Enough already!

I just read an entire week's worth of Shelf Awareness blogs, and every other story -- at least -- was about e-books.

Whose side are they on?

(Warning: this blog entry is an Animal Crackers of mixed metaphors -- once you start them, they're hard to stop.)

Over on the Comic Book Industry Alliance, one of the retailers said, "You can't put your head in the sand," about digital.

Yes I can. It's warm and cozy down here, and I can't hear the thundering herd approaching. Maybe they'll miss me.

I don't think we can make accommodations for e-books, anymore than a fish can live on land. In fact, I'd call it appeasement.

I don't think a mating of the two -- paperbooks and digital is going to work. We're not tigers and lions, or horses and zebras. There's no mating here. And if there is, the offspring will be neutered and infertile.

We're -- I don't know -- lions and lambs. If we try to cozy up to the lions, we'll be eaten.

In some ways, I feel like I've been working in a dying industry for 30 years. Comics sales have probably been declining for the entire life of my business -- except for the familiar boom in the middle.

I've seen entire species go extinct -- beanie babies and pogs-- and other species surviving only in zoo's (specialty shops and internet) , like pokemon and sports cards.

I've become an expert at selling what everyone else has given up on.

I think independent bookstores are going to survive as just that -- BOOKstores. Maybe the Borders and Barnes and Noble's of the world won't survive -- there won't be enough habitat left intact to keep those species alive. Too bad, so sad.

But independent bookstores can continue to sell books for a long time to come.

They don't need to hurry the process along by inviting the digital poachers into their territory.