As in, I'd really like to forget September. I'm hoping it'll turn out to be like January, just a bad month in the middle of mediocre months. But the drumbeat of bad news seemed to have a noticeable effect.
I still came out even, all bills paid, all credit cards down to zero, all merchandise paid. But it was designed to be a profitable month, for tax purposes.
The good news is that books are doing very well. Yesterday, it seemed as though I had every book that anyone asked for; people off the street are buying books. So I'm pretty proud of myself for recognizing that, at the same time I can kick myself for not having done it sooner. Of course, I really didn't want to impact on the Book Barn, which was having a tough enough time already. I sort of started the process a year before they left, but didn't want to make too much of it.
But now...I'm really ready to get rolling on it.
It's turning out that one of my new suppliers, the source of half of the books I ordered last month, is a two week turnaround; so I have yet to receive any books from them. My regular supplier is only two days away, so they've been delivering. And used books are selling much better in conjunction to the new books. I'm going to miss the ability to put a table of .50 and 1.00 books out on the sidewalk this winter. That was one of the more successful marketing tools I've ever had.
Linda's store is also doing 'well', (that's all she'll let me say though you can perhaps extrapolate from my newfound enthusiasm for books....) and she was able to make up the difference on the taxes.
So, all in all, it's like having gone through a hurricane with only a couple of shingles ripped off the roof, and a bunch of refuse in the yard. More bad weather coming, but another month under my belt to prepare.
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Have you been following what Amazon is doing with Kindle?
They are basically trying to lock up e-book content in the same way Apple is trying to control all software for the i-phone.
I think you are going to see Amazon try and get control of the e-book market share and then the and lock up content.
Publishers are already getting concerned about how they are pricing the e-book releases and feel that Amazon will use that to try and force their prices down.
There seems a huge disconnect between what you see downtown and what I know must be happening in the rest of Bend.
The Oregonian had a good reporting article this morning, pointing out that very thing.
But...and I don't mean this in a mean way...there have been a lot of pretty doubtful businesses that opened in the flush times that are about to find out if they have any real business.
Comics and games may seem like a doubtful business, except I already endured the 80's, and found there was enough business to keep afloat.
Since I don't have loans to pay off anymore, the overhead proportion isn't any higher now. And I -- for the moment -- have more foot traffic than I EVER thought possible. And finally a product -- books -- I can sell them.
As I keep saying, I think much of the last 3 or 4 years was an illusion.
I think Kindle is the picture-phone of this generation. Technology that sounds good, but no one really wants.
I think people will want to hold paperbooks, and bookshelves full of paperbooks.
I've got roughly ten years left in my career, and I'm betting that paper will still dominate.
But...I could be wrong.
From what I am seeing the Kindle is selling well. Better than the previous e-book systems (though I still like Mobi because you can run it on a multitude of different hardware configurations). I expect that e-books will take an increasing percentage of new sales over than 10 year period.
The interesting question is when that percentage will be large enough to start impacting the used market.
There is a certain irony in the dynamic of books. I have mentioned before that it seems as though people under the age of 20 don't read.
This may seem like an exaggeration, so I'll say it this way:
PEOPLE UNDER THE AGE OF 20 DON'T READ BOOKS!
Please don't pop up and tell me "My kids read!" Or "I'm under the age of 20 and I read!" That protestation is also universal.
But I'm onto ya. I'm in my store 40 hours a week watching what you do. A middle aged couple walks in, a good chance I'll sell them a book. A young adult comes in (over 20) and there's a decent chance I'll sell them a book. A youngster comes in and there's a good chance I'll sell them a....
a toy! or a t-shirt! or a poster!
or a card! or a anime!
Anything but a book and a comic.
Yes, there are exceptions. But they only seem to prove the rule.
Anyway, the under 20 generation would be most susceptible to new tech, but the older folks are still reading books.
So my customer base will age over the next ten years while I supply them with books.
(This has already happened with comics. Ten years ago, the average comic reader was probably 20 to 30 years old, and now they're 30 to 40 years old.)
There seems to be a retro base in every hobby, thus the people who buy vinyl or people who want '50's pinups or people who want old cars.
But I think it will be actual users, not collectors, who I'll sell books to over the next decade.
People like me.
I think that the penetration of e-books is heavily influenced by type reader. If it is someone that takes a while to read a book and never rereads one then most likely they will stay with paper. If you have someone that reads a lot of books, and likes to reread books then they will be more prone to switch to e-books. I started switching to e-books a couple of years ago. Today I purchase almost everything in e-book form. The primary reason is that during a 2-3 day business trip I would need to take 6-7 books with me. I used to connect through Dallas a lot and would read 1 book per connection (4 on flights and 2-3 else where). Now instead of having to carry that number of books I have atleast 500 loaded on my cell phone (Treo). As a result I am never without a book to read.
Well, I trust my own gut on this one. I have absolutely no interest in Kindle. I will stick to paper to the end. I'm betting there are alot more people like me.
Yes, but business is the art of percentages. There might be more people, but what is the impact on the industry in 10% of volume goes e-book or 25%. A number of marginal stores close, and a number of successful stores become marginal.
Now paper books are suppoted by the paradigm that many people buy books while browsing, just looking for a book, instead of a particular book. Currenlty no one has a good method for browsing for e-books.
Re: Currenlty no one has a good method for browsing for e-books.
But Dunc's not the answer to that.
If Dunc ever got online, a simple listing of his inventory that was crawled by Google would be the easiest and least expensive way to reach those people looking for a certain pop culture item.
Name, tagline/description, price, that's all. The people searching will be looking for those words. Maybe a couple pretty pictures of his current favorites, with review.
But on the walls of his store is the perfect inventory of cool cultural items to really test the long tail theory.
Which I think could make his Christmas vary nice.
"Comics and games may seem like a doubtful business"
The negative is that they're definitely non-essential purchases. The positive is that they're cheap entertainment. Books too. People need cheap entertainment during depressions.
"I think Kindle is the picture-phone of this generation. Technology that sounds good, but no one really wants."
Agreed. A number of years back I had a librarian assure me that soon all books would be read on computer screens. When I said I didn't think people would accept that he got almost angry. "They'll HAVE to accept it!" he said.
Don't think so. There's still competition in the book business. They can't force a product down everybody's throat like Microsoft did with Vista.
I like the feel, the look, the smell, the heft of a real book. I also like its portability and the fact that I don't have to worry about the battery being charged.
Current number are that 250,000 Kindles have sold in the first 6 months on the market, with another 750,000 expected within the next 12 months (they basically ran through the first production run of 250,000 within the first 3 months).
According to a Time magazine article back in June, Kindle sales are running about 12% of book sales of the 130,000 titles available in that format.
Those numbers are just for Kindle, does not include all of the other e-book formats.
Re: Which I think could make his Christmas vary nice.
..very nice.
Duncan, I think your attitude about ebooks is much like the attitude 10 years ago about film versus digital photography.
Eventually, books will be seen as SUVs are today--a needless waste of material and energy.
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