People used to go into Oscar Wilde Book Shop or A Different Light, check out the books, and go home to order from Amazon. Nowadays, you can scan the book's ISBN with your telephone and order from Amazon on the spot. I was interested in almost everything these stores carried and regret their loss. Barnes & Noble and Borders must store thousands of books that only a few customers might want -- not economic.
I worked for Bobbs-Merrill in Indianapolis which had an enormous warehouse out back. When a title sold fewer than 700 copies a year, it was dropped as not justifying the storage cost. Bill Hackett, a former BM head, started his own publishing company in a old garage downtown in 1972, picked up the dropped philosophy and cultural titles, added some more, and made a nice living selling them to philosophy departments. Low sales, but low overhead. Bill and his wife Frances, Mom & Pop publishers.
4 comments:
Very sad, I like a book store I can go into and LOOK at the books before I buy...online is NOT the same or good enough for me!
It's particularly sad for Michigan (and the flagship store in Ann Arbor, where I've spent many pleasurable hours 1999-2010).
People used to go into Oscar Wilde Book Shop or A Different Light, check out the books, and go home to order from Amazon. Nowadays, you can scan the book's ISBN with your telephone and order from Amazon on the spot. I was interested in almost everything these stores carried and regret their loss. Barnes & Noble and Borders must store thousands of books that only a few customers might want -- not economic.
I worked for Bobbs-Merrill in Indianapolis which had an enormous warehouse out back. When a title sold fewer than 700 copies a year, it was dropped as not justifying the storage cost. Bill Hackett, a former BM head, started his own publishing company in a old garage downtown in 1972, picked up the dropped philosophy and cultural titles, added some more, and made a nice living selling them to philosophy departments. Low sales, but low overhead. Bill and his wife Frances, Mom & Pop publishers.
I worked for A Different Light here in New York for about 3 years.
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