The corner bookstore and the amazon partnership
If you enjoy reading, as much I do, and even more so with my new Kindle, you will realize that the challenge of finding books is still the biggest problem even though you can get them instantly anywhere, even with Amazon’s recommendation engine. Now Kindle (probably the iPad will do the same as well) has literally transformed how I read, because its the ultimate reading user experience – On the subway, I can sync to the page I was on at home and then continue to read my book on my Kindle Ap on the iPhone, on the airplane, I can download a couple books preflight, or just sitting on the couch or the beach and I can read my kindle like a book, and when I am done with that book I have access to entire bookstore at my command.
But it isn’t the reading experience I struggle with, its finding books. You see this is exceptionally complicated for my family, as we all have Kindles and we all have multi-discplines of categories we like to read. I find the best way to find books is the old fashion way word of mouth or walking into a bookstore. But with Kindles we can no longer share books, so finding still requires word of mouth and then going out and buying. But walking into Barnes and Noble is basically the same as logging onto Amazon and finding that perfect book, is exhausting and its not very efficient in terms of user experience. Its not like having my mother-in-law who is a veracious reader, is on the board of a Detroit book event group, and knows both my wife and I well recommend x book because she knows we will like it both after reading it and knowing us personally.
I am not sure if either technology or bricks and mortars can ever get achieve the recommendation engine of my mother in-law, but just like a date recommendation it requires someone who knows both parties intimately to make the perfect match, and that’s more than your last purchase through a single channel (ie amazon.com)
Living in New York, especially in the neighborhood we live in, we have the wonderful opportunity to browse local bookstores, and yesterday we went into Posman Books in Chelsea Market. I have to say that instantly this became one of my favorite bookstore. The difference between Posman Books and Barnes and Noble is that like a niche museum or art gallery, Posman Books is curated, its curated looking at books as art, and creating an environment that supports that methodology. The books are basically the same price as Barnes and Noble, but the quantity is a fraction, and the size of the space is but a corner of one of the larger B&Ns. But you don’t have to fight through crowds of people, climb over people laying (sometimes sleeping) in the aisles, or hike 20 miles and speak to five people to find that copy of a small run publisher that fits your needs, most likely you might not even find any of that (including that niche publisher, unless the folks at Posman choose them), but you will find an environment and a collection of books that will satisfy any of the world’s literati.
So the question then is what happens when I only buy on Kindle? Or I only buy on Amazon or Apple? Its simple. . . Posman books suffers and runs the risk of disappearing. But this doesn’t need to happen! Posman doesn’t need to be just a bookstore tucked away in a corner of Chelsea Market. They can be a curator, a brand, and an ambassador for the perfect books, and so can 192 Books, Biography Bookstore, or any of the wonderful bookstores in the world. While yes maybe their revenues at their bricks and mortar stores may fall, but they can simply diversify this revenue. They should partner with Amazon and Apple vs fear it. And Amazon should leverage the foundation they have of an affiliate marketing program (like the one where if you chose to buy the kindle from my link above I make a small commission) and create the small bookstore sales platform. The program should allow Posman Books or any other bookstore to create a page that when people are browsing their site or have been in their store and want to remember a book, they saw can simply go to their new ecommerce site (funded and hosted by amazon) and buy the book directly from Amazon’s fulfillment platform, either via download or hardcover, and in return Amazon can design the program so that it delivers a similar margin on the book to the retailer as selling it in their stores. This allows the retailer to continue to deliver their valuation of curation of books as a small bookstore, but ultimately they can extend their brand beyond the single retail environment, prevent themselves from loosing money on the movement to more books being sold or downloaded via the web, and ultimately scale their business far beyond one or two single disconnected local stores.
Just a thought. . .
