But while I feel like I want to share this passion with you, I had no other choice to do it but use my tablet, a very convenient device. Tablets are the future of easy writing, easy reading and easy access to the internet. With my tablet, I control my house lighting system, do my mail, scan documents, share photos, update and read my social media profiles, read the news and write articles such as this. Tablets are well equipped to take the place of conventional devices that originally do all such tasks, in a much more convenient manner.
Having said that, I look at those books stacked in the bookstore where I'm sitting now, and wonder, in a time when I could download and save the entirety of this bookstore on my tablet, are bookstores on their way to become a dying breed?
Let's review the process that puts ideas on a shelf of a bookstore near you.
An idea takes a meaningful form, a writer writes it, an editor edits the writer's manuscript, a publisher prints the manuscript and markets the book, a distributor distributes the book, and a bookstore buys the book and displays it on a shelf for you.
We all realize that conventional marketing methods are no longer the best or most efficient. Social media and emails are better-targeted marketing mediums and hand held devices are a growing, successful and efficient platform that allows marketeers a wider and faster reach to consumers anytime, anywhere. More and more publishers and distributors are ditching the conventional horse wagon to the light speed of internet when it comes to marketing books.
Google is on their way to 'beam' wifi down on Africa using fleets of drones, and billions of humans with no access to technology today will soon communicate with the rest of the world. In our part of the world, those who only until a year ago looked down on smart phone users as sociophobes, today understand that smart phones make people better social creatures; smart phones did not kill communication, it killed distance.
What is it then that makes us want to own a paper book? Readers, including myself, have little connecting them to printed books other than emotional nostalgia, and in few years everyone who uses a hand held device would have downloaded and read at least one book electronically, and many would own few printed books and hundreds of digital books. There are dozens of readers on the market in addition to multi purpose tablets, and with the availability of wifi, downloading books becomes easier everyday. Digital books are much easier to distribute; light speed distribution that has no limitation to amounts being printed or stocked. Distributors and publishers would cut immensely on the cost of printing, storing, shipping and delivery which brings down the cost of the book itself and increases the margin of profit.
From the process that brings ideas from one head to the heads of billions, publishers and distributors will benefit more and do a better job by ditching the printed books and moving to ebooks.
What is it then that makes the business of bookstores stay unchanged for more than a millennium?
By offering digital books, buying, storing, and shelving would become unnecessary. A bookstore like the one I'm in now could keep the spirit of reading if it used less space for storing and shelving, and more for lounges and readers, all while reducing cost, killing risk, increasing profit and offering unprecedented variety!
Just imagine how many trees we could save if all bookstores transform from paper to digital.
Sincerely,
Nael Gharzeddine
