By Michael Weinstein There’s been a great deal of conjecture lately about the future of the bookstore: What will happen to the B&N stores (especially if they do plan to reduce the number of stores)? What about independent bookstores? Will Amazon crush bricks-and-mortar stores out of existence? Oh, lordy, will there even be such a thing as a bookstore!?!? Not surprisingly, this all made me think of a song. Under time pressure to have a song for the first Earth Day concert in 1970, the great Tom Paxton created the gold standard for songs about ecology when he wrote “Whose Garden Was...

An image has been making the rounds on Reddit of this clever bookshop sign, spotted on the door of The Albion Beatnik in Oxford. Reaction seems to be mixed; some people see such gimmicks as incredibly pretentious. Others are more sanguine and feel, as I do, that it's meant to be a little tongue in cheek, and that if it works, more power to them. Buried amongst the comments are some other gems, including this bookmark giveaway that another reader reported spotting: "Please use this free bookmark wisely. Do not leave it in the rain, nor throw it at your enemy. Eschew...

If you've ever purchased a paperback novel at the airport—or for that matter, a hardcover book, or even a magazine or a candy bar or a cheap tourist trinket—there's a decent chance you picked it up at a branch of Hudson Booksellers, which refers to itself as "The Travelers' Best Friend," and "aiports' #1 bookseller." According to the Hudson Group's Wikipedia entry, the company "operates retail outlets at 59 airports in the U.S. and Canada." And yet prior to March 18 of this year, the bookseller somehow never had its own retail presence on the Internet. With the recent introduction of...

From today's Toronto Star comes this feel-good story about The Cookbook Store, a Toronto landmark celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. The story also has some good lessons for those who wonder how book retail can continue to survive and thrive in today's Amazon-and-Internet economy. Some takeaways? Go with the Flow The article mentions that the store's founder started in on a five-year lease and figured she would 'see what happens.' I think that's a healthy attitude. I've read too many articles about book publishing whose authors twisted themselves into knots trying to predict how the business model was going to change into...

E-book discovery by readers has been much in the news lately, and it's definitely an issue for authors, especially those who are self-published. While readers continue to find their next great book in online stores, some still browse brick and mortar bookstores. Wouldn't it be nice if they could find and buy e-books in a store? No, not showrooming Books-A-Million to buy a book on Amazon. Buy actually buying the e-book in the store, so that the author and the store both make money on the deal. Bitingduck Press has an answer. It's still new, so don't look for it yet...

You may remember a post we ran last Monday about Waterstones Academy, a sort of university for retail booksellers that looks as if it may be launching in England sometime later this year. Waterstones, for those of you not familiar with the name, is a UK-based bookstore chain with some 288 locations dotted throughout the UK and mainland Europe. Courtesy of The Bookseller, we learned that the nine-month-long program, assuming it happens, will be operated through a partnership with the University of Derby, a public school located south of Manchester that's currently home to a little over 22,000 students. (The Academy will also be accredited through...

The Bookseller recently published what appears to be a very interesting article about a sort of bookseller's university that Waterstones—the UK-based bookstore chain—plans to open at some point in the near-to-distant future. And I use the term "appears," by the way, because the article in question in available only to subscribers of the website's premium content, of which I am not one. Bummer. The article's abstract, at any rate, claims that Waterstones Academy, as the school will be known, will be an "industry first" in the UK. Students of the nine month-long program, which will be operated in partnership with the...

Bittersweet news came out this weekend that Nicholas Hoare, a landmark Toronto bookstore, is set to close April 1, 2013. The store is known for its eclectic stock and elegant interior, and has been in operation in three different cities, at various junctures, since 1971. The shocker? This article on the closure says there isn't actually any 'untoward' reason for the closure—no 'competition from big chains will destroy us all' or 'Amazon is killing the little guys' or 'ebooks are causing the death of print.' It's simply that Hoare's lease was up for renewal and Mr. Hoare had a choice to...

TeleRead posted earlier about an idea that was floated by Victoria Barnsley, a HarperCollins CEO, during a recent NPR interview: the idea of charging people for the privilege of browsing in bookstores. The idea was that they'd pay to browse, and then go home and order online from the vendor of their choosing. The analogy Barnsley gave with this was that of a high-end clothing store—say, for wedding dresses—charging a nominal trying fee that is taken out of the cost of your purchase. But I think that analogy is a faulty one, and I think the true analogy demonstrates why 'pay...

Would you pay to browse a bookstore's shelves? Victoria Barnsley, CEO of HarperCollins UK & International, discussed that concept during a recent interview on BBC's The Bottom Line with Evan Davis. "In America, certain shoe shops are charging to try on shoes. These people just go in, try them on and go and order them online,” Barnsley said. “I think the idea of a bookshop becoming a book club is not that insane, actually. You actually pay for the privilege of browsing.” Pay to browse. In a bookshop. [caption id="attachment_78843" align="alignright" width="161"] Victoria Barnsley, HarperCollins UK and Int'l CEO[/caption] The idea seemed crazy coming out of...

The Bookseller is reporting today that the European bookstore chain Waterstones will be offering the Kindle Paperwhite for sale—in-store—before the end of October. This should come as welcome news to anyone based in Western Europe who's been planing on buying a Paperwhite, but hasn't actually placed an order for the device through Amazon. According to The Bookseller post, "Amazon.co.uk has told customers that orders placed today for the Paperwhite model would not be expected to ship until the week of [November 12] 'due to popular demand' [for the device]." According to a Waterstones rep, the standard Paperwhite model will be retailing in its...

This coming Saturday, October 6, you can join over 1,000 bookstores and libraries in celebrating Star Wars Reading Day, "an international celebration of books about the science fiction series," reports GalleyCat. From the post: Readers are invited to dress up in costume and go to participating local bookstores which are hosting Star Wars reading parties. Lucasfilms and its publishing partners Abrams, Chronicle Books, Dark Horse, Del Rey, DK Publishing, Random House Audio, Scholastic, Titan Magazines and Workman teamed up for the event. For more information, and to find out where a 'Star Wars Reads Day' event is taking place near you, click here....