E-books in stores
© Richard Loeffler
The holidays are over now and its back to work for everyone. I was in the Florida for the Millennium visiting my mother. I live in northern Saskatchewan, a long way from any major centre, so while I was in Florida, I took the time to visit some large bookstores to see if any were promoting or
selling e-books. Now, I will admit, I didn't go asking around or requesting titles in electronic format. I figured if they were featured in some way that an experienced bookseller, like myself, could find them easily, then the general
bookbuying public wouldn't have difficulty locating them either. However, if I couldn't find them then the general public wouldn't stand a chance discovering them.
Well, I couldn't locate them in Barnes & Noble or in Books a Million. Now, to be fair, I'm not sure if Books a Million carries e-books but I know from their web-site that B&N does. I didn't expect to find a section called Electronic Books. The purpose of electronic books is that they don't exist
physically in the real world. They exist in a data base on someone's server. That's part of the problem with electronic books, if you don't have a computer or you don't surf the net then it's a good chance you don't know they exist. So, finding them in a bricks and mortar store was probably a reach. I did expect to find e-book readers though - but I didn't. I did expect to find some sort of promotional material about them - but I didn't. I thought maybe I'd even find a public internet station with B&N homepage on it so I could browse their selection of e-books and order them - but I didn't.
If the e-book industry is going to get off the ground, it's going to have to demand more support from the retailers of e-books to whom they are giving large discounts to sell their books on-line. If B&N is only going to promote e-books on its web site then it is doing the industry a large dis-service. Promoting e-books on-line is preaching to the converted. Promoting e-books in the store will create new customers for e-books. E-book publishers who sell their books to on-line retailers who also have physical stores should find a way to get their titles promoted in the store or they will never get the exposure to the reading public that they require to prosper.
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The copyright of the article E-books in stores in E-Books is owned by Richard Loeffler. Permission to republish E-books in stores in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
