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The Drood Review Mystery's Second Century A forum on the future of the genre Original essays Our thoughts Follow-ups This site is copyright (c) 2000-3 by The Drood Review. The Drood Review
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Barbara D’Amato There has been a lot of doomsaying lately about the future of mystery specialty bookstores, and they certainly have been having an extremely hard time. I may be a cockeyed optimist, but I think if they can just hang on a little while, the future looks bright. Let me explain why. What kinds of things make life difficult for mystery bookstores and reduce profits? In no particular order: One, spending lots of time on paperwork. This costs staff money and subtracts time from talking with customers, which book people enjoy. Two, trying to guess which books are going to be big sellers, and guessing how many to order. Three, returning books that didn’t sell. My understanding is that publishers take back the books [or the stripped covers] but the bookstore has to pay postage. Four, discarding shopworn books. Five, having to stock almost everything, to be complete, and to compete with big stores. Six, sending for books not stocked, or having customers go elsewhere because it’s not in stock. Seven, shelving and more shelving and culling shelves. Eight, trying to stock a lot in a small space. Let’s say it’s the year 2010. And it will be soon enough. The machines called books-on-demand or print-on-demand, hereafter called BODPOD, are in every store. These machines, which were demonstrated at Books Expo America a couple of years ago, print books while you wait. At present, they’re large and expensive. So were photocopiers. I can remember the days when no small businesses owned photocopiers – too big, too expensive, too smelly. Everybody has them now. A BODPOD takes input, at present from a disk, but from the net is just around the corner, and prints pages, blocks them together, glues them, prints a color cover, wraps the cover around the book, and voila! Right now, they produce trade-paperback size books at trade-paperback-competitive prices. But the whole recent history of technology tells us that smaller, cheaper units that produce inexpensive paperbacks quickly are only a short way distant in the future. Very soon, every book scannable can be prepared to be shipped out over the net. Assuming that methods for payment to the copyright owner are worked out – and they certainly have been in other product areas – any book can be available anywhere there’s a BODPOD in a matter of minutes. Back to our bookstore in 2010. What will it mean to be able to get any book over the net for a customer? First, the bookstore owner will not have to agonize over whether to buy twenty or a hundred copies of John Smith’s latest blockbuster. She can download one or two as shelf copies for customers to browse, and BODPOD will print up others when they’re needed. Mystery bookstore owners are people who love mysteries. They are not necessarily people who want to spend loads of time guessing what will sell. They don’t want to spend time eight months ahead of pub dates, trying to guess what will be the popular "big books" three-quarters of a year away. Second, the bookstore owner will not have to strip covers of unsold books, which to most of us is like pulling the wings off flies, to send back to the publishers. Mystery bookstore owners are people who love mysteries. They hate destroying books. Third, mystery bookstore owners will never have to say to a customer, "No, sorry, we’re out of that but I could order it," or "No, The Beaded Banana is out of print and I don’t think I can get a copy." Now they can say, "Have a cup of coffee while BODPOD makes you a copy." A bookstore ten feet by thirty feet can have as many titles as a three story, block-wide mega-store. So what will a bookstore in 2010 look like? First, no shopworn stock. BODPOD will print every book fresh and new. Second, with no need to stock multiple copies of best sellers, there’s room for one copy of practically everything. Third, no more shipments arriving damaged. No more shipments of the wrong books. No more lugging boxes. Fourth, the owner and salespersons, relieved of stocking, ordering, culling, packing, shipping, taping, labeling, unpacking and so forth, can spend time on what they do best, discussing mysteries and advising readers. They can run writing groups. They can run reading groups and get any books they want for them, right when they need them. They can have signings for authors whose books have heretofore been out of print. A side effect of not having to ship books, trash books, throw out damaged books, and stock extras that don’t sell, ought to be a better profit margin. Will the supermarkets have BODPODS? Of course. And they will discount, I suppose. But the point is that mystery bookstores will be able to do what mystery bookstores do best, and what they always wanted to do. Be experts. Talk mysteries. Hand sell. Chat with aficionados. Have long term relationships with their customers. In fact, I picture the mystery bookstore of the quite near future to be much like the Elizabethan coffee house, with people of like minds sitting about companionably discussing what they are interested in. The owner and salespeople will be specialists and consultants. Customers will browse and chat, with a cup of coffee or tea, and maybe chocolate biscotti, while their chosen books print up. What’s not to like? Barbara D’Amato’s most recent book is Help Me, Please. |