This is from an article about book trailers, which I'm not sure is the best idea, but it's a neat picture.
I love to read. I am often indifferent about whether I am reading paper or words on a screen. If I am reading a book, it often doesn’t matter to me whether the book is on paper or on a screen.
For some people this distinction is important. They may only want a paper book or an electronic book. Lots of smart people are seeing a future where more people will want to read electronic books instead of paper books.
But the thing to remember is that books, whether they are printed as pixels or ink or even cuneiform on stone, are still something people want to read. We like to read. As a species, we are wired and cultured to read. More on that in another blog post.
So, people still want to read books. Books will still need to be published. People will keep writing and reading them. Books, as a cultural information format, aren’t going anywhere.
The question isn’t whether books, or the publishing of books, will disappear. The question is what format the manufacture and distribution of books will take in the coming years.
Or, to put it another way, what would have gotten me to purchase the book I just bought on O’Reily’s website at the bookstore?
It’s in 2 parts. What I imagine a smart book store of the present would look like, and what one in the future may be.
Dream Book Store of the Present
1. Expert opinions
Even Barnes and Noble know that their floor people need to understand their subjects in order to offer alternates to customers when the book they want is unavailable. Smart stores leverage their expertise to engender trust in their customers. It’s one of the reasons why those recommended book lists in a store both appeal to me and turn me off.
They appeal to my sense of the different. Here are some strangers who like these titles, maybe I will to. But, because they are strangers, I may be wary of their opinions. I am the type of person who tends to take advice, though, and those lists are often a relief from what can sometimes feel like an endless row of material to sort. Plus, if I’m returning to the store, getting to know the people there, the lists become warmer and more valuable over time.
It’s the value of librarians. A great librarian can help you wade, sift and sort through all of that material to help you find what you need. Humans, when it comes to books, are always going to be a smarter search engine than Google, at least in our lifetime. This is because of context. Face to face communication provides a context that typed, electronic communication can’t supply. Web communication can do amazing things, but it can’t substitute for human interaction of the face-to-face variety.
We need experts to help us save time. The more expert you are in your subject, the more time you can save another person. And time is fast becoming our only true limiting factor.
So, I like the stores that offer opinions to help me find what I need, or what I didn’t know I wanted. The big chain approach doesn’t work for me, because I don’t trust the expertise of the people in the store.
2. Do what you do better than anyone else
I think a wise book store understands a simple distinction when it comes to selling product. Namely that the sale is the end result of understanding a customer’s need and fulfilling it. Most people want to find the right book. Experts help them do that. Volume isn’t the path to what is, ultimately, the quest for a quality experience.
In other words, if you’re going to sell coffee, make it great. Don’t rely on a brand, build some expertise! We will grab that Starbucks because we trust the name, for the most part. But we will trust your store if you put effort into a truly quality experience. I don’t trust what I’m getting at a big chain any more, because it feels like a bad salad bar when I’m looking for a cafe.
So, these are both a little vague. But they point to what I think could be a future model that leverages the idea of expertise.
Dream Book Store of the Future
1. Affiliate sales
This is going to sound crazy, but I think it may be possible for a smart, physical book store to sell electronic books. How?
Affiliate sales. In theory, a book store with its own wifi connection could point users to a page of their book recommendations, including a check out process that would allow the customer to purchase directly on their mobile device. In other words, you could offer wifi service that points a user away from amazon.com, bn.com, etc. to a page of your own choosing, that then allows a user to purchase through your page to one of those sites. The start page could be the homepage of the store’s website, or even a custom page, with a reader list that sends people off to make a purchase, with a percentage going to the store.
You could even find a use for object hyperlinking in such a scenario (think QR codes, Microsoft Tag, etc..). Imagine the expert list of recommendations for a book store. “Debbie recommends ‘Presentation Zen.’ There’s no shelf space at present for ‘Presentation Zen.’ Next to the recommendation is a QR code, Tag, whatever. A quick snapshop with a phone, and voila, off the user goes to make a purchase.
Or, to an in house, electronic inventory. If a person purchases a file, the question is really what kind of file copy are they buying? Either way, a store could also manage their own electronic inventory.
B&N has started this with their Nook program, albeit with limited success. In fact, their experience points to a danger for a closed loop model for a retailer.
In other words, it’s rare that a store would only shelve books of only one size and shape. Why try to do the same with an ereader?
On this point, another potential advantage of this idea is experimental shelf space. Suppose that your store can only hold a certain amount of books, and that there is a focus on young adult literature. Suppose then that a member of your staff is an expert on Nature Books. In order to leverage the expertise of the nature book lover, you would need to shelve nature books, thereby incurring a cost in shelf space and inventory.
BUT, if you had wifi, or even a kiosk, that allowed an affiliate sale to Nature Books recommended by your resident nature book lover, suddenly, that expertise is monetized, without incurring either cost. In other words, an electronic shelf has incredible flexibility to leverage expertise.
There are, however, two catches with this scenario. The biggest one being, suppose that a user with a mobile device decides to opt OUT of connecting to your store’s wifi, consequently bypassing your store page, etc.. Well, nothing to be done about this, and I’m not even sure that’s a real concern. In other words, if a person is going to browse your store and not buy anything, it won’t matter if there’s wifi or no wifi. Offering the wifi and expert opinions is simply a way to encourage people to buy through you, and a way to leverage one of the store’s key assets (namely, their expertise in books for purchase).
The service could be free or paid for. If it’s free, then this is because the store sees a value in lingering customers. Coffee shops tend to offer free wifi if they want people hanging around, buying scones all day. Coffee shops that offer PAID wifi (like Starbucks) tend to do this as a way to make sure that people who are hanging around the shop all day are paying SOMETHING for taking up space.
2. Provide quality bound books for people that love paper
There are still many people that want books made of paper. They love the way they look on a shelf. They have the space for them. My bet is that they will tend to want paper copies, but probably editions of higher quality and status value.
To put it another way, the only books on my shelf are gifts or books that don’t have electronic versions. But for several of my friends, larger libraries filled with beautiful editions are common.
The thing we have in common is that we all love to read, and all need advice on what we should get. Theatre still exists in the age of movies and television. Radio too. In many parts of the world, books remain the best way to move information between people. The books, even the physical ones, aren’t going anywhere for a while. And even when they do, there will still be people who want the physical books. The question will then become, are you offering a great experience for those people as well?
Last Dance
I don’t think there is anything truly revolutionary in this post. In fact, I would say that my observations are rather plain, and obvious.
This is exactly my point. The only new idea up there is affiliate sales. Everything else is all about leveraging the expertise of the people in the space to the maximum benefit of the customers.
This is simply because, while I know that the WAY we buy, sell and share book (and knowledge) is changing rapidly, the way in which we share them isn’t likely to change as much, or as quickly.
The thing that people now and in the future will have in common is a desire to read books, no matter what the format.
The question is simply how to provide the experiences on a way that makes the most sense for people now and the people in the future.