Where have all the Bookstores gone?

Where have all the Bookstores gone?

Everyone knows that the era of the general bookstore seems to be slipping away. Despite an attempt to transform into meeting places for coffee, and to broaden supply to magazines and DVDs, recent closures and liquidations sales show that this remedy has at best delayed the inevitable; but why?

Our own analysis concludes that yes, books are generally too expensive to retail in high-street shops, and this assertion is borne out because many discount ‘surplus’ bookstores and on-line discount stores are still around. Our ‘Gen Y’ team member suggested it was because paper book sales are being replaced by Kindles. That must be a whole lot of Kindles!

Of course, the truth is probably a bit of both, and we think a large sprinkle of something else called ‘modern living’.  How many people have as much time for reading as they used to? We love to read, but to take a book around with us is often difficult and clumsy. Can we snatch ten minutes here or there – of course we can; but we wouldn’t take our book around with us in our ten minutes. We might ‘read’ content on our smartphone – the news, or play Solitaire, but a paper book, no.

So the trouble is that paper books are being squeezed out of our modern life. Some of us think that this is not a good thing. Is a portable e-book reader the remedy? It might be, as it allows us to carry our ‘book’ around (in fact our entire library). Reportedly thousands of buyers of Kindles think so. Like us we stopped reading paper books for fun a while back, but maybe, just maybe, the transformation of the media will revive the old habit of reading for recreation once again.

It has for us!