For the next two weeks I’ll be travelling in and reporting from the UK, including a spell in Edinburgh for the Edinburgh International Book Festival. For now, here’s a field report from Hampstead, onetime dwelling place of John Keats and John Constable, and intellectual Mecca of north London.
Close by where I am now is a branch of Daunt Books, independent travel specialist book chain and small travel publisher. As you can see, it makes no visible concession to e-books or e-readers.
Full shelves, full bookstore, fine children’s area at the back, but no ereaders.
Further up into Hampstead High Street, we have a more representative sample of the UK book trade: the Hampstead branch of the Waterstones chain. Here, ereaders are prominently displayed, right by the front entrance to the store, with Kindles and other devices on show, and shelves full of Kindle cases and accessories along the wall behind.
That said, there doesn’t seem to be any effort to integrate the ereaders with the other promotions and campaigns in the store. No ereaders shown on book display stands. Of course, booksellers may have no material incentive to do that, and may dismiss such approaches as encouraging showrooming, but you can’t help but feel that an opportunity is being missed. And the ereaders themselves are no more imaginatively displayed than handsets in a mobile phone showroom, with no use of the physical space to reflect and reinforce the content and culture available through them.
There are some first impressions anyway. More reports soon.
Nothing like a Scottish old time master bookseller in the high street!