I don't know if our bookstores are doing okay. They never have done so well just selling books and magazines. We have Kinokuniya as a major brand, and that's that. It's tough for large bookstores to survive here. We have the independent bookstores that have always sold books online too. Now that their physical stores are shuttered, they depend solely on their online sales platforms. Our National Library Board and its many well-stocked satellite libraries are too powerful and way efficient. How do I not borrow books from the library?!
I haven't seen any local articles about how the Singapore bookstores are doing. I have been buying e-books off of Amazon, and those include Singapore writers, but I rarely buy books in hard copies anymore. Digital book sales should have increased too, and audio books might eke out a bigger market share now when nobody wants to strain their eyes at a screen anymore after a whole day of calls and emails.
Apparently the American (and British) bookstores seem to be surviving, some better than others. In fact, some are thriving, going by Kate Knibbs' thoughtful article titled 'The Coronavirus Pandemic Is Changing How People Buy Books' published in Wired on April 27, 2020. Barnes & Noble was sold to hedge fund Elliott Advisors last year. The hedge fund also owns Waterstones in UK. Seeing how Barnes & Noble’s Nook didn’t take off, and how Amazon now has set up actual bookstores, I don't know how the traditional model of book sales (physical and online + digital) could go on.
Market analysts opined that an economic slowdown encourages the sales of books, in whichever format that is popular with the current readers. “The book market has historically performed well during times of economic downturn, and our first six weeks have shown us that there is unlikely to be a catastrophic cliff in demand for books,” NPD industry analyst Kristen McLean wrote in a recent internal update, noting that book sales grew almost every year during the Great Recession.
This Wired piece isn't providing such an in-depth analysis of how each bookstore is doing. It's a summary. The short article did a touch-and-go. It brushes by some of the major booksellers in the United States, and well, there really aren't many left. It holds one optimistic 'early success' story. It highlighted Andy Hunter's Bookshop that wants to be an alternative to Amazon, and gets independent bookstores onboard and help them sell books.
I haven't seen any local articles about how the Singapore bookstores are doing. I have been buying e-books off of Amazon, and those include Singapore writers, but I rarely buy books in hard copies anymore. Digital book sales should have increased too, and audio books might eke out a bigger market share now when nobody wants to strain their eyes at a screen anymore after a whole day of calls and emails.
Market analysts opined that an economic slowdown encourages the sales of books, in whichever format that is popular with the current readers. “The book market has historically performed well during times of economic downturn, and our first six weeks have shown us that there is unlikely to be a catastrophic cliff in demand for books,” NPD industry analyst Kristen McLean wrote in a recent internal update, noting that book sales grew almost every year during the Great Recession.
This Wired piece isn't providing such an in-depth analysis of how each bookstore is doing. It's a summary. The short article did a touch-and-go. It brushes by some of the major booksellers in the United States, and well, there really aren't many left. It holds one optimistic 'early success' story. It highlighted Andy Hunter's Bookshop that wants to be an alternative to Amazon, and gets independent bookstores onboard and help them sell books.
Hunter was running Bookshop on a shoestring, working with four staffers out of leftist magazine The Baffler’s Manhattan office, hustling to convince publishers to join its affiliate program and independent bookshops to become partners and receive a portion of the proceeds. It was an optimistic operation. Too optimistic, if anything.
Then the coronavirus pandemic hit. Bookshop’s business boomed.
“It has been a wild ride,” Hunter says. Bookshop went from a well-intentioned startup facing an uphill battle to one of the most popular ways to buy books online in a matter of weeks. The New York Times, BuzzFeed, Vox, and The New Republic are all affiliate partners now. Its headcount has doubled in size. Hunter expects to hit $6 million in sales by May, eons ahead of its loftiest projections from January. If the company’s performance holds steady, it could do $60 million in sales a year, although Hunter is assuming post-quarantine life will be different. “I’m sure that when things open back up, our sales will drop, maybe even cut in half,” he says. “But even then, we’re still one of the top 10 bookstores in the US.”
No comments:
Post a Comment