The Flux Remains the Same

With Britain filing against Amazon.com in an attempt to curb the fall of their local and small bookstores, we come again against the digital versus the traditional world. Rupert Neate and Angelique Chrisafis in Paris report that France has pledged 9 million pounds to restoration and funding for their bookstores, and Booksellers are looking to the British government to do the same.

There's a lot of contention about the apparent 'undercutting' that Amazon does. You can get used, cheap books there on demand with, often, free shipping and fast rates. They have a great return policy and guarantee. You don't have to pay full-price bookstore fees for a new book, even pre-ordered, and often times you can find rare or out-of-print books at the click of the button.

The only real difference between Amazon and a bookstore is convenience. Amazon does have an e-Book market, but let's just talk about physical books. You can get a book on Amazon, likely in new or like-new condition, in 2-4 days for half to a third the price you can get it in a physical bookstore. Do you want to wait? No, then get it in the bookstore. Do you want to pay full-price? No, then order it. Do you want the experience of browsing through your favorite shelves, finding a title that catches your eye and picking it at random? You won't get that nearly as physically as you will on Amazon, but it can be done sans bookstore-smell.

But is it acceptable to 'punish' and 'curb' Amazon for providing a great product to readers? I love Amazon.com myself because it opens a world of low prices and great selection that I have yet to find in even my favorite bookstores. Many of my favorite authors are rare on shelves, either because they're older or because they're out of print. And with my traditional tastes it gets harder and harder to scan the shelves of my favorite genres and find a title that simply 'leaps' out at me. I like high fantasy and retold fairy tales, but the adult/young adult fantasy world has entered the era of urban fantasy and paranormal fantasy, and I have yet to follow suit. On Amazon I can get the old books and the new, not-as-well-known books that cater to my tastes.



 

On the other hand, small bookstores continue to rise in other areas of the world. It's big retailers that are having a big problem with the online mega-store that is Amazon, not the little home-town bookstores. If you want an in-person book shopping experience, most of the time you're going to go to your local tea shop or used bookstore. The only reason to go to a mega-bookstore (as we'll call it) is yet again that 'convenience' in the hope that they'll have what you want, but even that's not a guarantee. I've had more luck finding the titles I crave at used bookstores than at the big retailers, but as I said, that's my more traditional tastes coming to the fore.

Gigi Douban writes that independent retailers are learning to cope rather than buckling:

"We're figuring it out," says Oren Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers Association. "Stores are reinventing themselves and responding to change. And we're fighting back. Teicher says since 2009, more than 300 independent bookstores have opened, and store sales were up by 8 percent last year."

So do we have a problem, really? Is it not so much an issue in the US and more so in the UK? It certainly appears to be the case-- so why are bookstores still succeeding in the US and not in the UK, where they seem to be more integral to the local community? Why is Amazon being so wildly successful there that people are actually protesting?

It's an interesting sociological and economic question to which I have no answer. I suppose if there were an answer readily available, the British government wouldn't be called on to answer for the fall of bookstores.