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Brick & mortar bookstores- R.I.P. & good riddance

Abuse of power or no, I should ban you for a week for putting that image in my head.























































I keed, I keed.
 
A friend of mine (former art professor) started a used book store. It lasted a couple of months and then he had to haul off all of the books God knows where. That's why I can't move from this falling down house -- too many books. I'd say that I live in a Library, but at least in a Library all of the books are on shelves. We've run out of walls to put up more shelves, in the basement too. I've got thousands of LPs. I'm going to get an EBay account and sell them. My wife won't let me sell or give away the books. My poor son when we die..................
 
robert eggleton said:
A friend of mine (former art professor) started a used book store. It lasted a couple of months and then he had to haul off all of the books God knows where. That's why I can't move from this falling down house -- too many books. I'd say that I live in a Library, but at least in a Library all of the books are on shelves. We've run out of walls to put up more shelves, in the basement too. I've got thousands of LPs. I'm going to get an EBay account and sell them. My wife won't let me sell or give away the books. My poor son when we die..................
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This story comes to mind when I think about what to do with my collection when I kick the bucket. Although nobody will want to accept my whole catalog.

I suppose valuable first editions, signed editions, complete series, etc. could be willed to a friend with similar tastes.

About 75% of my library is non-fiction and there is a sizeable sub-set of that that are reference books that tend to hold their value and relevance. Those I will probably pass on to a fellow collector or enthusiast.
 
Cuthbert's is a heart-warming story, especially beacuse of its happy outcome.

Lest it create visions of sugar-plum fairies in the minds of us here who love books and reading, however, I'll offer my own experience. Short form: Second-hand books are not as valuable as one might think and, second, they are not disposed of so easily.

I moved once (among many times) and had a dozen cartons of books on my hands that I had to get rid of. The local library refused them, unless I brought them in by ones and twos every so often, otherwise their very limited accession staff would be overwhelmed. I told them I couldn't do that and asked if they wouldn't take them in bulk, and process them at their leisure. Nope, no space, no interest -- not even curious about what kinds of books they were. Not even interested for possible resale in their own library book sale -- if they had a book sale.

The local used-book shop wasn't interested either, before price was even mentioned. His clientele wanted romances on a lending basis; trade papers, no interest whatever, and he went back to his reading.

Finally, I saw an appeal for book donations for a worthwhile cause. When the fellow said I only had to box them (already done) and he would pick them up right from my living room floor and cart them off, I agreed in a blink.

Because, re pricing, $0.00 is not the lowest books can go for; one may have to pay to get rid of them, and I wasn't in the mood.

On the upside, the numbers and values mentioned in the article(s) suggest an average value of perhaps $16/book ($1,000,000 / 60,000 books), if my arithmetic is right. That strikes me as very generous in terms of my experience of buying, selling and looking around. I will quickly agree that all depends on rarity, condition, edition, signed/unsigned, complete set or not, and so forth. (Just ordinary supply and demand at work.)

But, I would offer the final thought that I am not a collector, just a buyer; and my holdings are perhaps better described as an "accumulation" rather than a "collection."

So, I am impressed that his collection found a home, and at such exalted or pehaps enthusiastic estimates of its value. For myself, I am glad that the Salvation Army is just down the road a short piece. :sad:
 
i think book stores are mostly dead here in Australia. 'brick and mortar' whether a chain label or independent, are full of books that are vastly overpriced, due in part at least to the short sightedness of the federal government, who think they have a mandate to 'protect' Australian publishers, and help to keep the prices way too high. for eg, a new release hardback will retail for an average of $60, paperback for $35. is it any wonder bookstores are failing nation wide? even online, most prices here in Au are still outrageous. i've long given up, altho i still roam through sales of course.. :)
 
How True!!! Now with Amazon and Kindle available on almost all computers and platforms you can get the same books electronically with out even leaving the house. Buy the book and your reading it minutes later. Now you can buy a fiction novel that is well written for 2.99 have it in your hands in less than a minute. I personally have the iPad and I read many books from the kindle store and I simply love it.
 
I will always be a fan of brick n mortar anything, bookstores, movie theaters, ....
One thing I expect is that the clerks know how their store is laid out and how to find what I want. A clerk in a bookstore is not a career so I don't expect them to be the source of knowing what I should read next; that's my job. Besides, most of these stores have a staff recommendation section if I'm interested in what they think.
Price? Well, I enjoy getting out of the house, wandering about the store and usually find the price worth the immediate gratification and not much different after paying for shipping.
I also can take or leave the cafe addition, so don't see that as a factor wither way.
 
Personally, I think that the combined practices of the traditional Houses / industry and the newer self-publishing industries will kill Literature as a contributor of cultural advancement in not only this country, but across the globe. Literature, especially fiction, is not just a matter of personal enjoyment, but of enlightenment. If one just wants enjoyment, download another Batman or vampire movie, or get addicted to a computer game. The masterpieces of the future are destined to be found under mattresses and trashed without notice. Robert Eggleton, Rarity from the Hollow
 
I think that's overly pessimistic. Right now, we have easier and cheaper access to more literature, from all over the world, often literally at the push of a button, than at any other time in human history. That's not to say the Sturgeon's Law ("90% of everything is crap") doesn't still hold up, but the amount of quality literature available now, compared to in the times of Cervantes, or Sterne, or Swift, or Dickens, or Dostoevsky, or Woolf, or Joyce, etc etc etc, is infinitely greater. The trick is to find it - and of course, for publishers to find their readers; there are about 5 million books and 7 billion people on this planet, and mapping them to each other in this new environment is a challenge. Those who don't know how to do that, who just look at The Internet as this huge unfathomable beast that you can maybe get to magically sell your book for you if you poke it with a stick, will lose out; those who can figure it out, and there's plenty of people in so-called traditional publishing working hard at this problem, will always have a place.
 
While I mostly use my Kindle for convenience it is still a treat to browse in a book store (and the library) - to see the book covers, the titles, the scope of topics available etc. and I certainly hope this continues.
 
Our community is raising funds for a new Library. By the time the project reaches its goal, libraries may be obsolete also. On the advice of Piers Anthony, I made sure that this reprint of Rarity from the Hollow would be on paper too. That advice may soon be obsolete too. Do you remember when ebooks were so disrespected? And, a few years ago, I remember trading book with a guy who had self-published his children's book. He concluded that it had ruined his writing aspirations as not even e-book publishers at that time would accept his manuscripts. Man, things change fast.
 
robert eggleton said:
Our community is raising funds for a new Library. By the time the project reaches its goal, libraries may be obsolete also. On the advice of Piers Anthony, I made sure that this reprint of Rarity from the Hollow would be on paper too. That advice may soon be obsolete too.
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I agree that advice is getting very perishable, and that building book libraries is definitely a speculation on the future.
. Do you remember when ebooks were so disrespected?
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Judging from comments here, I think e-books are still pretty much disrespected and always have been. Or did you mean that e-books were once more respected and have now come down to levels of extreme disrespect that we have never seen before?
And, a few years ago, I remember trading book with a guy who had self-published his children's book. He concluded that it had ruined his writing aspirations as not even e-book publishers at that time would accept his manuscripts.
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I have heard that too, elsewhere, that self-publishing is the death knell. But who knows how the current turmoil will eventually settle out? It might change, for example, when publishers figure out how to muscle in on the action and take profits from it.
Man, things change fast.
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Perhaps even faster than that.
Cheers
 
robert eggleton said:
And, a few years ago, I remember trading book with a guy who had self-published his children's book. He concluded that it had ruined his writing aspirations as not even e-book publishers at that time would accept his manuscripts.
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Peder said:
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I have heard that too, elsewhere, that self-publishing is the death knell. But who knows how the current turmoil will eventually settle out? It might change, for example, when publishers figure out how to muscle in on the action and take profits from it.
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And then there's E L James...
 
Landslide said:
And then there's E L James...
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From what I can tell, the copy of 50 Shades that one buys in Barnes and Noble, for example, has been considerably scrubbed editorially and improved over the original online copy posted by E. L. James. The online version was roundly criticized (and mocked) for hordes of spelling errors, syntax errors and similar editorial gaucheries before the published version was available; the writing in the published version is now really quite smooth in these respects, with typos extremely rare for example. So, some careful editing by someone went into the final copy we now see and it can be argued that they deserve their credit and share of the profit. But, either way, it is definitely a sucess story despite all criticism.
 
My point was that she started out as a self-published author and now she's published by a major publishing house. Meaning that if a publishing house sees potential in a self-published author/book, they'll consider publishing him/it despite the fact that they've self-published before. I think it's a case by case situation and things are not black and white, they are many shades of gray (see what I did here?).
 
And also despite all the hubbub about self-published authors going it alone and publishers becoming irrelevant, what has happened virtually every single time* a self-published author has started making serious money? They've signed up with a real publisher.

* Well, not that it's happened all that often.
 
Me too. Now let's get together with beer good because he's buying. BTW, I wouldn't switch from my small publisher to a giant even if it was buying the beer.
 
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