BookstorePeople strives to help independent bookstores, but bookstores are dependent upon the publishing industry and it’s in trouble. We talked about these issues in the past and will continue in 2009. I’ve come across two excellent, if lengthy, posts about the future of the publishing industry:
Tom Engelhardt surveys recent events
Tom Engelhardt, author (including the novel The Last Days of Publishing), editor, Fellow at The Nation Institute and founder of TomDispatch.com, wrote a post summarizing specifically how the publishing industry is slashing and cutting its staff and book lists, bookstores are sending an increasing percentage of book orders as “returns,” and the reading population is changing. He offers interesting insights into why publishers have been shielded from the Internet onslaught until recently. Primarily, books don’t promote advertising, so they were ignored and escaped the problems of competing with online alternatives to newspapers and magazines. That could be changing with the advent of e-readers. He does suggest that reading electronically will probably include an advertising angle sometime in the future. The Internet has changed book reading though by offering a cheap alternative, Mr. Engelhardt notes that a month of Internet service with all it offers is about the same price as a paperback or hardback. Reading isn’t the cheapest entertainment any longer. Read the rest of this entry »
Family Resolution Tradition
Claire
Kim
