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Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

seattlemysteryblog.typepad.com

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Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#51

Post by wink »

Meh. One more point.

> For the last decades, the entire publishing world – bookshops, publishers, authors – had been supported by huge post-WWII generations who moved up through their jobs and had the extra money to spoil themselves and their children, and to begin collecting books, collecting hardcovers.

Former avid book buyer here, now still a book buyer. I've always detested hardcovers, and not only because of the price, mostly because what I read is very often a series of novels or a range of different novels from one publisher - they look nice on the shelf. Hardcovers are always big, bulky and not the same size. Also I like holding paperbacks a lot more.

Also what others said, what about the shenanigans of having to wait for a paperback release? If I am already more the target market of preferring most books on paper than as an ebook, don't annoy me even more by having to wait for the format I have chosen to prefer 20 years ago.

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#52

Post by dagenleg »

egypturnash wrote: post #39
lighthazard wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the major benefit an expert to give you recommendations? How is this different from any online medium like Reddit or Facebook where an expert can do the same thing, without a local constraint?

Let’s say I want to read some new fantasy. I go to /r/fantasy and ask for recommendations. I will probably get someone recommending goddamn Malazan* no matter how applicable it is to what I asked for. I will also get a lot of recs that are just a title, maybe a title and an author, with no further info. Some authors who hang out there will pimp their own books. Maybe someone recommends Name Of The Wind and a mini-fla…

If you go to /r/fantasy and don't like their suggestions it simply means your tastes do not match with mainstream /r/fantasy tastes. Luckily we are not limited to just reddit when looking for recommendations on the internet. Just look around more.

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#53

Post by bamboozled »

davis wrote: post #30

> When movies on cassette became practical, think of what it would have done to the Hollywood model if movies could be rented at the same time they hit theaters allowing people to see a movie for far cheaper than going to a theater? > That’s what publishers did. They allowed a far less expensive version of their books to be available right away, undercutting the sale of hardcovers with the cheaper e-version This is a…

"ebook == hardcover in nearly all ways."

Not really, the issue is that with digital, there are different formats and readers, some just suck and others are better. You can't just put all e-books under one umbrella because the experience varies greatly.

For example, I've totally boycotted Kindle format and devices, it's horrible for so many reasons, if I want an eBook, it's now PDF or nothing.

Kindle for me was always missing or broken TOCs, bad user interfaces, no copy and paste (if you have digital, why not?),no portability between devices (Linux etc), hard to share, dynamic page numbers, missing or poorly formatted images and diagrams, no off-line backup (you never own the media), no thanks.

I was also a person who, in earnest, wanted to go completely digital with my library, I just loved the idea of it and gave away a lot of printed media, I regret this now. I really gave it a good try, but give me a hard copy any day.

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#54

Post by pbhjpbhj »

georgeoliver wrote: post #7

I thought this was a sharp observation: > All those new millionaires and billionaires might be good for investment bankers and real estate developers, but they can only buy and read so many books.

It is astute, but they can only wear so many shirts too.

I suppose the trick is that same, sell them something you've convinced them is appropriate for "someone of their standing" - something overpriced - a first edition, with a mounting case, second reading copy, and platinum plated personalised bookmark?

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#55

Post by pritambaral »

bamboozled wrote: post #53
davis wrote: post #30

> When movies on cassette became practical, think of what it would have done to the Hollywood model if movies could be rented at the same time they hit theaters allowing people to see a movie for far cheaper than going to a theater? > That’s what publishers did. They allowed a far less expensive version of their books to be available right away, undercutting the sale of hardcovers with the cheaper e-version This is a…

"ebook == hardcover in nearly all ways." Not really, the issue is that with digital, there are different formats and readers, some just suck and others are better. You can't just put all e-books under one umbrella because the experience varies greatly. For example, I've totally boycotted Kindle format and devices, it's horrible for so many reasons, if I want an eBook, it's now PDF or nothing. Kindle for me was always…

Don't all of those apply to poorly published hardcopy prints too?

If publishers put out official-grade softcopy EPUBs — like O'Reilly used to do until recently — they'd be just as good as the same publisher's hardcopy prints.

Side note: I really hate that I can't buy any EPUBs of O'Reilly's titles. I don't want a non-portable, non-saveable, online-only subscription; and their supported method of getting non-subscription digital copies are all on Amazon and Google Play Books, neither of which provide EPUBS and suffer from the same problems you highlight.

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#56

Post by freddie_mercury »

mcguire wrote: post #33
freddie_mercury wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have hundreds of non-fiction ebooks. It works just fine most of the time. Non-fiction doesn't mean "programming books". The vast majority of non-fiction is plain text with no graphics, maps, or special content whatsoever.

Footnotes, weirdly, always seem to be a problem. Also, paging back to find a poorly remembered reference is hard.

I can't say I've ever had problems with footnotes. They work fine for me. Paging back and forth can be slow, I agree. I usually use full-text search. Which doesn't work at all with paper books.

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#57

Post by pritambaral »

na85 wrote: post #21
AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #19

While I find this article sad, it's ultimately inevitable as far as I see it. I read a lot, and I enjoy collecting books, but I ceased buying physical books a long time ago. I've started backfilling my ebook collection based on my old physical collections. At some point, I will be able to find digital replacements for 99% of my physical book collections and I will eventually find a decent way to digitize the rest. Ul…

Contrarily, I buy physical books and have stopped using my kindle entirely. I prefer to own the book, and not merely a license to use a DRM'ed instance of it.

This is exactly why I use EPUBs. On a non-Kindle e-ink reader, on my phones, and on my computers.

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#58

Post by lighthazard »

egypturnash wrote: post #39
lighthazard wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the major benefit an expert to give you recommendations? How is this different from any online medium like Reddit or Facebook where an expert can do the same thing, without a local constraint?

Let’s say I want to read some new fantasy. I go to /r/fantasy and ask for recommendations. I will probably get someone recommending goddamn Malazan* no matter how applicable it is to what I asked for. I will also get a lot of recs that are just a title, maybe a title and an author, with no further info. Some authors who hang out there will pimp their own books. Maybe someone recommends Name Of The Wind and a mini-fla…

Yea, but couldn't I find an expert amongst the group of random Internet people posting on these places? What makes a bookstore employee more knowledgeable or an expert?

You've mentioned recommendations and exploration but things like Goodreads have similar tools - you can follow users who have similar 'likes' as you, you can read lists by people who have similar tastes, and you can get recommendations from the 'pros'.

I'm sorry I mentioned Reddit. I really did mean any online medium, Goodreads, random book forums, anything else.

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#59

Post by brianwawok »

davis wrote: post #30

> When movies on cassette became practical, think of what it would have done to the Hollywood model if movies could be rented at the same time they hit theaters allowing people to see a movie for far cheaper than going to a theater? > That’s what publishers did. They allowed a far less expensive version of their books to be available right away, undercutting the sale of hardcovers with the cheaper e-version This is a…

If you have a good system and hate teenagers, DVD > movies. Same as kindle > hardcover.

Re: Why the Seattle Mystery Bookshop Must Close

#60

Post by kasey_junk »

secabeen wrote: post #44
davis wrote: post #30

> When movies on cassette became practical, think of what it would have done to the Hollywood model if movies could be rented at the same time they hit theaters allowing people to see a movie for far cheaper than going to a theater? > That’s what publishers did. They allowed a far less expensive version of their books to be available right away, undercutting the sale of hardcovers with the cheaper e-version This is a…

>The problem is that from a customer perspective, an ebook == hardcover in nearly all ways. It has the same story, it is written by the same author, you can read it at home or on the bus. There's no difference. In fact, some might argue ebook > hardcover since it takes up no space and you can use a Kindle and all the features it has. The problem is that despite that being so, ebooks also have zero incremental costs.…

> The problem is that despite that being so, ebooks also have zero incremental costs. People recognize that, and so they resent eBooks costing as much as hardbacks.

Thats more of a perception problem than an actual fact. It turns out that hosting/supporting ebooks does have incremental costs and people dramatically over estimate how much the price of a hardback is the physical copy. If they just priced the difference in physical production vs ebook support into the price, I think most people would be surprised at how little the discount would be.

Now there is a difference of course but the greater part of the price of a book comes from the creation of the intellectual property (including subsidizing all those books that don't get sold) and the sales process.

The bigger issue is that publishers have lots of expertise in selling physical books (100s of years) and ebooks are brand new. Further, the biggest platform for ebooks is run by a company that is not in anyway aligned with the publishers business interests and is in fact a competitor. This is not true of traditional book sales channels.

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