outstanding. We used to have a sci-fi specialty bookstore in the area, but they stopped selling new books this year because it had gotten to be too much of a hassle dealing with the distributors.

It's easy to see the death-spiral in the bricks & mortar stores, wherewhen I hear of a new author half the time I can't find their book at the store and must instead order online. As fewer and fewer titles are stocked, there are fewer and fewer reasons to visit the store.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Our last remaining decent bookshop chain is under threat here, because the uber owners want More Big Profits. It's heartbreaking. Once upon a time, I lived in a city with one of the best bookshops in the UK. Then it was sold to a chain who mistreated it. Two new chains arrived, though, and helped fill the gap. One of those we lost last year, and the other may also go. This is not the city it used to be.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

I wish bookstore owners would stop trying to shoehorn the selling of books into the same mold as selling toothpaste. It doesn't work.

Here in the States, the Baldwin Piano Co. was destroyed when the ailing company hired an executive from a major corporation to run the show. She knew how to sell things for profit, but she had no idea how to work in the music industry. Consequently, all her cost cutting ideas and sales initiatives flopped, and the company went into bankruptcy.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Sigh. We're down to one chain store here, and a tiny independent that caters to the literary crowd. I'd like to think that there's enough business to keep the chain store going, but even decent local sales can't help if the monkey running the corporation make stupid decisions (aka Borders).

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

Very true.