Charging Readers to Browse

Yes, this is an absurd proposition, but it basically drives home the point I was trying to make last week, which is that technological “solutions” for recommending books basically suck. Yes, they’re getting incrementally better on a site like Goodreads that tries to leverage the “human” factor behind the technology, but they’re still quite a ways off from doing nearly as well as ways of finding books that pre-dated the Internet era.

During an interview on BBC this weekend, UK HarperCollins CEO Victoria Barnsley referred to certain shoe shops that charge customers to try on merchandise. Perhaps, she suggested, bookstores could do that, too. The idea of asking customers to pay for the privilege of browsing physical books before purchasing them is “not that insane,” she said. Bookstores could become, in essence, “book clubs.”

Would you pay to page through novels in a book showroom?

People I spoke with in the industry saw no hope in that direction.

“If it comes to charging admission for customers to browse, we’re done,” said Mark Laframboise, the manager of Politics & Prose in Washington. Rather than expect customers to pay more, he placed the onus on publishers. “What we need is some recognition from publishers that people are learning about books at brick-and-mortar bookstores and buying them through a multitude of channels and platforms. Publishers, in recognition of this, should offer increased co-op and increased discounts to stores.”

Until bookstores figure out how to monitize browsing without pissing everyone off, the solution to this remains: don’t be an anti-social asshole. If you find a book in a bookstore, buy it there, even though you can get it for marginally less on Amazon.

And be nice to the humble blogger. If you discover a book on my site and don’t buy it from a local store for whatever reason, use the Amazon links so I get a commission!

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