Last year, as I began planning to open a bookstore, I was asked numerous times, “Are you sure it is a good idea to open a bookstore when everyone is going to e-Readers?” I hesitated then…ran forward in the planning.
I ran forward in the plans for a bookstore after reading an article (in a hard copy magazine, which I picked up at the local Barnes & Noble) about small, mom-and-pop bookstores thriving while big-box stores are closing doors to their storefronts and focusing more efforts on the e-commerce side of their business. Why are the small stores thriving while big-box stores are not? They are personable. It is a wonderful feeling to walk into a store and be greeted by name and asked about the well-being of the family. It is that heartfelt concern for the customer guest in the store. Family owned businesses are run by those who practically live at the store, making customers “guests” in the owners’ second home.
The product? Hard copy books and magazines. E-Readers are handy and trendy but you can’t pass one along to a friend when they are in the hospital AND continue to read your next novel. You probably won’t leave it on Grandma’s nightstand at the assisted living so that the next family member or volunteer can continue to read aloud the following chapter. You won’t save it for the grandkids when your own children are done having you reading it for the millionth time at bedtime. You can’t tear out a page from an e-copy of Better Homes and Gardens to give to that savvy baker friend. Hard copy books allow us so many opportunities that e-Readers just don’t although the electronic copies are much easier to drop into a backpack or purse to read in the endless waiting rooms.
I, personally, enjoy sitting in bed, getting lost between the pages, then passing my latest adventure on to a friend so they can have the time of their life in the comfort of their own home…then pass it along again.
thestudyhallbooks 