More and more book sales may take place online, but there's still a crucial role for the high-street chain
The sale of Waterstone's to Alexander Mamut, if it passes its final hurdles, looks to be tremendous news for readers and writers: despite all the noise about ebooks and online marketing, bookshops are still at the heart of creating audiences for books.
When I first entered publishing in 1988 there were at least six major book chains in the UK. There are now two ? Waterstone's and WH Smith, which, while important, has less commitment to range than its competitor. Alongside them stands the independent sector, which has certainly grown, albeit from a modest base. I do not believe that bricks-and-mortar bookshops will disappear, but already in many major English language markets they are in retreat, challenged by the mass market non-book specialists (supermarkets) at one end and online book and ebook retailers at the other.
At the recent London Book Fair it became clear that executives and consultants had found a new favourite buzzword to bandy about: discoverability, which translates as 'finding stuff online'. (According to retail experts Verdict Research, over the next 10 years e-commerce will account for one-fifth of all spending, and the majority of spending for books, so it's easy to see why this suddenly seems to matter.) The other burning issue at the time of the book fair was, naturally, the future of Waterstone's.
These two issues are intimately related. Recently it was claimed that when Borders closed in the UK as many as 46% of its shoppers simply didn't buy books anymore, once the impulse of visiting the shop was absent. This physical browsing of the deeper range of books is not yet migrating online at a pace to replace lost audiences as shops close. According to bibliographic data provider BML/Bowker, UK shoppers make twice as many "impulse" sales in three-dimensional shops than they do online. This presents publishers with a challenge, both in terms of how we help readers discover books and how we support a diverse and rich mid-list.
A dramatic fall in specialist bookshops wouldn't really threaten publishing's much-discussed long tail. Rather, it would endanger the Fat Neck of recent publications: great history and science writing, literary novels, memoir and so on. What the purchase of Waterstone's safeguards is a space for the range of excellent mid-list books that can provide such enriching experiences for readers. We don't all want only to be reading the top 10 ? or listening to it or watching it, for that matter.
However much the issue of discoverability is being framed around digital marketing at present, it still depends on a thriving specialist bookshop environment and traditional print media. Clearly, readers are happy to browse for books and ebooks online, and Amazon et al do a superb job of serving the online customer. But it's equally clear that online choice can be overwhelming and the lack of "signposting" problematic ? problems that were easily solved in the traditional comfort of the good bookshop. If that were to diminish quickly, we may jump from Long Tail to Cheshire Cat: the grinning faces of dominant bestsellers, with the larger body of publishing hardly visible.
This isn't about offline good, online bad: far from it. This is about the perils of transition. For me, the more exciting version of this picture is one in which more diverse routes to creating a readership emerge. Ebooks are certainly creating new dynamics in genres such as crime and romance; social networks are developing, and not just among younger readers. Encouragingly, in the US (which remains a good year ahead in digital development) reader behaviour online is apparently much more like that demonstrated in the retail environment ? 46% of buys are impulse purchases and 54% are planned. (BML/Bowker 2010).
A mixed economy of physical bookshops and digital marketing, publishing and shopping would be, in my view, a far livelier place to seek audiences for excellent books than I've known in my 25 years in the book world. But that mix will take time: not because publishers are slow or technology isn't there, but because readers will have to change their browsing habits and retailers develop their offerings to sustain a balance of physical and online activity. The new ownership of Waterstone's should ensure that a breathing space to evolve the model exists, and that publishers and writers have a sizeable high-street partner to work with to make this rich new world flesh. Until last week, there was a real danger that the mid-list would vanish from view and become a ghostly memory: a great loss for our culture and for the pleasure of readers everywhere.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/may/24/waterstone-s-vital-book-trade
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