Interesting post over at Dead Guy on what book buying will be like in 5 or 10 years. I love Janet’s posts, and I always find the topic of book returns by stores to be interesting. I never understood how publishers allowed returns to get so out of hand (For example: A bookstore is moving? They send everything back instead of paying to move it.) The basic problem is that publishers made it too easy to return anything. The booksellers have nothing to lose if they don’t push sales (even by such simple things as doing the marketing they sign up to do.) In the past, the only way a publisher could get a book to the public was through stores. That simply isn’t the case anymore and it’s high time the booksellers lost some of their leverage and had to start doing more to sell what they actually order. They would waste less fuel (in getting books there and then returning them), and other people’s money if they weren’t allowed to willy-nilly send anything and everything back.

Anyway, in the article Janet basically thinks that bookbuying is going the way of print-on-demand. You walk in, browse, and when you buy the book, it’s printed right there in the store. In the comments, someone argued that regular bookstores would never go away completely because there are collectors and die-hard book shoppers (I’m paraphrasing). Hmm.

My take? Things do change. I used to browse a bookstore almost every weekend. Now? I browse Amazon or other online bookstores, including Barnes and Noble (their website is somewhat faster a lot of the time.) I used to buy at least two to five books a month. Now? I go to the library once or twice a month and I buy almost exclusively online. For one, the selection is much larger and let’s face it: I don’t like every book I try. I’ve gotten pickier and I want to try authors for free. For two, the used book selection became very accessible–both by listing and by price about 7 years ago. So for several years, I did most of my purchases via Amazon used.

Right now I’m finding that used books are no longer nearly as accessible by price because of shipping charges. Until there is some way to combine used books and save on shipping, this route is fast becoming obsolete for me. It’s actually cheaper in many cases for me to find three or four new books on Amazon and eliminate shipping charges altogether using their promotions. I get more books in one drop. It takes me longer to shop, but I store up the books I read about that I want and then I go buy them all in one or two clicks.

There are times, of course, when buying used is still the cheapest option, and I will contiue to exercise such option when that is the case.

The point I’m making is that people younger than me are going to be even more inclined to shop online. They grew up with a computer in the household. They won’t care if it’s print-on-demand or shipped from a warehouse. Buying online will be a normal part of their lives and they may never even learn the fine art of browsing. For those desiring instant gratification (been there with books many a time–but often, the bookstore doesn’t have it anyway!) the bookstores will always serve a purpose. Bookstores are already changing–they are becoming places to socialize. This may or may not lead to a book purchase.

I agree that book buying is changing. I happen to think that it is going to be more influenced by online purchasing than changing bookstores. Bookstores will change, but they would have to change an awful lot to get me back in there. If they become more “interactive” in sales by adding video and sound, that’s not going to bring me in the store. To get me, the product would have to be accessible and cheaper than I can find online. Right now that isn’t the case and it doesn’t appear to be headed that way.

What are your thoughts? How do you buy most of your books now? Has that changed in the last 10 years?