In a survey by Verso on consumer book buying trends the response was very positive to the question  “If independent bookstores across the country were to market their own brand of a dedicated e-reader device, comparable in price and features to the leading competition (e.g. Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader), how likely would you be to purchase one?”

However, I have my doubts:

It seems to me that for independent book sellers to somehow get it organized to produce a universal dedicated ereader that they could sell in their stores, and thus sell ebooks to be read on these ereaders is more than a little far fetched.

Just think about it for a minute – The hassles of research and development of this ereader, then getting it manufactured for a reasonable price, and then the support….  The mind boggles more than a little!

Sell ebooks in the stores:

What would seem to me to be perhaps a better route for independent book stores to follow is to concentrate on finding practical ways of selling ebooks through their stores, and by this I don’t mean setting up online ebook stores, but selling ebooks literally in their stores, along with paper books of course.

High street ebook stores:

What I envisage here is that independent book shops continue to display and sell paper books as they have always done, and continue to offer the much valued personal contact to their customers that makes independent book stores such a pleasure to visit, but add a whole level of service by selling ebooks directly from the store.

This could be achieved by having a number of set-ups in the store where people can browse for ebooks and then connect their ereaders to the machine and buy and download their choice of ebook.  A system that is already in use in some railway stations in China where they have placed ebook selling units, beside the ones that sell soft drinks and snacks.

Equally, it could be done as follows, one wanders around the store, looking at books, until one finds a book one wants to buy in ebook form.  One then goes to the sales person, tells them the ebook one has chosen, hand over the ereader and the money, and the ebook is then installed on the ereader… all done and away to read the ebook.

Ideally these devices would be able to work with any ebook format, thus allowing customers who happen to have a Sony, or Nook or Kindle to all buy ebooks that would work on their particular ereader from these stores.

Seems to me to be an ideal solution, we would still be able to talk to the owners of the stores about our choice of ebook, as we have always done when buying paper books from such stores, also we could browse the shelves and actually see and handle the paper versions of any book we wanted to buy in ebook form, so much more pleasant than trying to find a book online.

Need to get publishers and book distributers on board:

For this to work, obviously the independent book sellers would need access to a serious range of ebooks, which means setting up a system with publishers and distributers to be able to download these ebooks.  But this shouldn’t be too hard to set up, independent book sellers obviously already have their supply chain well set up, so this is merely an extension of the existing system seem to me.

Could be fun too.

Share with us:

What do you think about the idea of independent book sellers lurching into selling ebooks this way?  Or should they produce their own ereader?