The Kindle was released into the world today.
In anticipation of the event the UK magazine Retail Week published the piece: As e-readers launch, is it the last chapter for bookshops? by George MacDonald.
Surprisingly, before the yawn and the customary filing in the ‘end of the bookshop is near’ file the story balances itself out. It actually ponders “if the world of print will prove resilient” and offers some nuggets of sanity from Tim Waterstone, founder of the Waterstone’s, the UK’s largest chain bookseller.
While Waterstone admits that the e-book revolution will have an effect he also is quite convinced that books aren’t going anywhere for some time to come.
Waterstone says:
“The book as we know it now, the printed word on paper, is such a strong consumer product and so loved that it’s going to be many years before it’s seriously moved off the shelves. “I don’t want to sound Luddite – look what happened in the music industry – but the book is something different. It’s not expensive, it’s wonderful to collect, it’s the most beautifully tactile product and bookshops are lovely tactile places. They’re a form of entertainment. I think it will be a long time before we see anything really serious to divert people away from traditional book buying.”
Granted he has over 300 bookshops to worry about but he is spot on.
Just imagine if indeed this is the last chapter for bookshops and the e-reader onslaught is just a passing fad, a blip on the screen in the history of the book, then were will we be!
The amazing image above is from the Retail Week piece