“I think that there will be a 50% reduction in bricks-and-mortar shelf space for books within five years, and 90% within 10 years. Bookstores are going away.” (Mike Shatzkin, Ideal Logical Co., The Wall Street Journal)
Obviously with Borders bankruptcy, much shelf space will be eliminated quickly. Now when you go into B & N you see book shelf space already vanishing into other non-book products. The new kid on the block, the e-book, seems to be growing up fast.
It’s tough to contemplate the price point of the physical book in the future. Lemuria, being a small bookstore, has little control over the list prices we can charge. Instead, our mission is to add value however and whenever we can by offering first editions, signed copies, and author appearances, etc. When price is discussed, I have very little control if I want to stay in business. Regarding Lemuria’s participation in the discount wars between big box bookstores and Amazon, I cannot even consider entering that competition.
Lemuria introduces the not-so-well known but award-winning author Mark Richard on February 22nd. To complement his new memoir, Lemuria has collected first editions of his early short stories, compared to Flannery O’Connor yet not widely read.
With the present climate change, Barnes & Noble, the T-Rex of the brick-and-mortar war, and the virtual Amazon, thriving in its own dimension selling an endless variety of products, are now in a Dino Dawg fight. (In the main ring, ladies and gentleman, the Nook vs. the Kindle!) I ask why should physical books continue to be discounted?
Can and will the retail price of physical books come down? Will the publisher begin to determine real value retail pricing on the books they present to be sold?
If retail prices come down and our book product can be valued properly, could we as an industry reinstate a more legitimate physical book value point? Can the price wars now be fought over the e-book? As real book selling space shrinks, we can offer more product legitimacy with more real value marketing for physical books. With cheaper retail list prices, can we create more customer confidence, causing more physical books to be sold?
Amazon is selling Kevin Brockmeier’s Illumination at 48% off the list price. Building on a years-long relationship, Lemuria hosts Kevin Brockmeier on February 23, supporting one of the most original voices of contemporary Southern literature.
When the discounting of retail list prices increased, many local community bookstores were squeezed out of the market and forced to close. For 18 years, I’ve been across the road from a box store which is erasing the value of the physical book. (I was told by mutual sales reps that the box was located across the street “to put me out of business.”)
Revaluing retail book prices could level the playing field again. Less discount influence from the big box bookstores would open the door for Lemuria to grow faster out of the “Great Recession” and our customers would see Lemuria improve more quickly in terms of becoming a more solid “reader” bookstore.
Lovers of Southern literature can buy Swampandia at Ridgeland’s Barnes & Noble for $19.96 or they can buy a signed first edition at Lemuria for the list price of $24.95 and meet one of the hottest new voices in Southern Literature, Karen Russell.
Projection: Suggested e-book prices may level off between 7 and 10 bucks. With e-book values so cheap, will book publishers begin to lower retail prices of the physical book so readers of the physical book won’t feel ripped off? By lowering retail prices, the marketing strength of the word “discount” will be lessened. Publishers please remember what too-high CD prices did to our community music stores.
Also, what about net pricing, where bookstores would get to mark up like most retailers? Our existent antiquated mark down from the retail price structure, helped caused our industry to get into this Amazon “loss leader” mess in the first place.
John Grisham books are a typical “loss leader” choice for big box book stores and Amazon. One use of a loss leader is to draw customers into a store where they are likely to buy other products. The vendor expects that the typical customer will purchase other products at the same time as the loss leader book and that the profit made on these items will be such that an overall profit is generated for the vendor, prostituting the book.
Such complexity won’t be solved soon. I believe that with retail price adjustment and fair valuing for retail pricing within our industry, Mr. Shatzkin’s forecast can be proven wrong. For the present, Lemuria will continue to add value to our books we sell, providing our community with the best services we can offer. I believe that with more legitimate retail pricing from the publishers, our bookstore can exist indefinitely.
The Bookstore Key Series on Changes in the Book Industry
Finding “Deep Time” in a Bookstore (March 8th) Reading The New Rules of Retail by Lewis & Dart (March 3) The Future Price of the Physical Book (Feb 18) Borders Declares Bankruptcy (Feb 16) How Great Things Happen at Lemuria (Feb 8th) The Jackson Area Book Market (Jan 25) What’s in Store for Local Bookselling Markets? (Jan 18) Selling Books Is a People Business (Jan 14) A Shift in Southern Bookselling? (Jan 13) The Changing Book Industry (Jan 11)
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