There’s a Barnes & Noble near me. Not only do they have an extensive selection of magazines, they also have a very large toy department, mainly LEGOs and other collectible items last time I was there.
Considering the number of magazines, of all genres, that come into the library where I work, someone’s buying them, from somewhere.
I’m a big fan of reading library books on my Kindle, and I have a bunch of free classic books downloaded as well. For anything with illustrations, maps, or diagrams, I prefer physical books, and I’m a bit leery of paying for an e-book that could be snatched back by Amazon at will.
I’ve never gotten quite used to reading magazines or newspapers online, though. The layout seems weird and the photos (if any) can be hard to see on a screen. And while I do have some online subscriptions, it’s not at all uncommon to have so much trouble logging in that I just don’t want to bother. Also, you know what has never happened to me while I was reading a magazine? A big ol’ animated ad coming along and plopping itself over the article I was reading!
I don’t know how much e-readers have cut into physical book sales, but I definitely disagree with that statement from my perspective.
I’ll say first of all that I’ve always loved books, and I have three massive oak bookshelves filled with hundreds of books, including my prized PG Wodehouse collection, some of them first editions. I fully appreciate the pleasures of a private library, and of pulling a book off the shelf and settling down in an armchair.
But in my world, the e-reader and physical books co-exist. I don’t remember why I initially bought a Kindle – possibly just the novelty of something I’d heard a lot about. But it’s become my absolutely preferred medium for reading in bed, where in fact I do most of my reading. So much so that I’ve bought Kindle editions of some books that I already own in physical form that I enjoy re-reading, like some of Dave Barry’s best.
Why? The key to it, first of all, is the illuminated Kindle Paperwhite, which lets me read in dim light without having to turn up the light over the headboard to obnoxious brightness. The Kindle is very small and light compared to a physical book, which is a very considerable advantage when reading in bed.
I now have so many Kindle books that the device has run out of memory and I have to offload them to my PC to make room for more. For the vast majority of these Kindle books, they are things I only want to read, not things I necessarily want to own as physical objects. They’re not “borrowed”, they’re permanent, but if they were physical books I’d have maybe half a ton of dead trees that I’d have to store and potentially haul around sometime in the future.
You mention “a break from staring at a screen” and also that you’ve never owned an e-reader. I think you may be missing the very significant difference between e-ink and an LCD screen. The screen of an e-reader is really very much like paper, and if it’s illuminated like with the Kindle Paperwhite, it’s actually illuminated from the front, not backlit like an LCD. You probably know all this, but over time one comes to appreciate that this is really a vast difference in the reading experience compared, say, to reading something on a tablet or a laptop.
I think I’ve bought more greeting cards and knickknacks than books at B&N over the last 5 years. Hubby likes hard science fiction, and tends to be luckier finding the books he wants to buy at independent book stores. He’s slowly moving to Kindle because we already have too little space for the books we have.
So much this. Also for sitting in a chaise lounge. And there’s the possibility of changing the page layout which can be quite convenient.
Last time I was at the local big-box bookstore (“Chapters,” here in Canada), I was surprised at how much smaller the book part had become, and how much bigger the stationery and gift section had become. Toys too, in the children’s book section.
But the magazine section was as big as ever. Probably about twenty feet of two-level racks; but as has been said, mostly niche interests. Gardening, guitars, motorcycles, fashion, crocheting, cars, pro wrestling, and so on. If there were any general interest magazines, I didn’t see them. It was difficult to find even general current affairs magazines such as Time and Maclean’s, or a general sports magazine like Sports Illustrated, though a little bit of looking and they were there. Anyway, these niche publications must be selling, for Chapters to carry so many of them.
as someone whos read video game rags since they created them in the 80s, I can say trying to read a website of say PC gamer without an ad blocker is an exercise in pain … (even the sdmb isn’t innocent I had to install an ad blocker because some of the ads killed my PC )
What makes it suck is most sites use the same ad service that just randomly inserts ads and links in pages and then there’s even old-style popup ads … it even slowed down and even my tablet … I’m sure there’s a subscription that will make the ads disappear
I don’t even look at anything on the web that’s not on my PC … at least the ads in a magazine are usually related to the topic of the magazine well in the video game mags anyways … and yes there is a correlation between video games and skittles and m&m consumption …
Gamestop who owns Game Informer decided to make the version that came with their pro rewards decided to make it digital only well apparently the magazine didn’t like that and asked if we wanted to keep buying the print version… even if its an extra 19.00 a year, we signed up for it
Yeah, and this is an industry that I never see talked about in the news, online, anywhere, except the negative stuff (Sports Illustrated’s problems recently).
Thanks for your post. I don’t reject e-readers per se, and I get how an e-ink reader is different and easier on the eyes.
I self-pubbed a book with a friend back in 2012, and I found having to deal with the Kindle’s and Nook’s differing formats, as well as the fact that the Kindle had the more primitive format but was winning over the Nook, a bit dismaying, especially when, if someone wanted to read the book, I could just send them a pdf via email, and Bob’s your uncle. IOW, I wasn’t impressed with the technology from the publisher’s perspective.
Meanwhile, Amazon has turned out to be a bit of a dick of a company, and I’ve never been inspired to get into the Kindle. Which is not to say that it isn’t useful in many ways.
I guess I’m surprised that some sort of universal (and popular) e-reader hasn’t come along in the interim, via which everyone could read anything, share books, and all that. To my mind that would be “fulfilling the promise” of an e-reader.
I had the exact thought as the OP just a few days ago as I wandered through a mega-grocery store. Tucked in the far back corner of the warehouse-sized store was a full aisle of many, many magazines on display as if it was the 1970s. “How many of these actually sell?” I wondered.
Also, weirdly and coincidentally, about a week ago I drove past a Barnes & Noble and exclaimed aloud that I had no idea there were still B&M B&Ns about.
mmm
I don’t think anything about “e-reader” is weird, per se, but when paired with the “Nook” brand, it does sound weird and makes me wonder if they paid royalties to Fred Durst.
This might be the thing I like most about my Kindle - I both read a lot/quickly and am a little bit picky, so if my husband and I go away for a few days and there’s six hours of flying/driving at either end, I’m going to bring 3 or 4 books. For longer trips with more traveling to/from , I’d like to bring more but the weight makes it kind of impossible. But with the Kindle, carrying ten books is no different from carrying one.
I don’t read paper trees/magazines much any more for multiple reasons including that they’ve become physically more difficult for me to read - I need more light/contrast , the print is too small, magazine pages are too shiny But there are certain types of books/magazines that I absolutely prefer paper for , mostly ones with a lot of pictures or diagrams but also ones with instructions. So cookbooks and magazines, various craft type magazines , magazines about collectibles and so on. Which were the ones that you couldn’t buy in a ordinary newsstand when I was young - I could buy Cosmopolitan or Time anywhere but if my husband wanted an issue of the monthly baseball card magazine, it was B&N or Hudson News or a store than bought and sold baseball cards.
Magazine sales at grocery stores are down over 90% from 20 years ago. But have leveled off somewhat over the last five years or so. Prices have gone way up, though.
Similar for greeting cards. Volume is down very sharply, but prices have doubled even adjusting for general inflation.
People aren’t buying as many of either product a month/year but when they do buy, they are less price sensitive.
Reading something on my phone instead of a physical book would be like having cold stale liver instead of fresh strawberries.
I check out magazines from the library.
I dunno about “less price sensitive.”
Everything has gotten so much more expensive, so fast, recently, that I think a lot of people are just holding their noses (or bitching to their friends at the bar, etc.) and just paying the higher prices for something they want/need/“need.”
How do you browse the Dope?
The Dope isn’t a book, its conversations.
When I buy a physical book, that book (the physical copy, that is) is mine to do with as I please. I can loan it to friends, give it away, even re-sell it for money. There is nothing in copyright law that would enable the copyright holder to prevent me from doing this.
But when I buy an e-book, all I get is an incorporeal licence. The copyright holder can attach all sorts of restrictions and conditions to that licence, and as a consequence, I’m severely restricted in my ability to loan, give away, or re-sell the e-book.
So from the purely legal perspective, physical books are much better value for money. I get way more in terms of rights than with e-books.
That does not sound like a copyright restriction at all: it sounds like you accidentally bought an e-book with DRM. If you buy an e-book in an unencumbered format (you can), or you crack the DRM (perfectly legal thanks to the travails of people like DVD Jon), you will be able to loan, give away, or re-sell the e-book.
I can understand why the demand for physical magazines is way down, even compared to the demand for physical books. But one thing that I don’t think has been mentioned yet:
If you like physical books, you don’t have to go into a physical store to get them. You can order them online (like from Amazon or from the publisher) and have them delivered to your door.
With magazines, though, while it’s still possible to subscribe, if you want single copies, you mostly have to buy them in person. They’re often impulse purchases, or at least you don’t know you want them until you see them. So, while fewer people buy physical magazines than physical books, there’s still a need for those who do buy them to have a place to get them.
Yeah, when I was in my 20s and early 30s living in Boston and New York I always enjoyed spending some time wandering around giant media stores like Barnes & Noble, Tower Records, the Virgin Megastore, and so on.
I like to see and feel and interact with stuff. Not be referred to it by an algorithm. Plus it’s a nice excuse to get out of the house. That’s the problem with the onlinification of everything. It eliminates the need to get out and actually interact with other humans.