What if Barnes & Noble and Amazon got married?
In the NYT article, “Why Barnes & Noble is Good for Amazon”, David Carr touches on the symbiotic relationship between the last standing mega bookstore and the online behemoth. He proposes that if B&N were to go out of business Amazon would see a drop in sales as the “reduced opportunity to browse the physical artifact [results] in less online buying”.
What if we took it a bit further and just got the two companies hitched?
Let’s skip past the awkwardness of the actual wedding ceremony (Which Big Five publisher would officiate? Who would be on the guest list - indie booksellers and used bookstores, best-selling authors mingled with self-published authors? yeesh. nightmare. gag.)…
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Instead imagine a world where you go to a B&N either for a quiet moment in the stacks or in the cafe sipping a coffee while perusing a novel. Maybe you go for a book signing, a book club meeting, or your mom dropped you and siblings off so she can go shopping in peace.
During this time you discover an author or book that’s not on a Top 100 bestseller list, you engage in a heated discussion on whether Game of Thrones is as epic as the Lord of the Rings with some random stranger/future friend in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy aisle, and you run your fingers over the binding of the blank journals on display, testing weights and paper textures before choosing the absolute perfect one to hold your inspiration and creativity.
Then when you're finally ready to checkout you have the option of purchasing the actual book or opting for the ebook version. If you walked or rode your bike and don't feel like carrying your purchase home, you could have them mailed to your home instead.
Really it'd be beautiful. It’d be a relief. You can enjoy the instant gratification and clutter free experience of the eBook without feeling like you're burning down a bookstore every time click “Buy now with 1-click” AND you can still have a physical place to discover books, thumb through pages, and be a part of a community that loves to read as much as you do.
There’s probably a bunch of reasons why this is a terrible idea, but when I think of this fantasy book mecca all I see is a win-win scenario.
