Since I'm ranting about book type things, I thought I'd take this opportunity to clear up some misconceptions about the relationship between brick-and-mortar book stores and online book retailers*.
Yesterday I had a customer come into the store, who said he had come in to pick up his copy of A Dance with Dragons . This wasn't out of the ordinary, we had quite a few people reserve their copies with us, so I smiled and said sure, and asked what his name was. I couldn't find a slip with his name on it, so I asked when he had reserved it. He said he had paid for it already. "Oh," I said. "You pre-ordered it. That means that it will ship today, and it will come here in a few days."
The customer then proceeded to rant at me for the next ten minutes or so about how ridiculous it was that he had pre-ordered something and then didn't get it on the day it came out. Now, I can understand the need to have a book on the day it comes out, so part of me sympathized. But the other, stronger part of me reacted the same way I do when people complain that books are so much cheaper to buy online: with anger and frustration at the way some people not involved in the industry misunderstand the system.
Let's be clear here. The customer who pre-ordered got the book at 46% off at our online store. I have no idea what the pre-order price was at Amazon or other retailers, but I'm sure it was comparable.Why such savings? Well, partly because in order to run an online site, you need quite a few people, but nowhere near the man-power you need to run a physical store, and you sell to so many more people because you are not limited by geography. As the foreman says in "Jayne's Town" (Firefly) "We can then pass on the savings directly on to you, the customer." It's so much cheaper because it CAN be. They don't have to charge as much to make a profit.
They also have to charge shipping, so they make it cheaper so you still want to buy it with them instead of going into the store. This is where most of the difference is made up. If a $7.99 book is 30% off it makes it $5.59, which means you saved about $2.40. Shipping and handling is $3-$4, sometimes more depending how much you ordered. So, in reality. you paid $8.59 for the book, WHICH IS THE SAME AMOUNT AS IN THE STORE. So, you have saved nothing other then getting to avoid talking to a human being while buying your book.
Time. That is the other commodity you "pay" by buying online. Since it isn't gaining you money, it's pretty worthless to you, until you want a book RIGHT NOW. Then, that's a pretty precious commodity. When you buy online you have to wait at least a day before you can start reading the latest by your favorite author. Which is why most book stores get their sales by selling big-name-author-series books. Because then you are willing to sacrifice your hard earned money to save time.
This brings me to my final point: space. Book stores have finite space. Because we are only so many square feet, we can only stock so many books. While every single bookstore in the world would LOVE to carry all the little known authors, we can realistically only afford to keep those titles that will sell. Online stores keep everything in a giant warehouse where no one needs to browse, a giant claw picks the book out of a box like one of those arcade games. Again, they stock it because they can, and if the only one buying the book lives in Ohio they don't need to worry about keeping it in a store in California. So yes, it is possible to get that obscure book for a discount online, but book stores must charge full price so that they can justify having it in their store. Most brick and mortar stores have ways of ordering the obscure titles for you, and they often don't charge you shipping. Again, the only price is time, which for some reason people seem less willing to pay once they've driven all the way there. It's not going to come faster just because you order it from home, folks.
All of these things combine in such a way that if you didn't know the WHY of all of these things, you would wonder what the hell brick-and-mortar stores are doing with themselves. You'd wonder why they charge so much when Amazon is so cheap, and you'd wonder why a book from the same company would cost more at it's physical location as opposed to their website. So please, remember that all of these factors are far beyond the control of the actual person who is selling you the book. He/She loves working at their store, and it drives them a little crazy when people come in complaining about online issues especially because they have no control over it.
This is to say nothing about the competition of e-books, that are so cheap because they don't even have to send you a physical copy. But for every e-book that is sold, that's a paper copy that goes unsold, which hurts the real stores. I'm not saying you shouldn't buy e-books, mostly because that's a futile battle. Book stores are going to have to drastically change their business model in order to be successful, and that goes for Mom and Pop stores as well as the big chains.
As I'm writing this a major book retailer is looking like it's about to go out of business. People feel a lot of different things about Borders, but no one can deny that a lot of towns will lose their only local brick and mortar stores if they close. Libraries are coming under fire as well, as they lose funding all over the country. Instead of being able to browse the stacks, customers will be forced to rely on Best Seller lists or computer generated lists of similar titles, as is touched on by this article by Michael Dirda. Now there will no longer be the possibility of getting a staff recommendation to go along with your Tom Clancy or Patricia Briggs. Books like The Hunger Games, which at least at my store was sold purely by booksellers who loved it, would get forgotten and passed over.
I don't know what the solution to all of this is. But if you, or someone you know, decides to start gripping at the actual booksellers for the way things are going, stop. Take a moment to remind yourself of all the factors beyond their control, that are actually controlled by consumers like you. Are you taking responsibility for your local bookstore closing down? Or are you rejoicing at save $2.50 on a paperback you could have just as easily picked up at your local store for the exact same price?
*When I say bookstore, I mean observations and realities as pertains to my bookstore, and ones like it in my town. Perhaps your book store has a different situation, and if so I'd love to discuss how it is effecting your store in the comments, but just saying OMG YOU'RE WRONG isn't helpful.
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