How Should Bookstores Cope in the Digital Age?

This is the question recently posed by Publishing Perspectives.

From the piece...


Cox excuses himself to pick up the phone. In the store today are just himself and his staffer Amanda, a 6-year veteran and relative newbie among his four person staff, the longest clocking in at over 13 years. She’d been helping a lingering and indecisive customer about what to pick up for her summer reading. “Is this like The Secret History?” she asked, holding up Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. “Well, it’s really quite different,” said Amanda, diplomatically, “but maybe you might like this.” She ducks behind the counter and emerges with a couple of other choices. They talk back and forth.

Visually, the shop’s exposed brick interior is heaven for any book jacket junkie. The walls are packed with floor-to-ceiling shelves, and floor space is dominated by browser-friendly display tables. In the front of the store, books are generally arranged face-out, offering up a cacophony of color and subject matter. “Generally, when books face out, it’s just a pleasurable way to browse,” offers Amanda. Toward the rear of the store is a wall of travel guides and a massive wall of fiction. Small sections hone in on books about New York; another houses literature by Americans in Paris.

Another gentleman comes in looking for a journal; they have it, he’s happy and on his way. “More and more booksellers are moving away from the notion of community,” Cox considers. “It’s more and more fractured. I want to be a place of retreat… The store exists for the reader, not for the publisher or the marketer.”