Why book buying will be dramatically different in five years.

Janet Reid

Returns have been a subject of complaints at every publishing watering hole in town and a lot of panel discussions at BEA and now blogs for quite some time. “Returns” is the business model that allows a bookstore to order a book and return it to the publisher if it doesn’t sell. It’s not quite consignment but it’s damn close.

I’ve heard of Barnes and Noble stores sending back the contents of an entire store when they moved from one location to another. I couldn't believe it but that’s exactly what happened.

Recently Borders announced it will turn more titles face out on their shelves. Since they’re not adding shelf space, they returned about 30% of their inventory in one massive blow to a lot of smaller publishers.

Yea, verily returns stinketh.

Yet, until now there’s been no compelling reason to stop the practice. Bookstores like it, it’s like getting to try stuff on for free. Publishers don’t love it, but it means bookstores order more and maybe something unexpected will hit big. Authors loathe it when they get their royalty statements and fully 1/3 of what they are owed is held in reserve against returns, but authors have no bargaining power to eliminate the returns practice.

Here’s what will end returns: fuel costs. Gas is double what it was several years ago, and all those books go to bookstores via truck. Sending them out, sending them back, all that costs someone money. Make it really expensive to return books, and booksellers and publishers will stop doing it.

Here’s what they’ll do instead: they’ll invest in the bookspresso machine.

In five years you’ll walk into a bookstore and see shelves of books, face out. You’ll see video screens above the shelves. You’ll hold the book up to the screen and a menu about that book will pop up. Author interview, book trailer, other books by the author, blurbs about the books, maybe a couple minutes of the author reading from the book. You can do this right now with music CDs at most bookstores-put on a pair of headphones, dial up a track and listen before purchase.

This is going to be an incredible problem for independent bookstores. For starters, the capital investment for video screens, let alone the bookspresso machine is going to be prohibitive. More challenging though is that the indie store's advantage of "handselling" is going to be diminished. If I can see a lot of information about a book right there at the bookstore, I'm less likely to walk up to the register and ask "what's good." Big ass chain stores are going to get past the problem of retail clerks who don't know the inventory, by making information about the inventory as easy as touch 1 for blurbs, touch 2 for trailer.

Then, If you decide to buy a book, you’ll take it to the register. The clerk will scan the barcode. Then she’ll keep the book and hand you a receipt, just like they do at J&R Electronics when you buy a computer. In ten minutes your book will arrive from the basement where it was freshly printed on a bookspresso machine. Maybe it’s delivered to you in the coffee shop. Maybe it’s waiting for pickup after you shop at other stores in the mall.

It’s an exercise in vanity to predict the future I suppose, but I know that if fuel prices continue to rise, and paper continues to be the book medium of choice, something has to give.

Comments

[Kitty]

While I hate the business of returning books -- what kind of business is that? -- I read this post with a heavy heart. It's bad enough that our only local indie book store is no more, but the thought of what the chains may become is depressing.

...

[Susan Adrian]

[I’ve heard of Barnes and Noble stores sending back the contents of an entire store when they moved from one location to another. I couldn't believe it but that’s exactly what happened.]

Oh, yeah. I have packed up an entire bookstore, shoveled it all into different boxes by publisher, and mailed it back. Except the paperbacks, which ALL got stripped.

Heartbreaking.

[Becky LeJeune]

And everything will go to hell in a handbasket when the machine breaks down! I worked in two bookstores and half the employees didn't even know how to replace the paper in their registers, and if the power went out and they couldn't use the registers, well that was the end of the world!

[Keith Rawson]

I hate to be the optimist here, but this will never happen due to the human factor of buying and selling. The machine printing books would break down far too often. Plus, the indie stores would have a niche due to collectors (Such as myself) who spurn the chain stores to begin with

[Ricardo N. malthus]

Don't believe the hype about fuel. It really isn't that expensive and isn't going much higher. And how much does fuel figure in to the cost of a book, I wonder?

The bookspresso machine sounds wonderful though? I hate other peoples filthy hands on my book. The germs! That's why I can never go to libraries (besides the homeless bums) or used book stores (how gross is that). My thought is bookspresso would bring the price of books down. Hurray for the future!