Death of the bookstore; is it corperate greed or something else that had killed competetion?

I do not believe in monopolies. I am sad to say that one business has been very sucessful at creating a monopoly due to other similair businesses closing; Barnes and Noble. I love the smaller bookstore; as a writer the death of most bookstores scares me. I hope to be published in print someday. When I want to read a book I want to sit down with a good old fashioned book.
This reminds of the short story by Issac Asimov;"The Fun they Had". Here is a link to that story: transformingclassrooms.pbworks.com...
I prefer borders over Barnes and noble anyday and I miss Rainy Day Books. Now Borders is closing many locations.media.bordersstores.com... Does anyone really buy into the whole bankruptcy? What do you think keeps causing businesses to close down and go bankrupt? I am afriad the next generation may have a society where there are ramptent monopolies and fewer choses. How expensive that is going to be.
Why do CEOs need millions of dollars to live on? Why not cut the CEOs pay or do something else? We are losing jobs and our culture. KIds no longer read because there are only one or two bookstores. There are librarys but some books you just want to own for yourself.

harry potter and tesco killed the independant bookshop.

reply to post by neonitus


Who is tesco?

reply to post by dreamseeker

Death of the bookstore; is it corperate greed or something else that had killed competetion?

For now, the digital has replaced the printed paper page. The upside is that people can still read in spite of so many other cultural and technological washouts that have stripped us of many basic abilities.

That we read is enough... for now.

It was one person buying a book and posting it online for thousands to freely download.

Maybe also because most yanks can't read past the 3rd grade level so they don't buy books unless there's lots of pictures.

reply to post by redoubt


I wonder what this means to me as a writer. Will it be harder for me to published? I don't want my books only in digital form.

reply to post by dreamseeker


Modern technology killed it.
Why buy a book when you can download anything off the web and never leave the house.
Bookmakers no longer need to print beeeeelions of pages.
They use Ctrl+c Ctrl+v and voila we got a copy of a book, no fuss no muss.
Personally myself i prefer the analog, fat paper, tree killing book over any digital media, but some of the youngins may see things differently.
And i will not lose my book due to dropping it or an emp attack either.

To be fair, Borders simply did not keep up with the times.

Books-A-Million, Im sure will be next. Niche bookstores also, such as religious outlets.

The closing of stores is certainly disturbing, and I am on the fence as far as digital e-books goes. I like the idea of having an e-reader, as we are not wasting any paper. It is economically sound.

However, nothing can replace the feeling of a book actually in your hands. Or going to the library, and browsing the shelves. Browsing titles on your device, does not have the same feel at all.

On the topic of rampant monopolies, the next generations will certainly have that to look forward to. Its sounds like something out of a dystopian sci-fi novel, but its probably true. You will have one conglomerate for almost everything. Hell! It's already like that in rural America! Some people shop exclusively at Wal-Mart, simply because it is convenient.

And in closing, it's an unfortunate fact....but these CEOs walk away clean. They have money, they dissolved the company assests, and they couldnt care less about culture, or our books and other media. They dont care. They are fueled by greed, and do not care what kind of discredit you attempt to throw their way. These people care about numbers, not culture. Stocks, not history.

reply to post by dreamseeker


The only way to succeed in today's market as an author is to go digital. Everyone seems to want books in digital format than in book form in today's society. I am a published author of two suspense thriller fiction books, and I have 10 requests for an E-book to every 1 for a hardcopy. It's just the times. I don't like it but have accepted it. Here's a link to my first book if you're interested.

www.freewebs.com...

I hope they give their laid off employees some money to live on or at least not fight against their unemployment. I loved going to small bookstores and browsing through books. Some stores let you sit in a chair and read. They had free coffee or cookies. It was great. I used to buy from andersons a smaller bookstore and rainy day books.

reply to post by kennylee


Now this is cool as well. I like both real books and online books but I would rather read a novel on the coach or laying on my bed. I read more short stories over the internet. I think the internet/digital idea is great for short stories and poems. I self publish on Lulu.com there if a person buys a book they get a printed copy.

All of the big stores will die out along with all the crap thy sell.

The mass market garbage will move to digital distribution exclusively and the small mom and pop brick and mortars will cater to local tastes with local artists and local small publisher works.

Main St is coming back and the strip malls and commercial highways are going to rot back to the open land they used to be.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


I dont see any mom and pop bookstores around at all. In fact when doing a search for bookstores they are all religous bookstores. I love the experience of just being in a small bookstore. It is not just about the books but the atomosphere and just enjoying being around people. Bookstores would often have events like poetry readings or book signings.

reply to post by dreamseeker


The small sellers are all that's up here. There's one big-box Barnes and Noble or Borders or something like that in Concord but nobody but tourists ever go there.

Every three towns or so has a small seller with constant events going on and they appear to be doing quite well.

I noticed you used the phrase "when I do a search." This may come as a shock to just about everyone here but most of the small businesses dont have a web presence or even updated white pages info that can be used in maps or number look ups online.

Probably due to the number of website swindlers going around charging a months salary to put together a simple page hosted for 5/year that have made so much money in the past raping people who dont know any better laying a solid foundation of mistrust and skewed expectations. This behavior among others is what leads me to conclude the web is dead for a growing number of people. All of the tech-rape that has been going on the past 10-20 years is coming to a head.

Everything is collapsing back to the local level. Even the internet. Those who keep pushing the unnatural and unsustainable growth of splendor are just going to end up bankrupt or in jail.

Cities will behave differently of course. They will likely force growth to bankruptcy and their spoiled population of 20 somethings will blame rural America for their troubles and the fed will institute more rural oppression to herd the cattle into the failed cities where we'll all slum in the ghettos until war kills us all.

But before that the shrinking of the beast will take foothold and will work very well for everyone who practices it and even produce signs of a great turn around and a new prosperity based upon living within means only to be cut short by urban greed and government hostility.

I like roaming around in book stores because I like the way they smell, and I like the quiet.
I find the books I want, then come home and order them from Amazon.
Is that bad?

The three Borders within range of here were always empty. Barnes and Nobel, for whatever reason simply just drew more people. Here's an odd thing, though. Most of these Borders in our area were also within walking distance of Barnes and Noble.

This is pretty much the same with some other competitors in this area—Home Depot is always across the street from Lowes, Walgreens is always across the street from CVS. Boneheaded moves in my view. I would put them where there is no coverage of a similar sort,. But someone makes the decisions to place these competing stores right near each other, for reasons that I'm sure make perfect sense to them and which were "explained" to me once but still didn't make sense.

Anyway, my take on this is that a thriving economy might have been able to sustain and support both, but a sick economy cannot. So it seems like it's just the natural order of things that one is going to fail. I'm not sure that it's so much a question of monopolies in this case.

But if monopolies do concern you, and you mourn the deaths of the independents, support what independents are left. Buy and shop locally. I think we'll probably start getting back to that soon. Cyclical centralization and decentralization also seem to be the natural order of things.

I love bookstores. I can sit in a bookstore for hours I really like the little used bookstores but I also really like Barnes and Noble. I go to all the bookstores looking for different things at each. I know if I can't find something at one I know one of the others will have it. As for e-readers I do not like them and will never own one. I would rather have the books. E-readers take away from books and they also take away jobs! If people prefer these more book stores will close because nobody will be buying the books they will just download it on their e-reader. I hate when I am in the bookstore and they try to sell me one. I always tell them my thoughts on them and then they realize they aren't as good as they thought! Books you can read when there is no power, how will you do that on an e-reader when the battery dies or what happens if it gets wet or you drop it? Books can get wet and still be readable

The internet has definitely hurt bookstores, i am probably part of the problem as i usually use Amazon to buy my books.I don't believe torrents etc will hurt book sales though...i along with other people i know much prefer to have a paper book in my hand rather than reading a book off a screen...whether it's the computer screen or something like a kindle, it just feels odd.

I can't stand online material for technical subjects. I prefer old-fashioned printed books.

But the power of the internet has probably killed small bookstores. You can almost order any book you want online, many books which you won't find in bookstores. I predict that in the future only bookstores in third-world countries will thrive, mostly because they sell cheap international editions of unreasonably expensive textbooks. I found a book that's over $50 dollars on Amazon for about $12 online. Until the greedy academic publishing b-tards find a way to legally ban such sales, either online shops like Amazon or bookstores that sell international editions will thrive.