Could you make a modern bookstore into a real money-making business?

[An_Gadai]

With regard to used books stores, they largely died out here during the boom years and our own secondhand general sales are way down on what they used to be. People don’t want to buy used because of germs apparently.

[not_alice]

@An_Gadai

With regard to used books stores, they largely died out here during the boom years and our own secondhand general sales are way down on what they used to be. People don’t want to buy used because of germs apparently.

Seriously? Because of germs? Are there any articles about that? That sounds fascinating! What else is a problem because of germs?

I thought I read once about some guy in Ireland that had a used bookstore out in the middle of nowhere that was becoming so huge it was essentially a tourist destination at this point, but I could be imagining it - may have read it in nytimes online I think. Ring a bell?

[Absolute]

@not_alice

Regardless of margin, that is still ~5.something mill incme before taxes per store.

Not nothing, and more than I thought, but still the stores are nothing mroe than marketing vehicles.

I didn’t realize how many stores there are now though.

All this just confirms the revenue is gravy, but Apple would surely take at least a small loss jut for the marketing value.

And maybe outside the Bay Area, this is the only way to get stuff retail? What other channels are there, Best Buy maybe? Would they have everything and let you play endlessly?

Apple created the stores because they wanted to give people a chance to see and play with their products in a pleasant environment that Apple controlled - not some dark corner of the local CompUSA, or a dingy independent reseller in some strip mall. Back when the retail initiative started, Apple had a great new product line - that most people had never seen or had the opportunity to use. So sure, you could say that the stores were originally primarily a marketing vehicle. But now? I don’t think they’re an y more focused on marketing than any other retail store.

Right now, e-book companies are in exactly the same situation Apple was in in 2001. They are making expensive products that people are largely unfamiliar with, and because of their intended use, products that most people won’t buy without the opportunity to see and feel one in person. I’ve never bought a Kindle because I’ve never held one in my hand to see how heavy it is, how comfortable it is to hold, how legible and contrasty the screen really is, and so forth - and Amazon provides no way for me to evaluate one in person without either coughing up the $399 and returning it if I don’t like it, or finding someone I know who took the leap themselves and asking to play with theirs.

I think a store selling Kindles and other e-book readers would do quite well in the short term, because as far as I can tell they’re great products that many more people would buy if they could easily play with one in person. As more e-book products come on the market, this will be even more important, as people will want to see them in person for comparison purposes.

In the medium term, though, an independent e-book retailer won’t last - major retailers like Best Buy, Wal-Mart (and Apple, for that matter) will notice you’re making money, and start stocking e-book readers themselves.

In the long term, display technology will improve enough for people use their laptops / tablet PCs / whatever to read books, and the idea of an e-book reader as a distinct product will be obsolete.

Somewhere between the medium and long term, when you’ve lost the advantage of people wanting to visit your store to see the hardware in person, your proposed store will start to lose money (unless you do well with the coffee) - no matter how nice you make the environment, I can’t imagine people visiting a brick and mortar store just to see advertisements for content they can easily buy online from their own couch.

[An_Gadai]

@not_alice

Seriously? Because of germs? Are there any articles about that? That sounds fascinating! What else is a problem because of germs?

I thought I read once about some guy in Ireland that had a used bookstore out in the middle of nowhere that was becoming so huge it was essentially a tourist destination at this point, but I could be imagining it - may have read it in nytimes online I think. Ring a bell?

They don’t like handling used books because other people handled them. I’m not making it up, I’ve heard that from several customers. The general reason for secondhand sales having declined is probably partly down to increased affluence of buyers. I haven’t heard of the bookstore you’re talking about but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Hay-on-Wye in Wales has over 30 bookshops and only about 2000 people.

[Voyager]

@not_alice

Been there, used to live right by Santa Clara Univeristy nearby. I find the selection there dreck. Too many used San Jose State text books (why neer the good stuff from Santa Clara I wonder? - I used to frequent the bookstore on SCU campus frequently too, having lived a block away. Always headed straight for the text book section downstairs.

I collect SF books. They have too many duplicates, and not a lot of the old stuff I want, but the selection isn’t bad - but Book Buyers in MV is better. That’s my new love.

I don’t think that store is that much larger, it has 2.5 rooms where Cambell has one, right? It is still small as these things go, compared to Cult Books in MV, or any used bookstore in Berkeley, green Apple in SF, or the half-price books in Fremont, or god forbid Gray Wolf books in San Leandro (huge trash dump).

We went there because the people in San Jose said they had a good mystery collection, which is what my wife reads. She wasn’t impressed. Their SF was pitiful.
Whenever we drive to SF we go to Green Apple. I haven’t been to Change of Hobbit in years, but they seemed very expensive. I must admit it made me feel rich - they priced books in my collection that I would have considered $1 dumps at $5.

If you want a solid and apparently growing used store in the area, may I recommend Lee’s in Sunnyvale on Murphy? Leave me some good stuff OK?

Thanks! I work in Sunnyvale, so I’ll check it out at lunch. It sounds like our interests don’t overlap that much.

Hey, jsut remembered, I have had some good times and finds at the Rasputins in MV (used to be Tower Records). They seem to specialize in offbeat stuff and have excellent remainders in a variety of subjects.

I’m poed at Rasputins ever since they closed their Newark store (very close to me) in the middle of the night. I’ll have to stop off there someday on my way home, and when I have some spare change.

All for serendipity in a bookstore, and why, if you are a true collector you would even open those packs of cards is beyond me Sounds like we travel the same bookstore circuit, so please share if there are more, I get to the Bay Area about once a month.

I’m definitely a book collector (I’ve got 5,000 of them.) When I started, you had only a few options besides haunting stores. There were some dealers who you could get magazines from. Now, with enough money, I can no doubt go on ebay and fill in holes in my collection. Maybe some day - but I enjoy stumbling over books and magazines I need far more. Our way (if you haunt bookstores I assume you feel the same) we have good stories about finding stuff. Typing in wants on ebay is boring.

With perfect knowledge and a national marketplace, the thrill of the hunt is gone. I suppose people growing up with Google will never have experienced it.

[Voyager]

@An_Gadai

People don’t want to buy used because of germs apparently.

Because of germs? :eek:
I’ve never gotten sick due to being near a used book - and I sometimes kiss them.

[not_alice]

@Absolute

Apple created the stores because they wanted to give people a chance to see and play with their products in a pleasant environment that Apple controlled - not some dark corner of the local CompUSA, or a dingy independent reseller in some strip mall. Back when the retail initiative started, Apple had a great new product line - that most people had never seen or had the opportunity to use. So sure, you could say that the stores were originally primarily a marketing vehicle. But now? I don’t think they’re an y more focused on marketing than any other retail store.

But of course they are

Each and everyone of them is a showcase store. Just like NikeTown on time Square (making that up, don’t know if there is such a place)isn’t there to sell shoes (that is left for Shoebarns everywhere).

Your first sentence is exactly right and remains right. That the Stores may pay for themselves is great, even better if they pay for additional marketing.

But they are a fantastic exercise in branding, part of a fantastic campaign really. All about the marketing IMHO.

Right now, e-book companies are in exactly the same situation Apple was in in 2001. They are making expensive products that people are largely unfamiliar with, and because of their intended use, products that most people won’t buy without the opportunity to see and feel one in person.

I mostly agree. I should mention I am an experienced product manager in the innovative high tech products space in case I haven’t before or recently …

I’ve never bought a Kindle because I’ve never held one in my hand to see how heavy it is, how comfortable it is to hold, how legible and contrasty the screen really is, and so forth - and Amazon provides no way for me to evaluate one in person without either coughing up the $399 and returning it if I don’t like it, or finding someone I know who took the leap themselves and asking to play with theirs.

True, this is why I said in any market such as e-readers are in (early adopters) education is going to be the most important part of any marketing effort.

I think a store selling Kindles and other e-book readers would do quite well in the short term, because as far as I can tell they’re great products that many more people would buy if they could easily play with one in person.

I disagree in general because these are expensive products to make, with low margin, and a VERY short shelf life.

To make money as a manufacturer (look at cell phones for example), you have to be able to either have volume (which you won’t), added services (maybe after a while but not at first) or have minimal channel costs (sorry retail guy! I can do that myself online and then sell though walmart!).

And then you will need various new models every 6 months or maybe every 12 months.

Just like phones, if ebook readers become a market at all, they will be a cutthroat business.

Look at the history of Palm from conception until today (and into the future) if you want to see what roller coaster ride awaits whoever tries to build and sell such a device.

As more e-book products come on the market, this will be even more important, as people will want to see them in person for comparison purposes.

Actually, more will just confuse people as features are not standardized.

And you think all that is bad, wait until the manufacturers have to convince people to buy a second device to upgrade every 12-18 months!

In the medium term, though, an independent e-book retailer won’t last - major retailers like Best Buy, Wal-Mart (and Apple, for that matter) will notice you’re making money, and start stocking e-book readers themselves.

They don’t care if an indie makes money or not, their strategies were planned out long ago in this space. I agree though, that is where these devices will end up, there, Costco, etc. And college bookstores! I bet that is the first best market, because textbooks are the holy grail for publishers. A smart early adopter product manager will always go to the colleges first, even giving the devices away to select schools just for the publicity and word of mouth.

In the long term, display technology will improve enough for people use their laptops / tablet PCs / whatever to read books, and the idea of an e-book reader as a distinct product will be obsolete.

In the long term, displays will be flexible and possibly even paper like with “digital ink”. Not sure when but people are working on that and variations.

Still, these devices seem caught in the middle of Moore’s law to me.

They require limited computing power by todays standards to display book material, but the cost of computing power will drop by 50% of the market life of any product until the next one.

But what can you do with the additional power without putting known outrageous costs on the backs of the content producers in a marketplace unlikely to pay for the extra glitz?

You can’t stay with the same hw forever, for one thing, cpu manufacturers will stop making your model sooner or later. Yet why would someone buy a more powerful model if there is nothing you can do with it differently than the old one?
Phones solve this problem by adding new features to use new hw.

But the difference is, phone users create their own content, voice, text, IM, whatever.

ebook readers, not so much.

They could, I considered this with a startup I advised about 4 years ago. But then the device starts to look like a phone or wifi (or other network of the day) device primarily rather than an ebookreader primarily.

Somewhere between the medium and long term, when you’ve lost the advantage of people wanting to visit your store to see the hardware in person, your proposed store will start to lose money (unless you do well with the coffee) - no matter how nice you make the environment, I can’t imagine people visiting a brick and mortar store just to see advertisements for content they can easily buy online from their own couch.

Mostly, but that is exactly what Apple Stores do, so do phone stores for some part, and Blockbuster does that for netflix gratis!

It is all marketing, and it is great for the consumer in a frictionless economy, but it sucks for creators and distribution channels. Maddening really. In many ways it is high stakes gambling.

[Absolute]

@not_alice

In the long term, displays will be flexible and possibly even paper like with “digital ink”. Not sure when but people are working on that and variations.

Still, these devices seem caught in the middle of Moore’s law to me.

They require limited computing power by todays standards to display book material, but the cost of computing power will drop by 50% of the market life of any product until the next one.

But what can you do with the additional power without putting known outrageous costs on the backs of the content producers in a marketplace unlikely to pay for the extra glitz?

You can’t stay with the same hw forever, for one thing, cpu manufacturers will stop making your model sooner or later. Yet why would someone buy a more powerful model if there is nothing you can do with it differently than the old one?
Phones solve this problem by adding new features to use new hw.

But the difference is, phone users create their own content, voice, text, IM, whatever.

ebook readers, not so much.

They could, I considered this with a startup I advised about 4 years ago. But then the device starts to look like a phone or wifi (or other network of the day) device primarily rather than an ebookreader primarily.

No one cares how powerful their e-book reader is. People are paying for the screens - which actually already use the digital ink technology you mentioned. http://www.eink.com/

I’m not really sure what problem you’re referring to here - e-book readers don’t require much processing power, so what’s going on in the processor industry doesn’t affect them much. Just because processors are getting cheaper and more powerful doesn’t mean that e-book manufacturers are obligated to actually use that power. e-book manufacturers will use the cheapest, most efficient embedded processor they can find, and compete on screen quality. Thickness, power consumption, resolution, refresh rate, color, contrast, etc.

@not_alice

Mostly, but that is exactly what Apple Stores do, so do phone stores for some part, and Blockbuster does that for netflix gratis!

Absolutely not! No one walks into Blockbuster to look at the movie posters, and then goes home and adds the movie they’ve chosen to their Netflix queue so they can watch it three days later.

The whole point of retail stores is that you can see the product first-hand, and walk away with it that minute if you like it. If I order something online, even if I pay extra for next-day shipping, it will probably take two days to get to my house, and only at that point will I see any more of it than a few grainy thumbnails from the store’s website. Retail stores will continue to make money as long as they have physical products to sell.

This doesn’t make any sense for purely digital content that only exists electronically, and can be delivered electronically - like e-books.

[not_alice]

@Voyager

I collect SF books. They have too many duplicates, and not a lot of the old stuff I want, but the selection isn’t bad - but Book Buyers in MV is better. That’s my new love.

I love that store too but I know them too well, I need fresh blood on my limited visits

I am not into SF though, I know they have a large section. I am in no position to judge the quality of any SF or mystery recommendations. But given the location, I bet it gets picked clean very fast, you’d have to be a regular indeed. I think they have a store in Santa Cruz now too, and do a lot online.

I will say that I used to live mere blocks from there in a house, when I moved, maybe 7 years ago, I had to dump most of my books. I took in 45 boxes, I had to rent a uhaul. They told me at the time it was one of their larger dropoffs, and ended up being their highest payout and highest percentage of acceptances. I had free books from them on credit (in addition to the large amount of cash they gave me for years and years but that is all gone now. I treated that store like it was my personal bookshelf, and judging by how many books had my name on it (and still do!) in many respects it was!

Thanks! I work in Sunnyvale, so I’ll check it out at lunch. It sounds like our interests don’t overlap that much.

Yeah, this is smaller than the Campbell store, but they seem picky about what they stock because of limited space. Very little dreck IMHO. I will be interested in your feedback, esp. since I am in no position to judge your preferred sections.

I’m poed at Rasputins ever since they closed their Newark store (very close to me) in the middle of the night. I’ll have to stop off there someday on my way home, and when I have some spare change.

Do they have books there?

I had a brief brief chance to stop in the store on Bascom (SJ/Campbell/Pruneyard), few if any books, but maybe plenty of DVDs a SF fan could love.

Also, if you are interested in Manga, Kinokuniya on Saratoga just south/west of 280 is the place for straight Japanese stuff, plus some in translation, and a nice section of books about Japan/Japanese stuff. The SF store in Japan town (haven’t been for a while) is even bigger and more complete.

When I started, you had only a few options besides haunting stores.

That is why I jumped on that craigslist ad I saw. That is probably 40% of all the books in the county And they are all trashed In good condition, some are probably of the "60s paperback collectible that could fetch a good price on ebay and justify buying the whole pile and sorting through it. But I can’t bring that kind of mold and mildew in my house, even the garage. And I can’t sell it at top dollar either.

Maybe some day - but I enjoy stumbling over books and magazines I need far more. Our way (if you haunt bookstores I assume you feel the same) we have good stories about finding stuff. Typing in wants on ebay is boring.

We have probably passed in these stores before. I agree - I am sure my work and yours to some extent is indirectly killing that which we love most. Hey, that sounds like a SF plot if there ever was one!

With perfect knowledge and a national marketplace, the thrill of the hunt is gone. I suppose people growing up with Google will never have experienced it.

I don’t know how old you are, but I used to have similar stories about records.

hey while we are on the topic, I know this is going to make you cringe if not cry, but lately around here, I have found my best books at 99 cent stores. Not sure if their bookbuying picked up, or if there was a onetime buy in the stores now, but (remember I have NO other bookstores available!) I managed to find about 10-15 books I actually would read, new, at $1 each. That =was a few weeks ago.

And just to show how far I have sunk in search of books, about 2 weeks ago we were in a larger town about 30 miles away and decided to check out the 99 cent store there - they had the same stuff. But there was a Salvation Army store in the same strip mall, and being off the beaten path, I actually found a few curiosos there at a buck each too. I don’t know what their turnover is, but now I guess I have to scout thrift stores here for books to read.

And in case anyone is interested, Dollar Tree always has crap for books - a pile of Bibles no one wanted I guess, and some crap remainders from 1997.

Aside: Why are there always so many Bibles in the 99 cent store and dollar tree channel - maybe that should be a new thread?

I kind of expect that as more publishers and bookstores fold, I will see more really good stuff in these stores, but I know they are not the beginning of a fresh wave, they are the dying gasp of an industry. Actually, they will be more like the bones washing up on shore. But I will take what I can

[not_alice]

@Absolute

No one cares how powerful their e-book reader is. People are paying for the screens - which actually already use the digital ink technology you mentioned. http://www.eink.com/

Yeah that is similar, but better is coming…

I’m not really sure what problem you’re referring to here - e-book readers don’t require much processing power, so what’s going on in the processor industry doesn’t affect them much.

OK, you try to market something that has a 5 year old processor in it

Not only that, When you are the last customer for the chip (or near it), it is going to cost you a fortune to persuade the maker to keep it in production.

And if you are using old tech, good luck keeping good engineers or hiring new ones.

Just because processors are getting cheaper and more powerful doesn’t mean that e-book manufacturers are obligated to actually use that power.

Right, but then there will be no incentive to ever upgrade or buy a new one if the only thing that changed is some fashionable design element.

You could complete on limited content protected by DRM, but good luck with that!

e-book manufacturers will use the cheapest, most efficient embedded processor they can find, and compete on screen quality. Thickness, power consumption, resolution, refresh rate, color, contrast, etc.

Well, I meant CPU to be illustrative only. Some of that list involves hardware upgrades that fall in the same boat.

But still, you will reach a dead end pretty soon - will the new model be compelling enough to replace the old one, when the type of content available did not really change?

Absolutely not! No one walks into Blockbuster to look at the movie posters, and then goes home and adds the movie they’ve chosen to their Netflix queue so they can watch it three days later.

Movie posters? No, but here we regularly peruse BB, (or Target/Walmart, our other available links to Hollywood) and sometimes we buy, never rent, often add to netflix queue, which we actually maxed out on - there is a 500 limit, did you know that? We are set for the next year and a half!

And I will say just like bookstores, we do peruse BB when we get tot he Bay Area to see if they have something different than the one here. Although weirdly enough, one of my most wanted movies that netflix doesn’t have, Tampopo, which I asked about on here recently and was told was never released in the US for some reason, I actually found at our local BB a month ago, and on peeling off the bar code, found it came from the BB in the same neighborhood in Mountain View as the bookstore we are discussing! Talk about double serendipity!

The whole point of retail stores is that you can see the product first-hand, and walk away with it that minute if you like it.

Yeah, but the Telecom Act of 1995 changed all that didn’t it.

Retail stores will continue to make money as long as they have physical products to sell.

They will continue to exist - whether they “make money”, esp. in areas where products are available online, is debatable

This doesn’t make any sense for purely digital content that only exists electronically, and can be delivered electronically - like e-books.

Probably.

But that doesn’t mean new concepts in existing retail are not worth experimenting with, such as the partnership I described upthread.

Because, well, to be frank, there is real question as to why an ebook would not be subject to the same p2p pressures as music and film. It will be hard to get anyone to pay in any channel I think, except perhaps for the college textbook channel which is more captive and the books are subject to revision and the students subject to honor codes.

[not_alice]

@An_Gadai

They don’t like handling used books because other people handled them. I’m not making it up, I’ve heard that from several customers. The general reason for secondhand sales having declined is probably partly down to increased affluence of buyers.

How did this superstition arise?

Most of the Irish folks I know are certainly educated and worldly - I used to know a lot of folks in the Irish localization industry as it started and grew. I know Irish affluence grew during that period, so I would expect demand for books to be up all other factors considered (some which push demand down of course). Maybe affluence means disdain for used products in general, but still…

Is the period before the affluence sort of a black hole culturally? In the 80s, all the Irish I knew in the US (back East) were here illegally and were educated, even being in the same boat as Mexicans are now seemed like a better deal than staying. I am sure they have gone back by now, but I can see where there might be a kind of blind spot about that part of history that is refelcted by the books of the period, maybe in part due to cultural shame or something similar like that.

Or, I wonder if there is a viral (no pun intended) FUD campaign that took root in Ireland about old books being unhealthy? Very intriguing…

[Absolute]

@not_alice

OK, you try to market something that has a 5 year old processor in it

Oh, right, because Amazon’s marketing for the current Kindle makes such a big deal about the processor. How fast it is, how up to date it is, who makes it, right? Oops, wait, no it doesn’t. Because it doesn’t matter. No one cares about the processor in their DVD player, or microwave, or wireless router - why would they care about the processor in their electronic book?

Amazon’s website says absolutely nothing about the specific hardware details of the Kindle, and rightly so - they’re irrelevant. But some Googling shows that the Kindle uses an Intel PXA255 (ARM) chip, which is (wait for it…) - 6 years old! newswireless.net .:. Guy Kewney's Mobile Campaign

Not only that, When you are the last customer for the chip (or near it), it is going to cost you a fortune to persuade the maker to keep it in production.

This is not how the embedded market works. Successful manufacturers of embedded chips are successful because they provide good long-term support and long-term compatibility. The ARM architecture is not going anywhere - there are literally hundreds of thousands of products that use ARM chips, and literally billions have been produced. Motorola and it’s descendants have been selling the HC11 for 30 years. Maybe every five years or so you have to tweak the board to accommodate a new part number - big deal.

And even if a manufacturer did have to switch processor architectures entirely - software compatibility between processors was a big problem in 1960. Not today - no one is writing assembly code anymore.

And if you are using old tech, good luck keeping good engineers or hiring new ones.

Fine, but a 6-year-old processor is not old, especially not in the embedded business. ARM chips are programmable in C and can run Linux (as I think the Kindle does), and have an excellent, up-to-date compiler/development environment and manufacturer support, which is everything a good engineer should care about.

Anyone who refuses to work on a project because it isn’t using the latest brand-new processor design isn’t someone you want working on your project.

Right, but then there will be no incentive to ever upgrade or buy a new one if the only thing that changed is some fashionable design element.

Who said anything about fashionable design elements? People will upgrade because the features they care about have gotten qualitatively better - and as I mentioned, that does not include processor speed, but instead screen quality and portability. And the user interface, for that matter.

It is true that, in order to stay competitive, e-book manufacturers will have to continuously spend money to improve their product. Hardly earth-shattering insight there.

But still, you will reach a dead end pretty soon - will the new model be compelling enough to replace the old one, when the type of content available did not really change?

That’s the same problem faced by any new industry - eventually, the technology gets “good enough”, and people stop buying new versions because of the improved features, and switch to just replacing their old products when they fail. That doesn’t mean e-book manufacturers will stop making money.

They will continue to exist - whether they “make money”, esp. in areas where products are available online, is debatable

How will they exist if they don’t make money? Government subsidies?

Because, well, to be frank, there is real question as to why an ebook would not be subject to the same p2p pressures as music and film. It will be hard to get anyone to pay in any channel I think, except perhaps for the college textbook channel which is more captive and the books are subject to revision and the students subject to honor codes.

e-books will not be subject to piracy because they are distributed digitally with strong DRM, and very difficult to digitize from an analog form - unlike music and movies. Any idiot can rip a CD or DVD, or carry a camcorder into a movie theater - but it takes expensive equipment to digitize a book and stick it on BitTorrent.

[An_Gadai]

@not_alice

Or, I wonder if there is a viral (no pun intended) FUD campaign that took root in Ireland about old books being unhealthy? Very intriguing…

I’ve no reason to think that it’s exclusive to Ireland, it’s probably only one factor of many too. Sales of new novels vary depending on the hype for big releases, time of year and some other factors. I think Irish society is largely alliterate. Books just aren’t that important to most people. I imagine it’s the same in most places.

[Voyager]

@not_alice

I am not into SF though, I know they have a large section. I am in no position to judge the quality of any SF or mystery recommendations. But given the location, I bet it gets picked clean very fast, you’d have to be a regular indeed. I think they have a store in Santa Cruz now too, and do a lot online.

Since I’m well over 1,000 books behind in my reading, I mostly buy for my collection, old stuff, so I suspect the stuff that gets picked over isn’t what I want anyhow. I found two Ace Doubles from the mid-50s there for $2 each - not the oldest ones I own, but close.

Do they have books there?

I had a brief brief chance to stop in the store on Bascom (SJ/Campbell/Pruneyard), few if any books, but maybe plenty of DVDs a SF fan could love.

The Newark store did not. The San Francisco store didn’t either, and I don’t think the Berkeley store did. The MV store advertises they have books, but I have no idea what kind.

hey while we are on the topic, I know this is going to make you cringe if not cry, but lately around here, I have found my best books at 99 cent stores. Not sure if their bookbuying picked up, or if there was a onetime buy in the stores now, but (remember I have NO other bookstores available!) I managed to find about 10-15 books I actually would read, new, at $1 each. That =was a few weeks ago.

And just to show how far I have sunk in search of books, about 2 weeks ago we were in a larger town about 30 miles away and decided to check out the 99 cent store there - they had the same stuff. But there was a Salvation Army store in the same strip mall, and being off the beaten path, I actually found a few curiosos there at a buck each too. I don’t know what their turnover is, but now I guess I have to scout thrift stores here for books to read.

And in case anyone is interested, Dollar Tree always has crap for books - a pile of Bibles no one wanted I guess, and some crap remainders from 1997.

There used to be stores that popped up to sell overstock. One SF publisher was heavily represented. As for thrift stores, check out Thrift Town on the corner of Grimmer and Blacow in Fremont. They have a lot of books very cheap, far more than any other thrift store I’ve seen. Not very many for me, since they carry the more popular stuff. They also have an excellent stock of games and puzzles. We usually visit the thrift stores any place we visit. As a collector, I like places that don’t know or don’t care about the value of what they have.

[Voyager]

@not_alice

And I will say just like bookstores, we do peruse BB when we get tot he Bay Area to see if they have something different than the one here. Although weirdly enough, one of my most wanted movies that netflix doesn’t have, Tampopo, which I asked about on here recently and was told was never released in the US for some reason, I actually found at our local BB a month ago, and on peeling off the bar code, found it came from the BB in the same neighborhood in Mountain View as the bookstore we are discussing! Talk about double serendipity!

Tampopo was released on VHS back in those days. We saw it soon after Siskel and Ebert gave it a rave review. We have a VHS copy of A Taxing Woman around somewhere, I think. Fantastic movies.

[Voyager]

@Absolute

This is not how the embedded market works. Successful manufacturers of embedded chips are successful because they provide good long-term support and long-term compatibility. The ARM architecture is not going anywhere - there are literally hundreds of thousands of products that use ARM chips, and literally billions have been produced. Motorola and it’s descendants have been selling the HC11 for 30 years. Maybe every five years or so you have to tweak the board to accommodate a new part number - big deal.

And even if a manufacturer did have to switch processor architectures entirely - software compatibility between processors was a big problem in 1960. Not today - no one is writing assembly code anymore.
Fine, but a 6-year-old processor is not old, especially not in the embedded business. ARM chips are programmable in C and can run Linux (as I think the Kindle does), and have an excellent, up-to-date compiler/development environment and manufacturer support, which is everything a good engineer should care about.

Does the Kindle use the ARM processor standalone or in an SoC? I’d think that an FPGA with an embedded processor would be fast enough, but I guess they think they are going to sell enough to make an SoC cost effective.

[not_alice]

@Absolute

Oh, right, because Amazon’s marketing for the current Kindle makes such a big deal about the processor. How fast it is, how up to date it is, who makes it, right? Oops, wait, no it doesn’t. Because it doesn’t matter. No one cares about the processor in their DVD player, or microwave, or wireless router - why would they care about the processor in their electronic book?

People DO care increasingly about the processing that takes place in a router, so that may be a not-so-great example. I am not aware that modern microwaves have CPUs, do they? Mine, probably about 5 years old, seems typical with a touch pad, an LCD clock display, and a timer circuit.
Anyway, like a DVD player perhaps, or microwave, the trick may not be selling the first one, but selling the second and future ones to customers over the years if you want to stay in business.

Assuming they don’t break regularly (DVDs may be cheap enough to toss if they break, same for microwaves), are you prepared that the market probably won’t accept their e-reader breaking every 18 months or less as a reason to buy a new one from YOU?

I don’t see the motivation to buy a second device if the functionality never changes. And then you are left with generic devices, which will be low margin and made by a robot in China.

OTOH, if the functionality changes (new data formats, new connectivity, new storage capacities, etc.) then you are in the same boat as phones, pdas, etc, playing with the big boys in big volumes with still low margins on a product with a short shelf life - better guess right on your manufacturing budget and demand estimate! Don’t be like the grocery store that ordered next years eggs to be delivered all at once

Amazon’s website says absolutely nothing about the specific hardware details of the Kindle, and rightly so - they’re irrelevant.

Sure, for now while the market is growing through the very beginning of the low end of the hockey stick.

But eventually, they will have to change that to differentiate from other products, probably not with hw specs per se, but with features that are correlated with power, as happens with phones today, which are ont he other end of the hockey stick adoption/maturity curve.

But some Googling shows that the Kindle uses an Intel PXA255 (ARM) chip, which is (wait for it…) - 6 years old! newswireless.net .:. Guy Kewney's Mobile Campaign

OK, then I guess I phrased my point badly. Let me retry:

You try marketing old technology in a competitive and maturing marketplace.

I know this won’t work, because I worked for a company early on that invented a new category of haw that was arguably responsible for the explosion of small ISPs in the late 90s and all that entailed after that.

In the first version, since we were inventing something brand new, with no competition, and we were cost sensitive (while the market was only somewhat price sensitive) and we were building in relatively small volumes compared to later, we could and did go with a relaltively old and standard common CPU (non-intel).

By the time we were building version 4 maybe 3 years later, our volumes were way higher, we had direct competition, and we were also competing with people adding software only to PCs off the shelf, and customers were more price sensitive.

We switched to Intel CPUs (and storage capacity, - RAM and Disk drives increased, as did network bandwidth as 1010/100 became common). We ate the extra cost that entailed and took the hit on margin to maintain or at least defend market share, which we once had 100% of.

These devices will be no different - they will either evolve, or find a tiny niche market like little pocket voice recorders and will be forgotten for the most part.

Since e-ink and other similar suppliers intend to evolve to stay in business, I am sure they will push for updated models and higher volume deals.
This is just how high tech innovation marketing works. It matters little what the actual device is, it is how you look at it if this is what you do. It is not the same as selling new and improved soap flakes. Except at Intuit, because the founders actually came from Proctor and Gamble and have that mindset built into the company (I used to work there too).

This is not how the embedded market works. Successful manufacturers of embedded chips are successful because they provide good long-term support and long-term compatibility. The ARM architecture is not going anywhere - there are literally hundreds of thousands of products that use ARM chips, and literally billions have been produced.

You are missing the bigger point. Sure there are plenty of CPUs available.

But this is not the CPU business, you are trying to build a business by persuading the public to adopt a new type of device for an activity many don’t do and sadly some can’t do - reading!

And in a way that will make money, not necessarily for you, but for your investors first and foremost.

The issue goes far beyond what CPU you choose, but OVER TIME, sticking with old models is going to hurt you in the market place, regardless of where you start. Shit, when I was at Hubble Space Telescope, it was built with early 70s computing power on board, even though it was launched when 1990?

Why? because it took that long to design, build, test, and get launched.

Newer satellites to replace it may not have the latest and greatest either, because of the development cycle, but they won’t stick with what worked for Hubble either.

Motorola and it’s descendants have been selling the HC11 for 30 years. Maybe every five years or so you have to tweak the board to accommodate a new part number - big deal.

Might be write - but to me that is a tacit admission it is a limited market for the device, and that will affect other decisions, including what level of investment you have for development and marketing. Which market gets more investment - wifi routers, or digital voice recorders? Why?

And even if a manufacturer did have to switch processor architectures entirely - software compatibility between processors was a big problem in 1960. Not today - no one is writing assembly code anymore.

When we switched from motorola (IIRC) to Intel, it was a big deal. We had to re-do the linux kernel - probably easier now than then, true, and then retest everything. On the hw side, we had to redesign from scratch, using stuff out of the experience of our engineers. We were built for it sure, but that takes money, it takes time, and it takes risk. You won’t do it just to do it with no new functionality.

And if you do it, and the new functionality or other features don’t cause new people to buy or others to switch? Then what?

Fine, but a 6-year-old processor is not old, especially not in the embedded business. ARM chips are programmable in C and can run Linux (as I think the Kindle does), and have an excellent, up-to-date compiler/development environment and manufacturer support, which is everything a good engineer should care about.

I agree with that, our device was embedded Linux.

But we are not talking about engineering, I take that as a given that I can accurately estimate the engineering effort (to an acceptable level of error).

We are talking about marketing from a product management point of view.

Anyone who refuses to work on a project because it isn’t using the latest brand-new processor design isn’t someone you want working on your project.

That is not what I said.

What I said, or at least what I meant, is the best engineers won’t want to work on a product that is not changing - it won’t be of interest to them.

And I do want the best, because they are generally worth the extra cost in keeping to schedule if nothing else (and there are other things too).

I guess I see this market as similar to satellite radio, except that you won’t be able to “own” the distribution of content, and have to compete on open standards for the device.

The satellite radio device market has not really evolved functionally much, and, while I am a sirius subscriber myself, I believe they are caught between a rock and a hard place because they can not/will not evolve the functionality.

ereaders will be at best a niche market like voice recorders or satellite radio, rather than a dynamic one like digital cameras, if they are not willing to provide a reason for people to upgrade.

and I am not sure they can provide a compelling reason that will work in the market place, honestly. I am open to the idea, but brainstorm as I will in this thread, I don’t feel it.

Who said anything about fashionable design elements? People will upgrade because the features they care about have gotten qualitatively better - and as I mentioned, that does not include processor speed, but instead screen quality and portability. And the user interface, for that matter.

Well, portability is a design factor if the internals are the same. Either the case changes size/shape (along with the screen perhaps), or the weight is reduced (but how if you use the same parts?) How much do these things weigh anyhow? Once they are down in the 8 oz or so area (well less than a single text book), then will weight matter anymore?

No, by design elements, I was thinking more like the diff in design between various ipods or phones other devices - different colors, materials, plastics, knobs, dials, etc. Surface things like that mostly.

Innovation int he UI - possible - but will it be enough to get someone to buy a secnd device, that a year later a third? and so on forever liek with a phone now?

Maybe, but only if the content can tap into a wide open and new field of user generated content. Then it starts to look like a postmodern laptop/browser/pda/phone combo somehow, not something unique as a book reader. You will be competing with all of those devices too at that point!

Possible, and represents a high growth area for sure. But a higher risk one too.

It is true that, in order to stay competitive, e-book manufacturers will have to continuously spend money to improve their product. Hardly earth-shattering insight there.

Of course.

But is there a viable business at all?

I think that is an open question.

That’s the same problem faced by any new industry - eventually, the technology gets “good enough”, and people stop buying new versions because of the improved features, and switch to just replacing their old products when they fail. That doesn’t mean e-book manufacturers will stop making money.

How will they make money when they hit that plateau? (And keep in mind they likely won’t make money from revenue before they do, no matter the growth rate)

How will they exist if they don’t make money? Government subsidies?

That’s my point. When I say it is high risk, I say they will either have to evolve in a way that keeps people buying expensive devices “just because” (possible because phones do it - barely), get acquired and become a feature set of another product, or go out of business. Those are the long term prognoses that are possible.

e-books will not be subject to piracy because they are distributed digitally with strong DRM,

No DRM is unbreakable. And to the extent that the devices ru Linux, the OS and the hw will be available for people to hack, and they will - see Tivo’s early history.

Also, legally, people are becoming more sensitive, not less, about intrusive DRM as a violation of the principles of intellectual property top begin with, and Congress is taking notice.

Publishers will take note of all this, and be reluctant to provide DRM books, except in submarkets such as text books, where it may be feasible to have the devices “phone home” each use to verify both licensed status and current version , and in which the users can be held to a higher standard by the school, as I mentioned earlier. Even then, I won’t go out on a limb about it, but I’d consider it

Any idiot can rip a CD or DVD, or carry a camcorder into a movie theater - but it takes expensive equipment to digitize a book and stick it on BitTorrent.

Yeah nothing with DRM ever makes it onto p2p networks.

Remember, the device makers need the content makers to feel like they can make money too. And the content makers will need to persuade their customers, at the very least, that the product can be read elsewhere should the device stop working - on another device (how many simultaneously??? How will you know?) or even on a PC/PDA/iphone/whatever. That will be difficutl to do in the marektplce, even if you can do it technically, and if you try, since it does not benefit, in fact hinders the end user, it will drive the cost of the content down, which will dissuade the content provider from doing that.

Of course, if the content is essentially free and pirateable, then the content makers have little incentive too (unless there is another revenue stream - hello ads!)

In practice, it is rally really hard top build and then execute a roadmap like this successfully - that is why there is a 90% failure rate on VC-backed new technology. Not because people don’t work hard to make it all right, it is just that some things can’t be known, and you just have to have the stars align just right to succeed. And you have to be realistic what the issues are, and what can go wrong. Otherwise, everything would be a success, and historically, that is clearly not the case.

I predict “e book readers” will not be just for “books” for long, but that will put the burden on content producers to build for what will be in effect a new medium. Frankly, I think a handheld youtube display has a beter long term market than a book reader.

OTOH, books are not the only paper content that could be provided. A service that provides financial reports, and maybe even sorts through them somehow to provide basic analysis is something an early adopter crowd might adopt and pay for.

[not_alice]

@An_Gadai

I’ve no reason to think that it’s exclusive to Ireland, it’s probably only one factor of many too. Sales of new novels vary depending on the hype for big releases, time of year and some other factors. I think Irish society is largely alliterate. Books just aren’t that important to most people. I imagine it’s the same in most places.

I guess I wasn’t clear sorry.

I meant, do the publishers or distributors there “whisper in the public’s ear” that old books might be mildewy or something and make them sick, better stick with new ones?

[not_alice]

@Voyager

Tampopo was released on VHS back in those days. We saw it soon after Siskel and Ebert gave it a rave review. We have a VHS copy of A Taxing Woman around somewhere, I think. Fantastic movies.

I have the vhs of tampopo, one of the few I ever bought. funny thing, after all these years, I have the content but no device to play it!

[An_Gadai]

@not_alice

I guess I wasn’t clear sorry.

I meant, do the publishers or distributors there “whisper in the public’s ear” that old books might be mildewy or something and make them sick, better stick with new ones?

Possibly, I haven’t a notion if they do though.