The Bookseller 9 February 2012
There's an interestingcollection of comments over at the Guardian's Comment is Free websitefollowing a piece I penned earlier this week on whether subsidies should beemployed in order to help high street booksellers survive on the high street. My view wasthat government hand-outs won't hold back the twin forces of digital readingand aggressive discounting, but there was still plenty indies could do tosustain their businesses.
One commentator makes a particularly relevant point: "What might behelpful is the Booksellers Association brokering an eBook platform open to allindependent shops. Most of us don't have the technical staff to do thisourselves, and the publishers need a centralised push to get them to work withus (and make it economically worthwhile)."
I think it is a suggestion worth pursuing and it is perhaps an area wheregovernment funding could be employed since the present administration has beenactively promoting its "Blueprint for Technology" through variousinvestment funds. Of course Gardners and Google might argue that platformsalready exist that enable indies to sell e-books, and the Hive this morning revealedimpressive digital sales growth.
In the US the American Booksellers Association runs IndieCommerce, which helpsindies sell books on the web, and also sells e-books via Google. The UKBooksellers Association has already brought over elements of the ABA'sIndieBound scheme, with some success. IndieCommerce is a whole differentball-game, but as its recentannouncement about not stocking Amazon-published titles shows, the combinedvoice of large numbers of indies remains a powerful force.
With HarperCollins UK today revealing that digitalsales now account for 20% of its trade business, how independent bookshopsgain a foothold in the digital world should be high on everyone's agenda. Wemay not like subsidies over here, but we will like even less a world dominatedonly by Amazon.
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